It's been a favorite of mine, because I realized -to my surprise- it sort of applied to me. "Ev'ry Single Day" for the last 35 years, I have dragged my ass to work, and done what I was asked, no matter what. (Ok, so there were a few "mornings after" when I was in such a sorry state that I didn't last all day...)
I look around, and all the things I have - decent house, car, toys - because "every single day, the work got done". No one gave me anything. Yeah, I was lucky to be born a white, middle class male in a great country, but what I have is mine, because I've earned it. Huh. I never thought of myself as particularly responsible before.... Who knew?
So where's the song about the flip side of that? The song about a guy who's done his job to the best of his ability and gets his picture plastered all over the company "telescreens" -with all the bosses smiling and congratulating him on his "35 Years of Service"- and then gets let go, a week later? (No, not me. As much as I'm sure they would have loved to have gotten rid of me - I think my file in HR says "Does not play well with others" across the top - I know stuff no one else does).
I suppose there are plenty of songs about betrayal that could be adapted to this situation, but the most apropos one I could come up with was Flogging Molly's "Revolution":
I spent twenty-seven years in this factory
And the boss man says, 'hey you're not what we need'
The penguins in the suits they know nothing but greed
It's a solitary life when you've mouths to feed
But who cares about us?
And the boss man says, 'hey you're not what we need'
The penguins in the suits they know nothing but greed
It's a solitary life when you've mouths to feed
But who cares about us?
"Well...." you might say, "these things happen.." "Times are hard, when there's no work, or the company isn't making money, they have to cut back...." That's just the thing, though - we HAVE work and we ARE making money. The reason there was (about) a ten percent reduction was because we weren't making enough money. Someone, somewhere decided they wanted "more" and they wanted it now. "Penguins in suits who know nothing but greed" is a great way to describe them, but there's a much simpler term for someone who takes something from someone else.
In an effort to understand, I said "Well they were "just following orders"..." and the blame shifted further up the food chain...but it has to stop somewhere. Someone, somewhere made the decision. Someone, somewhere decided to ignore the fact that those numbers on a spreadsheet were people. As Seth Godin so eloquently points out, there's no such thing as "business ethics" only people can have ethics, but businesses are made up of....people.
No matter where the blame lies, though it still makes me think "It must take a special breed of amoral asshole to be able to do that..." I know I couldn't.
I guess that's why I'll never be a CEO or anything more than a blue collar mutant and I'm OK with that. I'll continue to get mine the old-fashioned way, not by violating the Eighth Commandment.
