A reader called last week, a woman who runs a local family-owned business. She called to talk about the difficulty her company and other Sherwood businesses are having hiring employees.

She said that although her company pays new, untrained employees almost a dollar over minimum wage they are unable to attract workers who have the foggiest idea of what a work ethic is.

She told tale after tale of unskilled laborers who, after begging to be hired, work a few days and then walk off the job, sometimes in the middle of filling an order.

The woman told me that other business owners up and down Kiehl Avenue would say the same thing. They have jobs available, at levels above minimum wage, but simply cannot find people who want to put in an honest day's work.

The caller placed the blame for this lack of a work ethic among common laborers on the welfare system. She said that as long as potential employees are receiving money, housing, food and medical care to meet their needs, why should they work?

I have to admit she has a point.And as much as I wholeheartedly support the welfare system for those who truly need a helping hand - the disabled, laid-off workers, families who have lost a spouse through death or divorce, those struggling to turn their lives around after a series of youthful mistakes - I also resent the slackers and lay-abouts who suck up the largesse meant for their more deserving brethren.

That is why I have always been a whole-hearted supporter of any or all workfare-type programs.

If one is able-bodied, then one can work. I don't mind helping with tax-sponsored day care, food, housing or medical help for those who are recovering from a lay-off or a young mother entering the workforce for the first time.

I don't mind, because I understand that an entry-level job paying minimum wage won't cover the cost of decent housing and day care, not to mention groceries and utilities. I've been there and done that. Frankly it wasn't much fun.

I've lived in trailers with rusted-out floors. My children and I have eaten oatmeal for breakfast, lunch and dinner because that was all I could afford to buy. I've wom clothing that was so old it was practically hanging in rags before I could afford to buy something new.

We lived this way because that was all I could afford as a newly-divorced mother trying to put a business career back together. It was a career I had gladly given up five years earlier to be a stay-at-home mom when I thought my marriage would last forever.

I'm proud to say that, except for help from my parents and sisters with the children's clothing, a few groceries here and there and some money during a serious crisis, I have done it all by myself for 13 years. Child support didn't figure into it for most of that time either - we've only been collecting that regularly for six years.

No welfare, no food stamps, no free housing -just hard work and a deep conviction that I was better off than a lot of other women who suddenly found themselves alone with two little children and no husband - because I did have marketable job skills.

But I think that even if I hadn't had those skills, if I hadn't already proved myself in the 10 years before I married and built a reliable employment record - I still would have found a way to raise my family without accepting government help. Or at least with only minimal help in the form of food stamps or housing. At least I like to think I would have. I've been called a lot of things over the years - arrogant, opinionated, bossy, stubborn, and some other not-so-nice names. But to tell you the truth, it was exactly those qualities which I think kept me from sinking into the apathy of being a long-term resident of the welfare rolls. I had too much pride, too much belief in myself to get sucked all the way down into the mire of the government hand-out system.

People in the welfare system seem to have lost a belief in their own abilities. I feel it's a lack of self-esteem which has kept a number of people from climbing out of the welfare pit of despair and getting on with their lives.

They have no faith in themselves, no pride in who they are or what they can do.

And that is what "the work ethic" really is - pride. Pride in doing a job well, in accomplishing anything, even if it's digging the best ditch ever dug, or in cleaning restrooms so well they gleam.

But where does one get this kind of pride or esteem? Where did I get my pride, my stubborness, my arrogance? Well, to an extent I did get some of that mule-headedness from the same people who also gave me short, round Italian genes - my parents.

But most of the belief in myself grew from simple accomplishments.

Ididn't begin my working career sitting comfortably in an air-conditioned office, pontificating on life's joys and ills. No, my career began in an insurance company file room, endlessly climbing step stools 40 hours a week as I filed and pulled policies. For that labor I brought home a grand total of $110 every two weeks.

That isn't a lot of money. But from that tiny start, I moved ahead - I proved myself. Even when I thought my job was mind-numbing and completely beneath my potential, I worked every day and did the best job I could. And because of that, my employers began to give me greater responsibility, and better yet, more money.

And that's how you develop a strong work ethic. You make people earn what they get. You treat welfare recipients as employees.

Give every able-bodied welfare recipient some small task to accomplish before they can receive their benefits. And if they don't have job skills then train them.

It really is so simple.

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