Corporate Slaughter of Loyal Employees
Loyal, dedicated employees get laid-off or ripped-off while executive personnel continue to gorge on the fruits of the worker bee’s hard labor.
Corporate slaughter of loyal employees is a dramatic caption but when you’ve put your heart and hard work into a job for a number of years and suddenly found yourself out in the cold, wondering where your next mortgage payment will come from, it feels like a cold and brutal slaying of your means of survival. Getting laid-off never feels good but the blow is doubly brutal when a corporation or small business ruthlessly gives its employees no warning of their impending dismissal. The justification of protecting the company from retaliation through worker’s compensation claims or sabotage might appear logical and a simple defensive maneuver on the part of a corporate team making those decisions and employing those tactics; however, the end does not justify the means.
I was recently told I was a valued and greatly respected employee. I was given a raise, taken to lunch and told that, although things were tough recently, I did not need to worry because my work was superior and appreciated. As I sat there and ate my corporate graced salad with the CFO looking me in the face, I heard the words, “you don’t have to worry unless things get drastic and we’ll let you know if that happens.” A few months later the same corporate officer stopped me as I was about to clock out and said, “we are going to have you take on some more work and learn the tasks of the person we are sending out to another office.” Two weeks later I was out on my ass, facing unemployment with no forewarning, stunned, in shock, and angrily feeling betrayed.
Although an intelligent individual might be expected to embrace caution and even distrust in the current economic chaos of rising unemployment, bankruptcy, and foreclosures being broadcast day and night, a loyal and trusting personality is likely to believe in the security outlined in gold highlights even while the walls close in on shrinking profits. Shame on me and shame on the deceivers who hire executive officers who cost the company a fortune in losses or run big charity events providing proceeds below the costs of the events, or act with cutthroat heartlessness while proclaiming themselves rescuers of stray or aged animals while their former employees go home and wonder how they will pay for their next meal or keep the electricity on.
There is something inhumane and abusive about big business when it comes to insuring its own survival at the expense of respect and honor. Misleading employees by keeping its status a secret or outright lying about the anticipated future of employment and production is a foul tactic more suited to criminals justifying their crimes by blaming society for their actions. It’s a fraudulent lie and indecent but few have ever believed that big business is humane or decent. However, most loyal, dedicated workers operate on exactly that premise and they are too often the first worker bees to be smashed in order to protect the hive and keep the fat queen bee bathed in honey. The drones at multi levels are the forces that keep a company operating. Even though the elite executives with their high-powered tasks of decision making and elevated responsibilities might actually be necessary to make it possible for the workers to busy themselves in the hive, they are also too often the source of the decline of profit and success in the business. They are also more often the last to be dismissed or eliminated in the need to protect the status of the corporate entity regardless of their true level of positive contribution.
I sat at my desk eight hours a day or more, five days a week and watched a new manager charge personal expenses to corporate accounts, talk to fellow employees in the office in inappropriate fashion, ignore necessary tasks, disappear during the day, create his own working hours and basically lose the company thousands upon thousands of dollars. Even in the middle of a recession and falling profits, it took the corporation over a year to dismiss the over-paid department manager. This high level manager was given time and more time to prove himself, was provided with instruction, respect, conference meetings, new equipment, and finally warnings while the profit levels dropped in the entire company due to recession and the fruits of his high-paid labors. On the other hand, hard working, intelligent and honest employees were dismissed with no forewarning and void of any word of apology, regret, or shame for the ruthlessness of their tactics.
It’s a big business survival of the fittest but the fittest are not recognized as the loyal, hard working drones that keep the machines running, the phones answered, the accounts logged, or the office humming. The fittest in corporate world equates to the highest title and the highest salary figure regardless of their skill or their contribution to the success of the company. The fittest are also likely to be the most manipulative, hard game-playing individuals who survive based not on their technical skill or dedication but on their ability to sell themselves, persuade belief in their importance, and in some cases even blackmail, prostitution of their morals, and ability to dramatize their presence while the genuine workers take real action and keep the business alive.
How many of us could tell this same story and are wondering what to do next? There is a long wait ahead of many in the unemployment lines and regardless of the government speeches and hopes to revive the American economy, it will be the dedicated workers that make it possible for this nation to succeed and recover from the darkness of capitalism run amuck with greed and selfish disdain for the people who made their corporate castles possible. Let us dance or pray in the meantime and find value in who we know ourselves to be regardless of the lack of acknowledgment or appreciation from big business. The real workers will survive because they are self-schooled in plowing on and grinding away and in the end the survival will truly be of the fittest.
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18 Comments
How true, i totally agree with you. great article!
During this entire fiasco, did you take one second to look at the situation from the firm’s point of view? Or have you just demonized them the entire time?
I know the feeling. I never lost my job, but I feared for it many times and used that in my art. I realized that you should only be loyal to a person. A corporation has no feelings and cannot appreciate things like loyalty.
This is a interesting write!
It’s a total joke. Executive salaries keep getting higher and higher and somehow that is always justifiable in order to “retain talent;” which I suppose means retaining those who kiss the most butt and shake hands the best. Meanwhile the average worker’s wages are adjusting downward each year as you factor in cost of living and rising health care costs. Then you get all these kooks who apologize for the system and tell you it’s fine and that you need to suck it up. The whole system is top-heavy – the rich increasingly control more and more of the wealth and the rest of us scramble after the crumbs that fall from the executive table. Makes me angry. I feel your pain and anger. It’s inevitable though in a system where the greedy rise to the top and make up the rules of the game the rest of us have to play by.
Corporate greed is a serious issue. You’re right, it’s wrong and it needs to get more attention. Excellent article.
Dear Mr. Dan Hekman. I am not a poor-me victim and I am intelligent and experienced enough to know there are always reasons beyond my own personal needs that are to be considered in the welfare of a company, a family, an entity consisting of more than one individual. However, I am not demonizing corporations by stating the facts; they have done that themselves by retaining executives at ridiculous salaries when they are not providing positive contribution but in fact are destroying the very business that is favoring them. Madoff would not care for my perspective either and would most likely also call me a cry-baby but big business is most typically ruthless and managed by ruthless individuals. The fiasco is the level of deceit that occurs in many situations. The ruthlessness is the very thing that fosters bitter results, The next time an employee works hard and gets fearful of their survival, they are even more likely to do the things the prior corporations claim they were trying to protect themselves against. Its a vicious circle but those at the power level will always get greater blame because they hold power over others’ lives. Did you take time to actually read the entire article and think about the “fiasco” from a hard-working, middle income point of view? I don’t demonize. I think, I pray, I strive for understanding and compassion. Thank you for taking the time to comment.
AWESOME…….after reading that it makes me want to walk out on my company. Some days are good most and more and more days are bad.
Interesting article although sad news that you lost your job. Corporate greed by management is a serious issue although I understand Dan Hekman’s point of view as well – corporate management are often demonized and make easy targets, particularly at the moment. I am in no way suggesting that this is the case here but it makes me take these sorts of stories with a pinch of salt. I hope you find work soon.
Kudos to your great and accurate article! Heaven knows that if it were not for our union at work many of us would have been gone long ago. Replaced by people half our age, half our salary but 10% (if that) of our knowledge. Big business needs to realize that EXPERIENCE is worth something! You get what you pay for.
Excellent article–It is not always the corporate entity that tries to remove you tho. I’ve been on my job 17 years, and everytime that we get a new Administrator he or she immediately tries to clean house of the previous Administrators staff and install their own. I have been attempted to be forced out a couple of time through intimidation or imaginary offences. It was our corporate CEO that put cabashes on that mess. I have no love for some corporate ideas, but as loyal employees sometimes we forget that we have accumulated some power. We just have to find the correct platform to weld it from.
I experienced the same thing when my project was transferred to another city as a strategic move of the upper management. We were not even aware of the plans, we were only told that it would be our last day at work and our checks were already ready.
It must be tough having lost your job and I agree that you should have had some warning, but unfortunately that’s the way things are done in big corporations and often in small concerns too. Things are the same on this side of the water too.
Dear Snooky: Thank you for taking the time to read and comment. Pardon me if I made it appear it was only the “corporate heads” that would kick us off the job without warning; it is very true that other administrative or executive and managerial employees may abuse their power or make decisions based on issues other than actual performance. I am not intending to demonize all entities or people in power; although I do admit that those in power, being paid tremendous sums, ought to be ready to be accountable for the pain they may inevitably inflict whether justifiable or not. If they can’t handle this responsibility, they don’t deserve their huge salaries and should also go stand in the unemployment line. For some reason it seems that when the littler guys speak of their pain or anger, they are called babies or told they aren’t being fair, but the executive types are “simply doing their job” and get upset when people blame them for the results of their decisions. I have been in a managerial position before and I fully understand how uncomfortable it can be to have people’s lives in one’s hands – all the more reason why I am dumbfounded by the ruthless tactis used when other means of preserving greater numbers of jobs are available.
Those who doubt this article will cringe at Michael Moore’s new movie …but I hope everyone sees it…We do need a change in the way America does business.The Greed factor here in US and now world wide started from the TOP down…Courtesy, compassion and consideratin have been lost. ….And the TOP 1% in this country need to learn these are what sustains. . Unfortunatlely they may eventually do so..after the unemployed and underappreciated run out of options and react by voting in ones who will NOT take from the troth….Let all your congressmen know you are one of them… Start using cash again instead of giving the credit cards one dime either from you or the store is another good idea…I have been one of the guilty thinking I was not giving them any of my money…not realizing the increase in cost because the shop, resturant etc must all raise their costs as the credit companies charge them…
We need more articles like this…I don’t believe in the saying I’m mad as Hell and I won;t take it any more…but we need to energize opposition in a positve way and let all know what we WANT!
You are but a fool.
The “company” owes you nothing. The World owes you nothing.
They pay you to do your job. You do your job. You agree to what they pay you and you agree to do your job for that pay. You owe them nothing more than doing your job and they owe you nothing more than paying you. For you to “believe” anything else just proves you are a fool and idiot and never learned how existence works.
Since you can’t deal with the truth, you lash out. You get angry at those who aren’t responsible at all for your ignorance. You bought into the lies from “government”, “churches”, “society” etc. that somebody somewhere owes you something. j
Damn are you greedy and and selfish and stupid.
There is alot more to this topic. A big one is that every company in the US is scared to death of firing somebody. If the person is a person of color, it is equally horrid. Thus, they can not be honest with you. They can not tell the truth since the truth will ruin most companies left in America. That is why they are moving to Mexico and China….to avoid people like you.
Dear Social Scandal – I see you do not believe in honesty, respect, equality, justice or anything along the line of decent human qualities. I an neither stupid nor believe the world “owes” me; however, I do believe that all human beings and the businesses run by them should strive for moral decency. This is idealic and hopeful, not stupid, and if its easier to run unscrupulous business tactics on the even poorer people in other countries as you say – off to China or Mexico – to avoid people that expect an exchange beyond robots, slavery, or shut your mouth and work modes of operation, God Bless them in the ultimate results of their evil, greedy pursuits. It is not people like me they seek to avoid, it is cheap labor, near slave levels of compensation that they run to other countries to exploit.The lie is that people shouldn’t expect better from their fellow occupants of the planet. When I meet people like yourself, I know that the world will never be as beautiful as it could be but that doesn’t stop me from loving my brothers and sisters, even the rude and snotty ones that call people names and act like they have not a single ounce of compassion or grace in their heads or hearts. I am not a “rocket scientist” but it is not stupid or greedy to request respect from my employers and fellow man. I am fully aware that there are those that are incapable of respecting anyone and find it easier to trash whatever they encounter.
A very good article.