Corporate America and the Disposable Employee

Once upon a time, there was a partnership in this country, between employees and employers. People actually thought a lot about each other, more like family than simply boss and worker relationships, and people worked for companies for many years secure in the knowledge that if they did a good job, helped the company grow and prosper, they themselves could be secure in their future. If many of you recall, your grandfathers and fathers retired from long time jobs with companies like that, and spoke highly of the relationships fostered between management and labor.

Such ties started way before your grandfather's time, with the old time grocer and even the village shops. For the most part, the owners knew people and treated them with respect and dignity. In many cases, they supported a family even though the person could not work, simply because it was the kindly, neighborly and right thing to do, for a long time employee who gave so much of him or her self to the company. They would take a person to the doctor for care so they could be treated right, and do all they could to assure that employee would be better soon.

So, what happened?

Step in Corporate America with their promises of bigger pay, better benefits and all that you could want in a job. I never could figure out how they can somehow put in "we plan to screw you as soon as we squeeze the life out of you" somewhere in their benefits package, and you never can find it. Maybe because it's not a benefit?

Here's an example:

You work for a company for 20 plus years and work your way into a top management position, improving yourself all the time. Better education, better technical certification, become more valuable and a real "can-do" leader for the company, never refusing a tough assignment. Then one day, the top brass changes because of a few reasons, some of which are known and some are better left unknown, and a new top dog steps in and everything goes along okay for awhile. Then everything changes. He hires an executive to improve technology, someone who decides to bring in all his cronies who previously worked with him (and were all allegedly dumped at a failed venture before being hired on here to spend millions of dollars) while holding all types of meetings, so nobody can get anything productive done. Seems what they did best was hold meetings, to discuss when to hold a meeting, to plan the next meeting, ad nauseum.

More new people come on board and specific departments start spending millions more on technology, while you are told to cut your budget and spend less on realistic street smart items. Field people are given overpriced laptop computers incapable of handling their everyday tasks, and unable to connect to the Internet due to alleged "security concerns" that hold up important investigative reports. They are told it's in the company's best interests, but what about investigative reports that are not being completed quickly? When you're the tail wagging the dog, I guess that didn't matter. And top management okayed this idiocy.

Meetings become an obsession, with people marching from one to another like robots; you can't talk to anyone on the phone because they're always in a meeting, so it's "phone tag" all day long. A new 'techno" language spreads throughout the executives who don't bother to let anyone else know what the hell anything means, yet expect you to understand what they're speaking of. Yet if you're in a meeting and use a scientific or medical term they don't understand, you're "pontificating".

Then there's the newly found Corporate Culture meetings where employees spend an entire day each month sucking up, and God knows how much more time spent preparing to suck up in front of others at the monthly meetings. Sometimes the meetings are even several hours drive away through heavy traffic, but you have to keep that culture up in front of the employees. It's like a freaking Weight Watchers meeting on steroids for chrissake, but they do serve good free lunches. After several years of pissing away millions in time and money, not to mention talent, this too vanishes. Funny, the person who thought up this asinine venture finally vanished too.

So here you are, working your ass off with less budget money than needed, more responsibility because they have piled several new mantles on your shoulders as budgets get tighter, while certain other departments piss away untold millions on failed systems and ventures, and new highly paid executives are hired. You have a heart attack, and are still so loyal to your job and employees that you go back to work two days later! Do you think anyone gives a rats' ass? Nope. A man in a field office dies after coping with severe illness on the job for years, and in the employee newsletter he gets a one-liner saying he was a dedicated employee. Hell, he was a freaking saint to work in his condition, and should have been canonized and all they tell anyone is that he passed and was a dedicated employee? In some cases they didn't even tell anyone that an employee died, unless it was someone the brass knew or were willing to give employees time off for a funeral I guess. People left the company after 20 plus years and nobody told anyone they were gone. Corporate Communications was an oxymoron.

Then you become ill, and when you use up your 12 weeks FMLA (a Federally mandated leave) the company tells you to have a nice day and you're done. Strangely, I actually understand the reasoning behind that, because of disability and all, and it's a common occurrence in many companies. But in one company, an employee who worked there over 20 years never had the direct supervisor, a senior executive, never once, call to see how he was doing in the 12 weeks or at any time after! The self-centered egotistical a**hole never had the courtesy or consideration to call, nor did the President or COO, any of the other "senior executives", save for one he had known for 21 years. There is kind of a silver lining to this though since there was always laugh had on the thoughtless a**hole ; he wore a belt buckle with a huge "H" on it all the time, and he probably never knew how ridiculous it appeared to everyone. I understand everyone thought it stood for "Hemorrhoid" and he probably never knew it.

Bottom line is that corporations want everything from you. They want you to miss family time, work overtime, work when you're ill as long as you don't pass it around, come in early, stay late, travel unbridled distances, be ready to go at a moments notice, adapt to change readily, give up anything necessary for the good of the company, be loyal, keep secrets, and somehow they want you to believe they will come through for you when you need it.

If you believe they will, I have a bridge or two to sell you...in Brooklyn, San Francisco...