Value it. Don't squeeze it. I'll be thinking more about this theme as I'll probably get an article out of it, but that's the topic for now.
It comes from an article I read about companies that have done the massive layoff thing, and are still doing layoffs, even though their stock is now rising and the economy looks better. They've discovered, they think, that they can still accomplish the same things with fewer people.
I'm one of those people who're being spread thinner and thinner. What is happening is not that they're truly getting more done with fewer peeps. What's happening is the few peeps left doing the work are not doing as thorough a job. How can they? There're only so many hours to a day, and with burn out on top of it, you cannot devote as much time to any one project when you have too many.
Something's gotta happen now or something's gotta give, it'll come, it'll come, it'll come, it'll come ...
Welcome to the bottom line.
You're one of the people being spread thinner and thinner. Well, poor you. You'll just have to roll around in your flash car weeping your little heart out before heading to your comfortable house and stuffing your face with luxury foods.
Meanwhile, on a dusty farm in Africa...
That's a bit unfair, isn't it, Z? IMO it's unreasonable to expect us to consider Mahmood every time a problem occurs in our (admittedly privileged) lives. When Zenella cries over some "trivial" thing, do you tell her shaddap, Mahmella has it worse? Maybe you do.
Anyway...Gek, why do I get a runtime error every time I open this page? Doesn't seem to have any effect when I say not to debug, but...what *is* it?
You're right, Paula, of course, but I can't help feeling that corporatistas like Gekko only really *feel* when it's them getting pinched.
Maybe that's unfair on her but my understanding is that Gekko does okay and, ultimately, it's a choice she's made.
My point, I think, is that Mahmood has no choice, and when Mahmella gets the shits, he stares her death in the face.
UV: I'm not sure about the error. I don't get one. What browser?
Zen: We can discourse over poor Mahmood in some other forum. The issue isn't whether I'm getting paid. The issue is whether I can do the job well enough to make a positive difference. The corporation is shitting on itself by doing this. I have less time for Mahmood, too, but my kids gotta eat too. Me being privileged is not a sin.
Ugh, get rid of those blue POS and use this instead.
http://www3.sympatico.ca/robert.mcclelland/photo1/sick_Gecko.gif
It's definitely you.
In a pinched economy, people are often the last resources to be reduced, because of the investment made in their training etc. As the economy expands (as it is beginning to do), hiring is then slow. The risk still exists that the improvement is temporary and no one wants to hire some people only to have to let them go again.
So the company gets by in the meantime with increased goals and reduced staff and lower quality work potentially. Indeed, the work may be just good enough, or the apparent effect on the bottom line of those layoffs just sweet enough, that management will be tempted to hold off the rehiring indefinitely. If their work quality truly suffers, from worker fatigue as well as worker scarcity, then the marketplace will be sure to let them know in time.
These are among the great tradeoffs in that naturally self-correcting system we know as capitalism.