Humans really are animals!

It's Monday, my oldest daughter, who is living with me after a rather nasty divorce, (please, don't get me started! I love her I really do, but I beginning to feel it'll take a pair of vice grips and a crow bar to get her on her own again and I can have some of that "Golden Years Peace") she is off to "WORK".

I hear everyday of the stress she is under, the treatment she must endure for that vital bi-weekly paycheck. The very same one that, hopefully, she will move into her own apartment with; Before...I'm carried out in a bodybag! Anyway, hearing her complaints and treatment it got me to thinking. I was doing the dishes, I often think best while doing dishes, I don't know, maybe the warm, soapy water helps remove all the clutter in your mind. Or maybe you are so bored and letting your mind wander is better then creating a soapy fashion show on your dog, cat, ferret, snake (insert favorite pet here). Ever try to create a bubbly bikini on a cat? It's fun! Especially the six cup top, only it can get wicked when you suddenly realize...cats hate getting wet!

Sorry, I digress, back to point. Years ago and I do mean many years ago, like in the 1950s and early 60s ... yes I remember those days, well most of them being born in 56, on the tail-end of the Babyboom. Still, in Corp America there were sayings like, "Mr/Mrs. Jones is a real asset to this company." "I don't know what this company would do without Mr/Mrs. Smith!" Or my favorite one of all, "Mr/Mrs Employee is indispensable!"

In today's job market it is sad to say, no one, well the little guy, is indispensable! Most corporations see employees right the reverse. Not only are you disensable, but a dime a dozen. My daughter works in a call center as a Customer Service Rep for a national cell phone company. As a veteran of the "Call Center" enviroment, work for a customer service partner for Microsoft as a Windows 2nd level Tech support agent, I really know where she is coming from. I can't blame the public, instead, I blame the management of these corporations. Sometimes it seems that the customers take great delight in treating, "in the trenches", reps trying to help them worse then swamp slime. (Maybe it's because they are getting a little of their own back for being treated like swamp slime where they work.) Still, it only makes it worse and stress levels high when Management threaten to termenate your job if the site's stats don't improve.

We have all heard it on the news for weeks and weeks! This corp in financial trouble, this corp needs a bailout...etc, etc, etc. We have seen layoffs, down right terminations due to bankruptcy with the country's failing business world. Who gets the blame? The little guy!

There was a time that the buck did stop on a manager/CEO's desk! I remember a time seeing signs "Under New Management" as common place. You don't see them anymore. Which brings me to my post title. Corporate America looks upon the poor working man as nothing more then animals being lead to slaughter. If the company is not makeing their multi-billion dollar profits it's the little man that suffers with layoffs, if not downright terminations. While the upper management and CEOs keep their cushie, multi-million dollar salaried job! If a company is going into the toilet and moral stinks it is because the backbone, the poor slobs in the trenches, the average Joe has been brow-beaten, hammerd, whipped to an inch of his life and have just given up hope of it ever getting better. What corporations don't realize is, is when employee moral is down, everything goes into a downward spiral. How in the hell can you be cheerful to a customer when you've just been told by your team manager you are on the brink of losing your job because site stats are down and it's coming from "Higher Ups", meaning the CEO's!

First and formost a CEO's concern should be is his business being run right! Not if he should take the corp jet to Rome for that Italian Romanesque look or to Paris for that French provincial look for that solid gold toilet seat in his 5th guest bathroom!

Upper Management concerns should be the work inviroment! Is it safe, pleasent and enjoyable. A place where employees feel they are appricated and are happy to have a great place to work. Not what color the wife/husband's brand new SUV should be this year and if they will get to join the CEO on that trip in the corp jet!

Middle management whose concern should be the employees. Are they taken care of, are their concerns met, do they have a stress free enviroment? Not someone who is on a power trip because he now starting to play with the big dogs and/or promising the CEO they will get that gold toilet seat from where ever or heads will roll!

Lastly there is Lower management whose concern should also be the peons! The lowly employee who by all rights keep the company a float. To fight for them when the stats are not the greatest! To find out why moral is sinking and FIX the problem! Not to keep the virtual cattle prod and pink slips at the ready when the CEO is pissed off because the company only made enough profits for him to fly to London and they really didn't want a Victorian gold toilet seat, because that's whats in the 4th bathroom!

Now if stats are sinking and moral is lower then algae in the buyou the CEO should look at the managment! Somebody is not doing their job!!! Start with upper management, if the work place is safe, pleasent and enjoyable then move down to the next level. I bet you would soon find the problem and as stated it is someone on his/her own power trip or making pie crust promises and then again we would all see that sign..."Under New management"!

Ever heard of putting the gun to someone's head making them do something they can't do other wise? Well when your boss is standing over you, threating to fire you because your best is not good enough, I'm sorry, but to me that is the virtual gun to your head! No it's not your life he is threatening, instead, it's your livelihood! Especially in today's job climate! Now unless you look forward to living in a box under a bridge with no toilet, let alone a toilet seat, and eating at McDumpser's every night, I don't know anyone who's moral would not be lower then the deepest, darkest abyss. And the more bosses do that, the more moral sinks and the more moral sinks the more your business will end up in that gold seated toilet!

Look gold is cold! Your butt don't care if it's setting on gold or just a hole in an outhouse! When ya got a go, ya got a go! For $24.95 you can go to Wally-world and get a clear seat with plastic fish! Go with the underwater theme! It's more fitting anyway! But treat your employees like humans, stop threating them and bring back the line "Mr/Ms Employee is indispensable!" When you do that, your employee moral will shoot through the roof! People will be happy, your stats will go up, profits will go up and you may even make enough to fly to China and get that Ming dynasty porcelain seat for your 6th bathroom!

Just one of my pearls, now go eat! You look thin!