Talia Jane Writes Na Open letter to Her CEO

[U.P. Cinnabar]

So would you not want that other people warn you?
Or are you saying that companies shouldn´t be called out for their bullshit because you wouldn´t want to be called out for the bullshit you might be doing?

I'm saying neither one. I'm only saying I'm too nice of a guy for my own good sometimes.

That is not my experience. I´ve whitnessed a whole departement of a large governmental office go down the drain recently because they treated their employees like shit. This spread by websites such glassdoor.com as well as by word of mouth. Most of the employees quit and they are unable to find new people because they managed to completely ruin their formally excellent image as a good employer in a time frame of 3 to 4 years.

Fair enough. I'll concede you that point.

@General Zod: You have a valid point, but not all people tend to be assholes.

[General Zod]

So would you not want that other people warn you?
Or are you saying that companies shouldn´t be called out for their bullshit because you wouldn´t want to be called out for the bullshit you might be doing?

I'm saying neither one. I'm only saying I'm too nice of a guy for my own good sometimes.

That is not my experience. I´ve whitnessed a whole departement of a large governmental office go down the drain recently because they treated their employees like shit. This spread by websites such glassdoor.com as well as by word of mouth. Most of the employees quit and they are unable to find new people because they managed to completely ruin their formally excellent image as a good employer in a time frame of 3 to 4 years.

Fair enough. I'll concede you that point.

@General Zod: You have a valid point, but not all people tend to be assholes.

More than enough are to make it necessary.

[salm]

So would you not want that other people warn you?
Or are you saying that companies shouldn´t be called out for their bullshit because you wouldn´t want to be called out for the bullshit you might be doing?

I'm saying neither one. I'm only saying I'm too nice of a guy for my own good sometimes.

Well, imo, if you don´t warn people you´re not the nice guy. You´re the bad guy. Being nice to people is more valuable than being nice to companies.

[salm]

Personally I don't believe in the golden rule. If you treat people the way you'd like to be treated and they don't reciprocate, you owe them absolutely no consideration.

Indeed, and even less if these "people" are companies and corporations.

[Purple]

Personally I don't believe in the golden rule. If you treat people the way you'd like to be treated and they don't reciprocate, you owe them absolutely no consideration.

Personally I think a better golden rule is to treat people how they treat you. Start off nice but only until after the first impressions are done.

[General Zod]

Personally I don't believe in the golden rule. If you treat people the way you'd like to be treated and they don't reciprocate, you owe them absolutely no consideration.

Personally I think a better golden rule is to treat people how they treat you. Start off nice but only until after the first impressions are done.

That's exactly what I described.

[Broomstick]

The usual next step in dealing with a bad supervisor, or a toxic co-worker, for example, is going to HR. HR, however, generally is paid to be on the company's side, not the employees', and will do whatever's necessary to toe the company line. At least, that's been my experience.

It is true more often than not.

There is an art to complaining effectively. I recently had to report an abusive manager to my company, but I made sure that my statements were calm and rational, stuck to the facts, emphasized what could be independently confirmed, and approached from a "violation of company policy and procedures, and possibly exposing the company to liability" rather than "this person was mean to me". But, again, that's something you learn, usually after many years of experience.

Moreover, I've found that the higher up you go in the chain of command, the more removed from the day-to-day operations on the floor the manager in question usually is, all the way up to the CEO, who has only the most general idea as to how his company is operating on a daily or even weekly basis.

That's why I found the show Undercover Boss so interesting - sometimes the CEO made some very interesting discoveries by doing that.

[salm]

I wonder if maximum wage would help. Switerland voted against a maximum wage a couple of years ago in which the top earners in a company would be allowed to earn no more than 12 times as much as the lowest earner.
Sounds good to me but I don´t know which economical implications something like that has.

[Purple]

Personally I don't believe in the golden rule. If you treat people the way you'd like to be treated and they don't reciprocate, you owe them absolutely no consideration.

Personally I think a better golden rule is to treat people how they treat you. Start off nice but only until after the first impressions are done.

That's exactly what I described.

In that case we are in agreement.

[Simon_Jester]

The usual next step in dealing with a bad supervisor, or a toxic co-worker, for example, is going to HR. HR, however, generally is paid to be on the company's side, not the employees', and will do whatever's necessary to toe the company line. At least, that's been my experience.

It is true more often than not.

There is an art to complaining effectively. I recently had to report an abusive manager to my company, but I made sure that my statements were calm and rational, stuck to the facts, emphasized what could be independently confirmed, and approached from a "violation of company policy and procedures, and possibly exposing the company to liability" rather than "this person was mean to me". But, again, that's something you learn, usually after many years of experience.

I have recently learned to apply similar jujitsu to noisy neighbors- the anonymous letter, the "you are actually violating a city ordinance by doing this," and so on... so yes, I can imagine.

[U.P. Cinnabar]

There is an art to complaining effectively. I recently had to report an abusive manager to my company, but I made sure that my statements were calm and rational, stuck to the facts, emphasized what could be independently confirmed, and approached from a "violation of company policy and procedures, and possibly exposing the company to liability" rather than "this person was mean to me". But, again, that's something you learn, usually after many years of experience.

I had a toxic supervisor my last job. Real psycho(eight years ago, he was wheeled out of the facility in a straitjacket, and spent a month in the psych ward at St. Francis, in Tulsa), and the stress I was under from him put me in Hillcrest South in Tulsa, and let me tell you, that's no freakin' picnic.

I get back, and, not a week later, the day before(the 13th anniversary of) 9/11, and the day after a former temp came to visit with a knife in his hand and murder in his heart(literally), my supervisor starts screaming, ranting and raving at me like a fucking lunatic. I went to HR, and stated my case to Misty(the HR manager, and head of the company's safety team), exactly by the numbers, way you described it, no drama, no insults, just the facts and the names of those who were witness to the incident in question(which was pretty much everyone else on the line with me).

At the safety team meeting the following week, Misty comes up to me and said, and I quote,"you need to cut [the lunatic] some slack. He's under tremendous pressure, and it comes from the top down."

@Simon_Jester: I've found that actually works with neighbors. Being neighborly sometimes helps as well.

That's why I found the show Undercover Boss so interesting - sometimes the CEO made some very interesting discoveries by doing that.

That happens to be one of my favorite shows. If only all CEOs were amenable to reason.

[U.P. Cinnabar]

^He[lunatic supervisor]was wheeled out of the building in a straitjacket back in the spring of '07, making it almost nine years ago. Damn, I'm getting senile.

[Zeropoint]

Personally I don't believe in the golden rule. If you treat people the way you'd like to be treated and they don't reciprocate, you owe them absolutely no consideration.

Personally I think a better golden rule is to treat people how they treat you. Start off nice but only until after the first impressions are done.

I'm reminded of the "Tit for Tat" strategy to Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma. Turns out, this kind of thinking is mathematically optimal in some circumstances.

[Highlord Laan]

So I'm assuming you immediately hit the pavement and scoured the local area for a job, and took the first one that would hire you, then?

Oh, sure - I'd been hitting the pavement (and the internet) looking for work for quite some time before and after that, too. Did a lot of odd jobs, temp jobs, scavenged pop cans alongside the road...

I took jobs that would hire me and net a profit for me. No one can afford to work at a loss.

You're correct we're not getting the whole story with Ms. Jane... but I also think people are way too quick to judge, too.

And this information makes me a lot more sympathetic for your situation than Talia. All other circumstances aside, I admire the person that does what they have to to get by, (short of becoming a criminal, of course), vs the person that breaks protocol, blasts their company's CEO on public media, (who may not even have anything to do with setting the actual salaries/wages), then conveniently sets up a gofundme and drops the victim card hard, instead of taking, what I consider to be, more practical steps toward becoming independent and self sufficient.

Whats with that demarcation? If someone wealthy enough puts a few people on the streets and a couple freeze to death in an alley, it's still hailed as good business sense. If someone on the skids takes dog-eat-dog capitalism to it's ultimate conclusion and starts playing for keeps, it's crime? Either way, someone's either dead or suffering for the profit of someone else, so whats the problem?

[U.P. Cinnabar]

Whats with that demarcation? If someone wealthy enough puts a few people on the streets and a couple freeze to death in an alley, it's still hailed as good business sense. If someone on the skids takes dog-eat-dog capitalism to it's ultimate conclusion and starts playing for keeps, it's crime? Either way, someone's either dead or suffering for the profit of someone else, so whats the problem?

The problem apparentally is that only rich folk are allowed to do that, while the poor are supposed be good little scrubs, eat cake, and not survive, because, to loosely paraphrase the Marquis de Lafayette, there's plenty more mutts where those came from.

[Lord Revan]

I wonder if maximum wage would help. Switerland voted against a maximum wage a couple of years ago in which the top earners in a company would be allowed to earn no more than 12 times as much as the lowest earner.
Sounds good to me but I don´t know which economical implications something like that has.

well it depends how "earn" is defined as here in Finland the top earners don't intentionally have that high wages (since those are easy to tax) instead getting "X" number of stocks that form majority of their earnings.

[Simon_Jester]

And this information makes me a lot more sympathetic for your situation than Talia. All other circumstances aside, I admire the person that does what they have to to get by, (short of becoming a criminal, of course), vs the person that breaks protocol, blasts their company's CEO on public media, (who may not even have anything to do with setting the actual salaries/wages), then conveniently sets up a gofundme and drops the victim card hard, instead of taking, what I consider to be, more practical steps toward becoming independent and self sufficient.

Whats with that demarcation? If someone wealthy enough puts a few people on the streets and a couple freeze to death in an alley, it's still hailed as good business sense. If someone on the skids takes dog-eat-dog capitalism to it's ultimate conclusion and starts playing for keeps, it's crime? Either way, someone's either dead or suffering for the profit of someone else, so whats the problem?

Among other things, when "someone on the skids takes dog-eat-dog capitalism to its ultimate conclusion and starts playing for keeps," they are generally preying on others who are little or no better off, or creating an environment toxic to their peers' attempt to improve the situation.

Aside from that, well... bluntly, even the flawed civilization we have is a superior condition of things when compared to total anarchy, and anarchy is what you get when you start accepting that people have license to rob or kill each other. You cannot have justice in a place where there is no law and order.

[salm]

I wonder if maximum wage would help. Switerland voted against a maximum wage a couple of years ago in which the top earners in a company would be allowed to earn no more than 12 times as much as the lowest earner.
Sounds good to me but I don´t know which economical implications something like that has.

well it depends how "earn" is defined as here in Finland the top earners don't intentionally have that high wages (since those are easy to tax) instead getting "X" number of stocks that form majority of their earnings.

I don´t know how to articulate that in a legally waterproof way but basically everything you get from salary over bonuses, stocks, company car and so on would have to be taken into account. Otherwise a maximum wage would be rather useless. It would probably not be uncomplicated but something that gives an incentive to reduce the pay gap is worth some inconveniences, imo.

[General Zod]

I wonder if maximum wage would help. Switerland voted against a maximum wage a couple of years ago in which the top earners in a company would be allowed to earn no more than 12 times as much as the lowest earner.
Sounds good to me but I don´t know which economical implications something like that has.

well it depends how "earn" is defined as here in Finland the top earners don't intentionally have that high wages (since those are easy to tax) instead getting "X" number of stocks that form majority of their earnings.

I don´t know how to articulate that in a legally waterproof way but basically everything you get from salary over bonuses, stocks, company car and so on would have to be taken into account. Otherwise a maximum wage would be rather useless. It would probably not be uncomplicated but something that gives an incentive to reduce the pay gap is worth some inconveniences, imo.

It's definitely an issue we should be concerned with, but it seems like the people it would hurt the most are small companies where the owners put up all of the capital risk. Or would that just affect companies above a certain size? (Of course one way around this is a vested ownership program where employees become partial owners after so long.)

[salm]

It's definitely an issue we should be concerned with, but it seems like the people it would hurt the most are small companies where the owners put up all of the capital risk. Or would that just affect companies above a certain size? (Of course one way around this is a vested ownership program where employees become partial owners after so long.)

Why would that hurt small companies? Can you explain?
I don´t think small companies would be exempt from maximum wage, at least not in the model proposed in Switzerland.
From what I read it was voted against because large corporations threatened to leave Switzerland.

[Highlord Laan]

Aside from that, well... bluntly, even the flawed civilization we have is a superior condition of things when compared to total anarchy, and anarchy is what you get when you start accepting that people have license to rob or kill each other. You cannot have justice in a place where there is no law and order.

So it's just, lawful and orderly when those with power destroy the lives of those that don't and get away with robbing and killing the underclass, while deliberately twisting the laws to keep their actions legal? But it's not just, lawful and orderly for someone from the bottom to use the same tactics to ensure their own lives and stability? I thought that was just, orderly and lawful proper business practice.

[Simon_Jester]

No, you're not understanding this.

The point is, if we abandon law and order in the name of "justice," we will lose law and order (which do have advantages for the common citizen, not just for the elite), and not get any actual justice.

When the rich genuinely do manage to put themselves in a position of being 'above' law and order, creating a state of 'privilege' (literally 'private laws'), then justice will of course collapse, and chaos will arise because there is no law or order.

The poor doing the same thing doesn't fix the crisis. It just redoubles it. High crime rates don't result in the poor striking back at their oppressors. They result in what would otherwise 'merely' be a poor neighborhood turning into a slum, where it is not merely difficult for the average citizen of the lower class to succeed, but nearly impossible.

So vent all the sarcasm and bitterness you want- but if you want to improve things in a civilization, there has to be law and order. To improve things at the top, fight to impose law on the men at the top. To improve things at the bottom, fight to impose law on the men at the bottom.

[Highlord Laan]

For the record, I'm just playing devil's advocate. I'm no anarchist. I am however, an equalist unafraid of violence.

I am wondering though, why it's acceptable for the wealthy to abuse the underclasses and grow fat on the misery and hardship or others, but those same abused people doing the same to the wealthy is somehow wrong. The argument of stability can only be taken so far until it becomes "know your place, peasant."

[U.P. Cinnabar]

For the record, I'm just playing devil's advocate. I'm no anarchist. I am however, an equalist unafraid of violence.

I am wondering though, why it's acceptable for the wealthy to abuse the underclasses and grow fat on the misery and hardship or others, but those same abused people doing the same to the wealthy is somehow wrong. The argument of stability can only be taken so far until it becomes "know your place, peasant."

I think the point Simon_Jester was trying to make is that it's wrong either way, which it is.

And, to some extent, while those below them may be condemned for taking advantage of the rich in the same manner as the rich do the poor, the rich also encourage this, in order to justify their own behavior.

[Simon_Jester]

Plus, as I have repeatedly tried to note, the criminal acts actually carried out by the poor are not affecting the elite. It's not even a flea-bite, on the scale of their resources and power. They can afford to live in enclaves far away from anyone poor enough to want to rob them or murder them. Meanwhile, the perfectly ordinary people NOT responsible for social injustice end up being targeted and hurt.

For the lower class to have any effect on the elite, they have to be organized, disciplined, orderly. No amount of street crime ever dislodges the elite from their positions of power. It only creates a condition of anarchy and suffering among the poor.