New vs. Used

bumper wrote:
The average worker no longer spends 20 to 30 years working for a firm. A few
years back, I read it was more like 4 to 5 years max. Spend the money to
train them and then they leave. Among much of the work force there is no
longer the same work ethic that once was common. And too, there's an us vs.
them mentality between management and labor which takes a lot of the "fun
and enjoyment" out of running a company. Worker expectations for wages and
benefits remain higher than in many other countries. Many are a bit spoiled,
unwilling to do the "grunt work", "What? A corner office and secretary
doesn't come with that shovel?!"

This is way off topic, of course, but what the heck. I'm sure bumper
was one of the better bosses around, but he seems to have missed
something. During the 80s, corporations in the US started considering
their employees to be nothing more than replaceable "resources". They
could be laid off on a whim, their pension funds raided and rendered
insolvent, pay arbitrarily cut, benefits slashed, all in the name of
competitiveness and profits. By the early 90s, many of us working types
figured out what the deal was, and recognized there wasn't much point to
being loyal to companies that no longer felt any obligation to those of
us who had to do the work. Work ethic means little or nothing if you
are a faceless cog in a machine.

In other words, "as Ye sow, so shall ye reap"...

Marc