This is long. This is a rant about my workplace. While the story is specific to my employer, it’s actually more of a rant about rampant capitalism, of which my employer is highly adherent to. It is sort of a difficult post for me to write. I’ve been wrestling with myself for the last couple of days on the topic because I’ve felt I have no right to complain. After all, I have a job, I’m paid quite well, the work is easy and in a field I enjoy. There are people who do not have all, some, or even any of those. Why should I complain?
Let’s just cut to the situation, then break it apart from there. Friday morning we got an announcement that because of the pandemic and the resulting slowdown in business at the company, there were going to be some changes implemented. So far, this sounds like every other company dealing with COVID fallout. The changes include: pay cuts (15% for managers and up, 10% for everyone else), discontinuation of 401k matching, discontinuing anniversary bonuses, and discontinuation of PTO cashouts. Earlier in the year, when COVID began, the company announced a wage freeze, so no more raises until things turn around.
How did this affect me personally? I am considered maxed out on salary, so my raises have been trivial for the last few years. A wage freeze doesn’t hurt me too bad. However, a 10% pay cut, wiped out 6 years worth of raises for me. You can also take out 4% of my salary from the loss of the 401k match. The anniversary bonus is something nice to look forward to, and since my anniversary is in a couple of weeks, this stings a little more than usual.
I say again, why should I complain? It’s just money and even with the changes, I’m still probably in the top 10 highest paid people in the company. My finances are very stable. But to not complain is to accept and encourage that mentality that is choking and killing America – I got mine. Fuck you.
This is a family-owned company, and a couple of the family members/owners "work" there. Over the years, their involvement has dwindled as their age has also progressed. They are all very, very wealthy and surely want to spend their lives and their money in other ways.
As spokespeople for the company, the owners have always stressed how the employees are like extended family. However, when we have our annual layoffs, the remaining people are reassured that the company is financially strong. I get it. A company is not supposed to lose money; it wouldn’t survive like that. However, when times are lean and there is a choice to reduce profit or reduce headcount, the same decision is always made.
I say again, I get it. Money can come from a business in three ways: a salary, year-end profits, and the intrinsic value of the company itself. I would be on board if the decision to preserve profit was because the owners only income was the corporate profit. But it’s not. The owners have the intrinsic value, they have the annual profit, and they also all pull a salary from the company. They are triple-dipping and hoarding all the profits for themselves. They sacrifice others for their own gain.
Now, here’s the straw that broke my back with this last announcement. Two things actually. First was the mention of layoffs. The announcement rationalized that when volume was down, the company would lay people off. And why not? They’ve done it every year for at least four years. While they didn’t explicitly say we should be happy they didn’t resort to layoffs, mentioning it at all means it was considered.
So why wasn’t that the decision? Thanks to freedom-loving patriots out there (who I’m sure had to fight valiantly against the current administration), it is in public information that I was able to find out that our company received a PPP loan from the government in the amount of somewhere between 2 and 5 million dollars. A provision of taking that loan is that you do not lay off any workers. So layoffs weren’t an option, although it was still considered. However, there’s no restriction against cutting salary or benefits (research shows that this not uncommon).
If you know the PPP loan program, you know it’s not a loan. It’s forgivable as long as you abide by its rules. So, it’s free government money (it’s not socialism when it’s capitalism, right!). Our company got over 2 million dollars for free to pay for our salaries and our company instead cuts salaries. That improves the company’s profit, which goes to… the owners, exclusively. Hypothetically, lets say our business was down enough that we made no profit this year, we just broke even. With the PPP loan, payroll expenses drop by $2M+, profit becomes $2M+. And that is not enough for the owners. Fuck you, I’m getting mine.
I know business. I know how it can be used to fuck people. I saw it at my last job and I see it here. In my last job, there was a "final con" to fuck the employees and enrich the owner on his way out. While I’m not sure my previous employer actually got to execute his plan before I left, if my prediction for this company’s "final con" is correct, it’s already a done deal.
The owners are old and not involved in the business anymore. They want out. Business is down and has been down for quite some time. That is bad for the owners. When someone wants to buy a business, they want to see what return on investment they will get from it. If the company isn’t turning good profits, its value (the sale price) decreases. While anyone pitching the company is going to point out the glory years as what the company is capable of and will also hype the potential of the business when COVID ends, they still need to prove short-term viability and profit.
I’ve already told you the secret a few paragraphs ago. Reduce expenses, profit goes up. By cutting everyone’s salary and the 401k benefits and anniversary bonuses and the cash value of PTO, the company immediately looks better financially to a buyer. The buyer has no obligation to restore any of those things. For all they know, it’s always been that way. Maybe they would see in a prior year financial statement that expenses were much higher, but why should they care? The current and future financials say they’ll make good money.
Pause for a moment and absorb all that. Now, because I have to explicitly say this, if the company looks like it will be more profitable to a buyer, the company can be sold for more money. That money goes to… the owners, exclusively. The salary and benefit cuts remain.
Now, in closing. I do get it. This is business. Do not ever feel like your employer give one single shit about you or your life. Are there exceptions to this? Sure. But America is greed and selfishness personified. It’s going to take generations to turn this around if it even can be turned around. It’s not going to happen in my lifetime for sure. I really do empathize with the younger generations and what they are facing.
Where To Go, What To Do?
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/amazon-to-unleash-a-long-feared-purge-of-small-suppliers/ar-AAC1xhQ
For me, it’s the growing dawn of a new realization. It’s not really anything revelatory; it’s a topic that has been bantered around for years. Essentially, the thought is, Amazon is getting too big and too powerful, much like Walmart was before.
It sure is easy to be addicted to quick shipping, which is what Amazon is very good at. I was disappointed by an online order from Lowes that took a week to arrive, and an item I ordered on Ebay just the other day is going to take a week to arrive (shipped from Canada, so, ok…). Some other things, I’ve ordered recently have also taken time to arrive, like a new kitchen sink, or lights, or CDs.
But notice something, all of these items were not purchased from Amazon. That realization is somewhat important to me. Amazon is not the one-stop, end-all, be-all shopping destination for me. And, with recent news like this, I feel I should wean myself from Amazon’s grasp further.
It’s not all bad. There’s a lot of things that don’t need to be received in a couple of days (and there are some that do). There are times I’ll use Amazon’s no-rush shipping option, and never claim the little reward they offer for doing so. Price-wise, other places can be competitive and sometimes even much better. Home Depot beat out Amazon by almost 50% on one item I needed. When it comes to selection, not even Amazon can match a specialized online store, especially when it comes to furniture and other home goods. And in a lot of those cases, Amazon’s selection is only much broader because they have a massive selection of cheap import products. If that’s ok with you, EBay can be just as fruitful.
I’ll admit, sometimes, I find what I’m looking for on another site and will check it against Amazon. If Amazon is close in price, I’ll usually order it from Amazon. This is solely because I don’t want to have to go through the hassle of creating a new account on a new site. But, with my planned dependency-reduction, I may begin doing so to spread the wealth a bit further. For some people, this might not be as feasible, because if you are reusing your email address on many sites, you are increasing your risk of having your email harvested for spam. Since I use a different email address for every site, I don’t have this worry.
This reliance on Amazon for a lot of things is sort of a downward spiral. As we buy more stuff online, stores make fewer items available to purchase in-store, which forces us to buy more online. I wish there was a way we could reverse it. Some places have an in-stock check, like Lowes, Home Depot, and Staples for example. So you can check to see if an item is there before driving to the store. And if it’s not in stock, well, would you order it from there to be shipped or held for pickup, or would you just return to Amazon to buy it? I know I’m going to have to be more proactive in that choice.
Why can’t someone with more business connections than I have make a website that tracks who sells what. This should be easy as hell. Any store that has an electronic point of sale system must have a list of products they sell, and that list of products would contain a UPC. It should be trivial to upload a list of UPCs to a website to indicate what products your store sells. The website allows someone to search by product and a list of who sells that product is displayed. It could work the other way too, where manufacturers upload a list of UPCs and the retailers they distribute to. The data is there, it just needs aggregated.