I heard your show earlier tonight and your comments about selfishness and greed really hit home for me. I work for a company in the west metro and when I started there in 1971, there were a little over 75 employees. Most everyone loved working there and we all loved the original owner. He always had the little things that made a company fun to work at, not only a good paycheck and benefits, he insisted everyone take vacation each year, free coffee for everyone and on your birthday, you got a cake delivered by him personally, plus a gift certificate to say thanks. The company made profits and morale was always really high. We did have some downturns, but the company treated laying off employees as a last resort and anyone who got laid off was immediately called back when the company was back on it’s feet.
In the mid 1990’s, the owner let us know he was retiring and his son was taking over. Privately, the father had said he was concerned about his son’s conservative mindset and felt as if he would use the company for his personal gain. His son came in and assured everyone that things would never change, and that his father’s spirit would affect his every decision.
The first change had to do with the coffee and birthdays. Immediately, coffee was for executives only. He placed a coffee vending machine in the break room for the rest of the staff and when a floor manager brought his owncoffee pot, the son told him to get rid of it. He said it wasted electricity but since the vending machine wasted far more than any coffee pot, it looked like he was trying to make a few bucks off the staff. Birthday cakes stayed, primarily because the owner of the bakery and his father were close friends, but there were no more gift certificates and the son rarely said happy birthday to anyone. There were other changes, primarily changing from our long term suppliers who had always worked with us, American companies, to cheaper, foreign made suppliers who sent us inferior products. The father and son constantly clashed over these supplying decisions.
When the original owner died nearly ten years ago, that’s when the company immediately went to hell. Long term employees who had been there for years were let go and replaced. If it was a skilled position, it was usually someone straight out of college with no experience, or, they would adjust headcount in the departments and a low paid floor worker was brought in, or in many cases, the employees weren’t replaced, causing a much higher work load for everyone else. Floor workers making higher saleries were forced out and replaced with lower paid workers Everything was cut, from benefits to annual pay increase, for everyone but the son. His salary and benefits went through the roof. It seemed like every other week he came in with a new car that had a new gadget, all on the companies expense. Within a few years, no one liked working there anymore and it went from an office where if you’d been there for ten years, you were still a rookie, to a company where most of the senior staff had been there for five years or less.
The son didn’t have to make these drastic changes to save the company because profits were down. The company had been seeing record profits. The big difference was that the president’s paycheck was enormous making 20 times more than his father, and that’s factoring in inflation. Other top executives, many of them friends of the son, were also seeing salaries much higher. And part of the companies profits are now being given directly to right leaning politicians, something the original owner refused to allow the company to do regardless of the party. Today the company has only 51 employees, bitter tired employees, many who are looking for a new job. The rumor is the son is starting to look for the highest bidder.
Right after his father died, when the first staff birthday came up, there was no cake. A week later a box of doughnuts was placed in the break room with the note, for all this month’s birthdays. May and June of this year we had our first box labeled for May and June birthdays. Same amount of doughnuts. Officially the original owners spirit has been killed. I hope I make it to my retirement in two years.
Mary
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