Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Blue-collar new norm America: Dadio's handy manual to break workers' spirit - Intro - book version

26 June 2013

Blue-collar new norm America: Dadio's handy manual to break workers' spirit - Intro - book version


This entry was posted on 6/26/2013 1:31 AM and is filed under Broken spirit.


A phrase you will never hear as a blue-collar worker:  "We are strapped for operating funds, so we can't give you much, but, we will try to make life bearable here; we're in this together. Please don't give up."

Na, you'll most likely rarely hear that kind of message from the boss, you minimum wage toilers. I've lived it for 45 years.  Wish I had a "happy talk" report to give you fair readers after all those miserable years, but...., nope!!


You're most likely used to the inspirational speakers and their shticks selling you, "perennial optimism." And it's your fault if you don't present as a, "good patient."  Good patient as in someone with a happy demeanor even as they die of cancer.  In the context of a job, the whole work rubric grumbles around you, wages, benefits, nepitism, the economy, et cetera, but you merrily toil on. 


In almost 50 years of working in America and then some, I've never heard any thing even close to the opening paragraph.  Instead, business owners, government agency management, upper management, lower management, and society in general come up with a compendium of totally-unnecessary work place hell rubrics. 


One of my own favorite sayings in said blue-collar hell is, "This just isn't necessary."  Half the crap and drama at blue-collar jobs are nonsense and unnecessary. 


I am an employer's worst nightmare.  I have actually owned a business.  I've worked for an institution of 30,000 employees.  I've worked for a mom and pop business with nine employees. I've been with companies in the throes of bankruptcy.  Many of the companies I've worked for so long ago have vanished; owners and managers..., long dead.  I have four college degrees and 50 years of work experience. Rarely called in sick in those 50 years; even despite all the challenges of an aging body. I can fix equipment that should have been relegated to the junk heap years ago. I've endured the stresses of several war zones as a soldier and later as a journalist; and, I've worked in the schizophrenic world of the American health care system.  I've seen workers at their worst and their best. 


You'd think I'd be an asset to any company or entity.  Nope.  I might as well be an ape on a tire swing. 


I am a nightmare for the neo new norm work place because..., I've seen another world.  I can see problems long before they happen.  I can read managers and supervisor's petty games long before they are implemented.  I've seen it all before; sadly, I've seen the same behaviors over and over.  


These types of work places nowadays don't not want people that have seen how the greater system has worked and know how it works now.  Guys that fall into that category are just a nuisance. 

A few years ago, I bought into the go-to-college-as-an-old-guy-and-reinvent-yourself sales pitch. After four degrees, and working in Southern Wisconsin, I might as well be an ape on a tire swing.  This in addition to nearly 50 years of constant working..., often for low wages, and little reward or benefit. But none-the-less, I have accumulated a mass of work and management experience.  Reality: companies don't hire old people.  But, the higher education pimps still want their pound of flesh after you graduate.  Pay up underemployed sucker.  Colleges are after all, businesses that only marginally have their customers' best interests in mind.  Their job is to sell..., college degrees. 

So unless you want to live in your car with your cat, you go to work in some low paying jobs not yet sent to China. 

Human Resources departments once designed to protect workers and companies have for the most part collapsed in the "Great Recession."  It is the wild west.  Employees are on their own. Managers hired only because they are relatives or just plain no threat to upper management, make up rules as they go.  

The end result?  Employees just trying to get by and play the game as best they can are chewed up and spit out like a hillbilly chomping on persimmon seeds.

I've seen it all.  If you are an employer and want to make your employees grovel and languish, just keep on 'a read'n...., 

Note: This blog "Blue-collar new norm America: Dadio's handy manual to break workers' spirit" - book version Category is a work in progress. These original vignettes are being edited for book form. Go to the Cooldadiomedia Web site and the Broken Spirit Page for an ordered chronology of the book vignettes (chapters).

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