Originally posted by: moshquerade
Originally posted by: Descartes
Originally posted by: moshquerade
Originally posted by: Saga
I wouldn't be genuinely surprised if many companies were simply using the economy as an excuse to squeeze it's employee base dry. I find it hard to believe that EVERYONE is losing money on such a mass scale that these efforts are required to keep themselves afloat.
Probably just an excuse many were looking for to increase executive pay by fucking over the average Joe.
you are so on the money. the big execs are still getting the big pay. how about some concessions there?!?!
Are you being facetious? Why are so many clueless as to how their own companies are actually run?
The execs probably make more than the "average Joe." That should be obvious enough, but a quick bit of research shows that most execs aren't pulling in millions. Equity partners, board members, CEOs etc. have their income increased/cut just as readily as anyone else. The concessions are already made, and it's the continued involvement and reinvestment that keeps the company from collapse.
But let's all keep raging against the corporate machine, because they're all like Satyam, Enron, AIG, etc. 95% of companies fall under the small to medium business category, and it's a far different game at that level.
yes, i was being serious.
Let's say i know a general manager of a mill within a company. let's say he has had to cut his management staff from 36 people two years ago to 19 people as of last Monday when he fired two more managers.
So, what would you rather this GM do? I don't mean that as a rhetorical question.
The union workforce in this company has been cut also, and there have been no raises, no incentives, right down to no company Christmas party.
Now, I know for a fact that the CEO and partners have made no concessions right down to making managers eat at chain restaurants on business trips while they continue to dine at fancy restaurants and drink fine wine when they eat on the company. They also are still pulling in bonuses amid all the staff reductions.
I'm not going to play the corporate apologist, because no doubt there are cases where C-people and other execs exploit their position; however, for a great number of companies, and I'll be as bold as to say the majority, these people are the reason the company exists in the first place. They make the investments, they take the risk, they put in the work when everyone else clocks out at 4:59PM on a daily basis. More risk, more gain; more effort, more gain.
There's always an element of class warfare in larger companies, because the people at the bottom barely even know the people at the "top." I consider this a management failure, but everyone has their own style of management.
As a final consideration, many of these people take an income in the form of distributions just as you might with a stock. If the managers were so greedy, they'd take their profits and run; instead, what you'll find in most cases is that they don't take the profits and instead push it back into forms of reinvestment, especially during tough times. No one ever sees this, because general staff doesn't look at the financials.
All I'm saying is that people often have wild misconceptions about what happens in a company. For every POS greedy sycophant, I would say there's probably 10 more that are responsible and putting everything they have on the line to keep their business solvent.
so yeh, i am being serious. i don't think this is an isolated scenerio. granted this isn't the case in every single company across the miles, but it is happening, and like Saga said, some are using this as an excuse to take more and more things away from employees while they themselves aren't feeling a bit of a pinch.
I hate trying to pull out my own experiences, because most of the time on ATOT people think everyone just makes everything up, but I've been in enough of these meetings to know that this simply isn't the case.
These cuts are made with careful deliberation and pain from all sides.
Everyone knows that making these cuts will lower morale, and any company manager worth a damn knows that this will ultimately hurt the company. I'll even point out the "scarcity principle" when it comes to this, as most people are familiar. It's not something taken lightly. Insolvency isn't the answer, because a payroll call, vendors seeking payment, etc. could be enough to lead the company into bankruptcy, lengthy litigation with vendors, smears through various corporate watchdogs, etc. etc.
It's a last resort. It's a last resort that's made as an attempt to remain solvent until times are better at which point things are reinstated.
So, I'm running in circles. My only recommendation would be to get to know the people that run your company and rally behind them, because chances are they're working harder than you think to keep
your job as well as their own.
[edit]Everytime I mean "side" I end up typing "site" instead. Fixed.[/edit]
