Why not, she said.: @nefariousnewt

nefariousnewt:

whynotshesaid:

nefariousnewt:

whynotshesaid:

Hugs to you as well. And you are right, that hard work in the corporate world is not rewarded. I feel as though I have been punished for my competence and my work ethic, which has me wanting to opt out of the whole thing. It’s sad, because I could really be good at this stuff, but it’s just not…

Newt Gingrich was a perfect example of how out of touch the Republican Party has become in regards a “work ethic.” What point is there in having a work ethic, if at no point that hard work is rewarded? Most of my work is contract work; I’m brought in to do something, then shipped out when I’m “done.” I feel no sense of investment in the companies I work for, or at least, I don’t anymore, because my loyalty and hard work for a company are never rewarded with a permanent job or more money. To earn more, I have to jump from company to company. As a contractor, I am an outsider in any company I work for.

That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t work hard, but it does mean that you shouldn’t expect anything, anymore, for that hard work outside of the paycheck. It’s this kind of perversion of work, into something to be expected, not lauded, that is a cause of so much trouble, and that isn’t due to the workers not wanting to work, but employers not wanting to pay for it.

That bolded part is so true.  The movie “Office Space” is so accurate in this regard (among many others), to the point where I actually think I should hang a banner that reads “Is This Good for the Company?” over my desk. I actually have a coworker who is really smart and competent but he is so fed up with all of the bullshit that he comes to work and he does the minimum of what he needs to do to perform his job, and I am at the point where I actually aspire to reach that level of detachment.  Not because I think it’s a good way to be, but out of a sense of self-preservation. 

P.S. I’m sorry to hear about your work situation. I know people who have worked as contractors and they all say the same thing.  It’s like you’ve been reduced to the barest essence of your function within the organization, not an iota more.  

Companies have traded on people like us for the last three decades. You want to know why companies aren’t hiring? Because there is still a legion of hard-working people out there they can exploit to increase productivity. “Productivity” is the killer word; when they can do more with fewer people, who needs to hire others, even if they are working their loyal employees to death?

It’s very simple shortsightedness on the part of companies/corporations. By switching the economy from its original, sustainable base, to a consumption/service economy, the business sector lined itself up for constant large-scale failure. Think about it: people get let go, they no longer have the money to consume. If they are no longer consuming, the economy slows down, and demand fro products/services goes down. As demand goes down, profit margins contract, supply goes up, prices go down, and companies cut more employees to try and pump up the profits. It’s a continuous cycle of shooting themselves in the foot.

Am I saying hire people just to hire them? No. You still need competent people in your organization to make it run, but you’re doing yourself no favor by making your best people work 50-60 hours for 40 hours pay. The only thing this economic model does is take more money out of the system and plop it into the bank accounts and tax havens of the wealthy, who then refuse to re-invest it because the economy is so bad and they don’t want to lose the money they’ve hoarded.

I could write a book about this, and probably should, because economists have spent the same period muddying the financial waters. The whole reason credit default swaps and mortgage-backed securities became such a big deal was to increase profits, not to create solid, stable, long-term investments. Its this pervasive shortsightedness, this inability to look beyond the current quarter, that dooms us to this hamster wheel of economic boom-bust.

THIS. THANK YOU.