A tale of modern American working life

[90-percent]

My best and longest friend in my life came by for a visit recently. He had a great $100,000 plus job at the same place for about 20 years. He worked his ass off and was well compensated for it for years. He got laid off about the same time I did, in early 2009. He was horrified by the prospect of not working, and managed to find himself another "good job" in the six figures, albeit less than his previous job. He was quickly appointed a manager, even though he did not have strong aspirations in that direction, and has about 6 people that report to him. They are all working their asses off, probably in the 50 to 60 hour a week area, without overtime compensation. His company is prospering, but his manager has an edict "from corporate" that he has to let go one of his people. His "worst guy" was reviewed a while back about what he was doing wrong and the guy cleaned up his act and worked harder and applied himself even more and got with the program.

My friend is conflicted and struggling with this, and who can blame him?

IS CORPORATE AMERICAN SIMPLY TRYING TO PUSH IT'S WORKFORCES EVER HARDER JUST TO SEE IF THERE WILL EVER BE A BREAKING POINT WITH THE AMERICAN WORKER?

Just what the fuck are these corporate overlords hoping to accomplish with this type of stuff? It is going well beyond making money - they are already doing that quite well - into the arena of outright cruelty.

Work life in modern America has turned into an ECONOMIC CONCENTRATION CAMP!

-90% Jimmy

I wish I could reveal more about my friends industry, but I don't want to do anything to jeopardize his job WHAT SO EVER! It has been prominent in the last two years in the news and is not oil, I will say.

[RandomThoughts]

1. It is desire for power

If you try and take anything from them, they would rather have everyone die then give an inch.

And have no problem doing things to create that.

It is a zero sum gain of either making money, or driving people down, either one makes them feel their position enhanced.


If you were to ask a CEO to have no influence or say in society or what people do, what would they say? What would they say if they were told their vote means the same as any worker in any factory they have stock in.

They would say they should make the decisions, or they earned to make the decisions.

It is about power.

Tell a CEO that the homeless guy has the same say in how the world will be as he does, what would the CEO say?


The method would be to educate someone in a better way so they also support it, not by PR but by honest dialog, then if people agree their ideas would prosper. They want their ideas to prosper without the hard work of bringing the people along with them.


If you don't agree with that, you never went through the training of ruthlessness in corporate structure that can be used to make money. Hence why you don't think like them.

Although honestly they are not bad, they think there is a better goal from such things, ends justify means, and think that there actions will lead to something better eventually, even if it requires some bad.

[truedelphi]

6. Orwell said this about the rich -

There are enough resources for everyone to have enough, but the rich love the feeling of being in charge and having control.

That is one of the reasons for the endless wars - rather than divying up the earth's resources in a fair minded way, they would rather blow up so much of everything. Gives them a great deal of satisfaction.

Few people I know are like that, and of course, the few I know that are like that are rich.

[secondwind]

2. Your post does not surprise me. It's always been and always been "the bottom line".

[WingDinger]

3. When you get a new slave, you whip them mercilessly, to determine capacity.

Then, you whip them if they fall one iota under that level.

[lib2DaBone]

4. Sociopath Bankers chosen because they produce more profit...

Overheard on a financial talk show recently... "Banking managers with anti-social , sociopath tendencies were sought after in the hiring process , because studies show that that their lack of emotions and lack of remorse produced more profits for the corporation."

--------------------------------------------------------
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090804_banking_bandits_get_their_reward/

By now everybody must know that the top banking executives responsible for our economic meltdown have no shame. Otherwise they would not have dared give themselves such hefty bonuses as a deeply perverse reward for actions that caused millions of Americans to lose their jobs and homes. The $33 billion that the executives of the nine banks bailed out with taxpayer funds paid themselves in 2008 is all one needs to know about the depth of their amorality.

The choice from the beginning of this debacle has been: Do we bail out the banks that caused the problem in the hopes that they will help ordinary folks or do we start with government relief for distressed mortgage holders? The decision to aid the bankers first was based on the assumption that for the first time in their lives they would do the honorable thing and surrender space in the lifeboats to those most vulnerable.

[SocialistLez]

5. Why aren't these workers suing for overtime pay? NT