So, I can officially say I hate my job. Not because of the work hours. Not because I hate my boss. Not because I travel too much. It's because it has definitively shown me that this capitalist system has been stacked against the working man.
First, I am not the working man. I do not write this to complain about my treatment. I've done really well for myself. I can honestly say that through my hard work, my ability to con employers in believing I will champion their profit margins, and a good deal of luck, I have been able to almost double my income during one of the worst recessions. I am not complaining about myself.
What I do have a beef with is how our capitalist system has been stacked against the working family, meaning no college education, making maybe not minimum wage, but still an hourly worker that's making less than $20/hour, who has a family and/or paying child support. These people are getting fucked by the system.
Corporate greed is nothing new. We will do anything to better our bottom line, which corporation will then deliver to their shareholders. Great. Whatever. Capital investments generate more capital and this wheel perpetually spins. I have not a huge problem with that. Investment bankers irritate me and all, but I don't hate them. They are greedy and have taken unnecessary risk against our own economy, but at the end of the day, they reap the fruits of their labor and make money with money. Super. Not what I want to do, but for this, to each their own.
What I have a HUGE gripe over is any company that makes a profit off of other people's labor. Let's take my company as an example, which for my job security will remain nameless. If you don't know already, I manage glorified janitors, our whole company is a bunch of glorified janitors or gophers, we're a "soft business services" company. Our profit is directly linked to how much work we do, might it be shipping and receiving, or in my case, janitorial work. We pay people shit. The highest paid person I have is about $18 and the lowest is $11. Not horrible, but considering they are all living in urban places, it's barely enough to get by and your bound living paycheck to paycheck.
We have a corporate policy of not giving any raises past 3%, myself included. I make enough money that 3% is not trivial anymore, but let's take a person making $11. They get a $0.33 raise, or $684.40 a year. THEY ARE LIVING RICH NOW! I get a 9% bonus. They get nothing. My bonus is directly funded by them. If they make me money, I get a bonus. And so does my boss. And his boss. And so it goes up the chain. They, the people that made us that money, are left with $0.33/hour more.
I have taken every step that I can to improve their lives, because I believe this is unjust. I split my bonus with each of them, when averaged out, it's not much, but it's something. I have been yelled at 3 times for giving people $0.50/hour increases and that apparently eats too much into our $100K profits. This angers me. This angers beyond words, and to see my douche bag of a boss drive around in his Jaguar XJR tops it all off. But this isn't the center of my frustration.
What set me off and want to bring this to the public (semi-public) is the fact that because we are making a profit margin of 30%, my boss has deemed by Porsche driving client a "high value customer". This means my boss wants to make him happy so he stays with us. What does this mean? This means he wants to give him Master's Golf Tournament at Augusta National tickets. They are worth a couple of grand. I don't know how much but stubhub.com has them at about $6000 for the whole thing, so I'm guessing street value is about $1500. Of course, my boss will be joining them as well, since he needs the opportunity to schmooze. In total, this gift will be around $10,000, taking into account lodging, dinners, and "entertainment". $10,000. I could have given my whole team a more meaningful raise, which would directly go and better their lives. Yet, they are unwilling to allow people to make $684.40 more a year. You know what else would make business sense to keeping the client? Giving all our employees raises so they are happier, lowering our contract price by 5% to the client, and then making a reasonable profit of about 15%. Give 10% back to the employees, 5% to the client, and you are still left with 15%, not a bad profit margin.
This system is stack against the working man not because of the profit we make and they don't get a cut. It is stack against them because we have the opportunity to give them something in return for their labor that it is making money off of. The system can show compassion. It can, without greatly hurting it's own interests, give many people a better life. But no. It refuses to do that. It claims that a living wage adjusted annually for inflation kills jobs. It claims that the only way to create jobs is to protect profit and investment. Well, fuck.
The system spends so much money rubbing it's own ego and making sure the top has it's undeserved benefits and that fat cats can scratch each others backs, that it doesn't give a flying fuck about the laborer. Where is the social justice in that? Where does compassion exist in this corporate system? Why is it that it faces to recognize that if we improve the lives of others, that will in turn benefit us? Will they really miss not going to a golf tournament on someone else's dime? Maybe that extra raise will allow a family to save some money to send their child to college, an opportunity that was not granted to them. Maybe they can provide for their parent's old age, thus lessening the burden of our social safety net. Maybe it will allow them to get out of debt, or off food stamps, or off welfare.
But no. It has decided that instead of those benefits delivered directly to their laborers, golf, at, until recently, a white male only golf club, is better business.
First, I am not the working man. I do not write this to complain about my treatment. I've done really well for myself. I can honestly say that through my hard work, my ability to con employers in believing I will champion their profit margins, and a good deal of luck, I have been able to almost double my income during one of the worst recessions. I am not complaining about myself.
What I do have a beef with is how our capitalist system has been stacked against the working family, meaning no college education, making maybe not minimum wage, but still an hourly worker that's making less than $20/hour, who has a family and/or paying child support. These people are getting fucked by the system.
Corporate greed is nothing new. We will do anything to better our bottom line, which corporation will then deliver to their shareholders. Great. Whatever. Capital investments generate more capital and this wheel perpetually spins. I have not a huge problem with that. Investment bankers irritate me and all, but I don't hate them. They are greedy and have taken unnecessary risk against our own economy, but at the end of the day, they reap the fruits of their labor and make money with money. Super. Not what I want to do, but for this, to each their own.
What I have a HUGE gripe over is any company that makes a profit off of other people's labor. Let's take my company as an example, which for my job security will remain nameless. If you don't know already, I manage glorified janitors, our whole company is a bunch of glorified janitors or gophers, we're a "soft business services" company. Our profit is directly linked to how much work we do, might it be shipping and receiving, or in my case, janitorial work. We pay people shit. The highest paid person I have is about $18 and the lowest is $11. Not horrible, but considering they are all living in urban places, it's barely enough to get by and your bound living paycheck to paycheck.
We have a corporate policy of not giving any raises past 3%, myself included. I make enough money that 3% is not trivial anymore, but let's take a person making $11. They get a $0.33 raise, or $684.40 a year. THEY ARE LIVING RICH NOW! I get a 9% bonus. They get nothing. My bonus is directly funded by them. If they make me money, I get a bonus. And so does my boss. And his boss. And so it goes up the chain. They, the people that made us that money, are left with $0.33/hour more.
I have taken every step that I can to improve their lives, because I believe this is unjust. I split my bonus with each of them, when averaged out, it's not much, but it's something. I have been yelled at 3 times for giving people $0.50/hour increases and that apparently eats too much into our $100K profits. This angers me. This angers beyond words, and to see my douche bag of a boss drive around in his Jaguar XJR tops it all off. But this isn't the center of my frustration.
What set me off and want to bring this to the public (semi-public) is the fact that because we are making a profit margin of 30%, my boss has deemed by Porsche driving client a "high value customer". This means my boss wants to make him happy so he stays with us. What does this mean? This means he wants to give him Master's Golf Tournament at Augusta National tickets. They are worth a couple of grand. I don't know how much but stubhub.com has them at about $6000 for the whole thing, so I'm guessing street value is about $1500. Of course, my boss will be joining them as well, since he needs the opportunity to schmooze. In total, this gift will be around $10,000, taking into account lodging, dinners, and "entertainment". $10,000. I could have given my whole team a more meaningful raise, which would directly go and better their lives. Yet, they are unwilling to allow people to make $684.40 more a year. You know what else would make business sense to keeping the client? Giving all our employees raises so they are happier, lowering our contract price by 5% to the client, and then making a reasonable profit of about 15%. Give 10% back to the employees, 5% to the client, and you are still left with 15%, not a bad profit margin.
This system is stack against the working man not because of the profit we make and they don't get a cut. It is stack against them because we have the opportunity to give them something in return for their labor that it is making money off of. The system can show compassion. It can, without greatly hurting it's own interests, give many people a better life. But no. It refuses to do that. It claims that a living wage adjusted annually for inflation kills jobs. It claims that the only way to create jobs is to protect profit and investment. Well, fuck.
The system spends so much money rubbing it's own ego and making sure the top has it's undeserved benefits and that fat cats can scratch each others backs, that it doesn't give a flying fuck about the laborer. Where is the social justice in that? Where does compassion exist in this corporate system? Why is it that it faces to recognize that if we improve the lives of others, that will in turn benefit us? Will they really miss not going to a golf tournament on someone else's dime? Maybe that extra raise will allow a family to save some money to send their child to college, an opportunity that was not granted to them. Maybe they can provide for their parent's old age, thus lessening the burden of our social safety net. Maybe it will allow them to get out of debt, or off food stamps, or off welfare.
But no. It has decided that instead of those benefits delivered directly to their laborers, golf, at, until recently, a white male only golf club, is better business.
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