Hey gang , thanks again for popping in. I think for most of us this word brings to mind college professors, who may have a particular political leaning to one side or the other, you pick which. The word tenured had become synonymous with a lifer, or someone who had a job no matter what. They had much become like a wart, athlete feet, or do I dare say like herpes☺️. Something that you just couldn’t get rid of, spite your best efforts . They may spend the majority of their time doing “research ” , or writing puff pieces for their favorite liberal rag, or conservative tabloid. Sometimes they would bring in grant money, by those whom they have influenced or share their value system. They mostly leave their lecture time to graduate students, while they would change a paragraph or two in a textbook that they had written or contributed to, so that it would be a new edition, so the students couldn’t resale the books, and all the while lining their pockets with more dead presidents. This is a general synopsis and I’m not implying that all tenured professors or teachers are bad, or even come close to this description. And in recent years, some of them have taken such strong stands on issues, that are often unpopular, that colleges and universities have had to separate themselves from them. And as usual, this is not what this post is about. I have observed how this has become the norm for workplace in America now. In my time walking the planet , I have been on both sides, meaning management and the labor force . I’m currently employed by a fortune 500, and it seems as lunacy is at an all time high in corporate America. We will get back to that in a second. I know that for the most part very few people spend their entire work history with one employer, but there a few. There is no loyalty on either side any longer, and if it wasn’t for FMLA, or things like that many employers would just do their best to move on and leave certain employees out in the cold. There is no more of forty years or so , and retire and get your gold watch, those days are long gone. Workers these days are much like pro athletes and they sign on to the highest bidder, with their 401K in tow. In fact research shows that most change jobs every 3 to 5 years ,and some much sooner or less than that, and all the while complaining about burn out. The world has changed much in the last few years with Covid, and it came along with the ” Great Resignation “. I wish I knew how so many people could afford to stay out of work and quit jobs at the drop of a hat. We find ourselves in the midst of two great extremes. Every where you look there are help wanted signs up, and many come with sign on bonuses and bonuses if you have been vaccinated, and other incentives that you think would make it appealing to at least to take a look, or listen to an offer, but not so much. There are businesses actually shutting down because of a lack of labor and workers. On the other end of the spectrum, almost on every major intersection across America there are people out with signs, homeless, disable vet, and a whole merit of things written on cardboard signs. I have covered this in previous post, so I’m not going to spend time here on that. The whole thing is quite the head scratcher. We are just in a time where the two words , work and ethic, just don’t go together any longer. There was a divorce and some way, some how, corporate America missed the memo on that. I’m and old school manager, so I believe in leading by example. You can’t really blame your employees for being late all the time when they see you constantly sliding in late, and yes stealing from the company. Don’t get me started about I’m salary and they get more out of me than they are paying for. If that is the case it’s time for you to pack it in and get that 401K in tow. Show up on time and do the job you were hired to do, and if everything is performing in the way that it is designed to be, then you get to leave early. There was a time when a manager knew the complete operations of an organization. However that is not the case any longer. What these brilliant CEOs have done is fragmented the operations and have multiple managers overseeing specific segments of the business. In theory it has much potential, however there is often a disconnect between departments that should have greater cooperation between them. They like to use the word ” team” , when in many instances, there could be nothing further from the truth. In many situations they are actually competing with one another, while pulling in different directions opposed to working together. I think that the thought process is, if you have a four year degree, then you will just be able to figure it out, that is true some of the time, but not always. Often you will find managers trying to play catch up, because they are responsible for things that they have no or very limited knowledge about, or their predecessor left a mess for them , on their way out to greener pastures. The days of working your way up through an organization is rare. They are bringing candidates in from the outside and they are expected to hit the ground running, basically from day one. The astounding part of this is, by the time the person is actually becoming coherent and proficient at the job, they are chasing the next thing, or the company promotes them to begin the process all over again. There is this other phenomenon that i have witnessed as well and this is bringing in a ” manager” to oversee things that they have no technical knowledge of. My son in law, like a lot of vets acquired his technical skills by way of the U. S. military. And in most cases these skills pay way better in the private sector. So how is a college kid , who couldn’t tell if he was reassembling the motor on a helicopter right or not expect to be his supervisor, I think just more lunacy. This is , just one example among many, you see it in transportation industry as well, people who have never done the job, except to perform oversight duties, just the way of the world. They say for every action , there is a reaction. The rank and file have been paying attention, just like your kids watch you, when you think that they are not. One of the ways this has played out is a power dynamics shift. Along with the labor shortage, many employers are paying much more for far less productivity. I recently spoke to one manager, who informed me that his higher ups have prevented him from holding his staff accountable, which is a complete disaster. This is equivalent to the inmates running the asylum. The superior or higher level management, believes that its better to have bad help opposed to no help at all. Look, I get it, without labor, you could very quickly become one of those businesses closing their doors from lack of workers. Depending on the industry, some being more labor intense than others , it is not merely an issue of the boss or business owner putting in a few more hours. I’m reminded of my of my time with Ms. Annomuis and her industry and paying CNAs bonuses for covering certain shifts or picking up extra shifts. You have to have the labor to run your businesses , so you offer an incentive, but you can’t have labor dictating what that should be and for how much. And, yes, I’m familiar with the laws of supply and demand. At some point, there is a breaking or tilting point where it is just not worth it any longer. Point in case, once upon a time , they used to build the number one pick up truck, right here in our own back yard, and that was the Ford F-150. I can’t give you the particulars of the dispute, but the labor union, just kept insisting on more and more, without any concessions for the manufacturer. They had some of the highest paying jobs in the region , was living the good life, but could just never be satisfied and look around and see where they were compared to others. Most, not all corporations have share holders, which invest for the purpose of having a return on their investments. The bottom line here is, the world’s top , most popular pick up truck is now produced in good old Mexico. They were greedy and it got to the point where it wasn’t worth it for all of the hassle. Back to Ms. Annomuis and her industry, can you imagine a person haggling with you over the phone or worse yet through a text message, over what you were going to pay them for coming into work, and not just that, but doing it multiple times in a week, with different employees and there being no set amount as to what you would pay because it’s an open and on going negotiation. How crazy, talking about having someone over a barrel. So, one solution that is employed is temp workers, this is another band aid on a major wound. We also use temp workers in my line of work as well. This is supposed to be another great idea ,where you bring people in and hopefully you guys make a great connection and you can bring them on full time into your employment. This has also been hijacked and exploited. The first thing wrong here is that companies pay an absorbent amount of money to temp agencies and the workers actually only see some lesser amount of that. I guess we will call it a finders fee.:). So when you bring in a temp employee, they are expected to perform to the level of your regular staff, while only making some fraction of the money. It is supposed to be an opportunity to show a potential employer what they may be getting by bringing this individual in on a full time basis, but not so much! I spoke earlier about the divorce between work and ethic, and never has it been more true than here. So remembering that there is a labor shortage, these individuals, not all, but some ,can do an extremely poor job, and still be sent out to another unsuspecting employer the very next day. I say this with great expectations, because often they don’t show up or quit before they actually have a firm grasp as to what the potential upside could be. Back to the manager, I was speaking of earlier who was not allowed to give his employees feedback or reprimand them on performance. I don’t think of this as a having your cake and eat it too, because there is no balance or way for this not to come off the rails. In a day and age of deadlines and it should have been done two weeks ago, how do we function out of this? Big picture you are putting your lively hood at risk and that starts at the top, be it a small business owner or a CEO of some huge corporation and it flows down from there. At some point enough will become to much. We can’t continue to pay people twenty to twenty- five bucks an hour to flip burgers at a burger joint and continue to expect the general public to pay 8 to 10 dollars for a fast food sandwich, unless its New York city ☺️. At some point there will be push back, and we will begin to see more and more businesses closing their doors. I don’t understand how we expect people to get better without some feedback, be it positive or otherwise? How do we expect to grow and expand our brands without competent people at the forefront of our operations? And how do you even expect a low level Manger to accomplish their goals with one hand tied behind their backs. It’s just absurd that we let people set their own working hours and come and go as they please. I mean you can do that, I just can’t guarantee that you will still have a job, but perhaps so. It’s absolutely laughable how we are chasing after the worse parts of the culture. So , when you were growing up, your mother told you how special you were and that you couldn’t do any wrong, and now that is part of the work place culture, where we have to constantly praise employees, even when they are putting in a lack luster performance. It is nice when someone does something nice out of the goodness of their hearts, whether it’s to bring in donuts , or some other little perk, but now once you do that at work, it becomes an entitlement and they expect it or better yet demand it all the time. Where do we go from here, and how is this going to end? Is there a way back from the insanity? These are crazy times that we are living in and somehow that sound like an understatement. People just sitting home, gas prices have almost tripled from just a year ago, and inflation at an all time high. I really truly believe that we had been there, and done that with Jimmy Carter. He was a nice enough guy, but he wasn’t the right fit for the time, and we could probably say the same is true today. Again, I have way more questions than solutions, because I’m afraid if I did choose to grapple with it, we would probably think it’s to difficult, because first of all , it would require some accountability, and that is another word that no one seems to know. Ok, again a bit long, and I’m not afraid of your feedback, but if you want me to make your comments public, you are going to have to come up with something other than four letter words, but always good to hear from you ☺️.
