Most of the time I don't have much fun. The rest of the time I don't have any fun at all.
- Woody Allen
Not a day goes by that I don't realize just how fortunate I am. In an economy featuring real unemployment approaching 16%, I thank my lucky stars daily that I still have a job. I can feed myself, pay my cable bill, and when last I checked I still had a roof over my head. The line between where I am and where I could be is exceedingly thin, and don't think that's escaped my attention. There are a lot of people who would love to trade places with me.
I've been unemployed for extended periods (I've been laid off twice), and I'm here to tell you that it sucks. Sure, there's something nice about having time to do what you want to to. The problem with that is, since you're unemployed, you can't afford to do whatever it is you want to do. I may not be in love with my job, but it's a good job, and I'm good at it. Things could be a whole lot worse...if only because they have been, and also because I don't have to look far to see just how bad things are. Even on my worst days, and there have been more than a few of late, I recognize that I'm very fortunate to still have an income. I don't have to look very far to have that point driven home.
I have a close friend who's been unemployed since the beginning of January. She's bright, talented, skilled, and ready to go...and yet she can barely get a call back. I was excited for her when she told me that she'd finally gotten a job. No, it wasn't what she was looking for, and the pay frankly sucks, but it was something, a step in what seemed like the right direction. Then she started orientation...and I began to find out just what this economy has turned some companies into.
When my friend accepted the job, it was with the understanding the there would be several weeks of training, and then she would be handling technical support for her company's products. That seemed good, and not at all unusual- until she showed up for her first day of orientation. It was then that she discovered that there were many things her recruiter hadn't bothered to tell her when they made the job offer. The list of rules and expectations is something I found simply incredible. Surely, no company would hire responsible, professional adult-type human beings...only to then treat them like recalcitrant children...would they? Well, say hello to Gulag Archipelago, Inc., a software support company whose mission statement is "We know you're slackers and (&^%ups...so we're going to make sure we keep you under our thumbs. Resistance is futile."
I've had some truly crappy work experiences, but never have I worked for a company that seriously promulgated rules like:
No cell phones allowed in the building. If you have an emergency, you can contact a security officer, who will contact his supervisor and then your supervisor...by which time, your emergency should have passed. Quit whining and get back to work. Oh, and the security officer? He's not there to keep people out. He's there to ensure that employers aren't breaking any company rules.
No text messaging anywhere for any reason. If we wanted you to contact anyone, we wouldn't have hired you in the first place. If you needed to have a family or an outside life, the company would have issued you one.
No electrical anything plugged into any power outlets ANYWHERE. No radios, no coffee mug warmers, no calculators, no ANYTHING that requires electricity to function. Hey, if we let you plug in a radio, how long do you think it will be before someone wants to plug in a dialysis machine or recharge their pacemakers?
No matter how bad the weather is, you're expected to be at work on time. Noah may be out collecting two of everything and marching them back to his Ark, but you're expected to be at your desk, logged onto your phone, and smiling at 7:59:30. Not 8:00:30. Tardiness three times over a 12-month period is grounds for termination. Remember, timeliness is next to godliness.
WE decide your shift, and no, you won't have a say in it. We don't care if you have a family, a sick relative, or a court order requiring you to be home by 6pm. If we say you're working graveyard, you're working graveyard...or you can go back to Walmart. Capice?
I could go on, and believe me, there's more, but I think you probably see where I'm heading. How a company can in this day and age treat professional adults like felons on the precipice of recidivism simply defies rational understanding. This is even more true when you consider that new employees go through a six-week training program before they're turned loose on customers. The company invests an extraordinary amount of money in training new employees, and yet they refuse to treat their employees in a manner that provides any incentive for them to hang around so that this invest can be recouped.
As I listened to my friend recite the laundry list of rules (ranging from the petty to the merely absurd), I was stuck by one recurring thought. The more I listened, the more I realized that she wasn't working for a company. No, she was talking about a minimum-security prison. That reality might have been something approaching tolerable if the pay was anything approaching fair. The problem here is that the pay is substandard, the rules are oppressive, and employees are treated like repeat offenders looking for a place to re-offend. Nice work if you can get it, eh?
Of course, in this economy, the oligarchs at Gulag Archipelago, Inc. know that employees are a dime a dozen. Why pay someone when you can treat them like interchangeable parts. Why treat them with respect when you can create a prison-like atmosphere and ensure your employee are always in lock-step compliance with company rules and expectations? Hey, if someone doesn't like it...tough; we'll just find someone else, 'cuz it's not like there's a labor shortage these days, right?
I can only hope that, if there's a Hell, the people who run Gulag Arcipelago, Inc. will have reserved parking spaces in perpetuity. Even better, I hope they're treated like cattle in the same way they treat their employees. Even at his angriest, I'm not sure that Solzhenitsyn could have come up anything with this sinister.
