I’ve worked at more than one place that started out nice, but became a nightmare as the owners got greedy and tried the “shortcut to success.” This meant taking on more business and clients, and increasing the workload for everyone at the bottom, but putting no money into updating systems and expanding facilities. Always the answer was to demand more and more overtime from employees. All night, all weekend. And overtime was enforced through ridicule. “You’re lucky you’ve got a job. What’s the matter, everyone else is able to come in. You’re too good?” At one job we had a manager who’d stand by the time clock at the end of the day, chortling “Dere goes anudder millionaire!” each time someone punched out. Of course, he was afraid he’d lose his job for not persuading us to stay. The final insult came at another company, at Christmas time. While the executives were rolling around in their generous bonuses, the people who had done all the hard work slamming ten times as much work through for months were given a box of candy canes. Not a box apiece. One box- for the entire department to share. THAT was our bonus. Yet still, the bosses thought that morale was something they could order up on demand.
I’ve worked at more than one place that started out nice, but became a nightmare as the owners got greedy and tried the “shortcut to success.” This meant taking on more business and clients, and increasing the workload for everyone at the bottom, but putting no money into updating systems and expanding facilities. Always the answer was to demand more and more overtime from employees. All night, all weekend. And overtime was enforced through ridicule. “You’re lucky you’ve got a job. What’s the matter, everyone else is able to come in. You’re too good?” At one job we had a manager who’d stand by the time clock at the end of the day, chortling “Dere goes anudder millionaire!” each time someone punched out. Of course, he was afraid he’d lose his job for not persuading us to stay. The final insult came at another company, at Christmas time. While the executives were rolling around in their generous bonuses, the people who had done all the hard work slamming ten times as much work through for months were given a box of candy canes. Not a box apiece. One box- for the entire department to share. THAT was our bonus. Yet still, the bosses thought that morale was something they could order up on demand.