Apr 23, 2009

Some Scattered Thoughts

It's funny how I have these words in sound in my mind, but I can't write them down, because I have not freezing idea about how should I. Then the word itself scrambles in my head and I can't recover it. Such is the word "gibberish", which I had to google to get right. Dude, what would I do without my reliable search engines. Then again, what I do with them is not enough for them, isn't it? For those who work at an office, such as myself, you probably have received that mouthwatering presentation with pictures about what life is at Google, what they call "office environment", probably thought to yourselves "all those fucking motherfuckers. Why can't it be me? Wonder if they need a [insert your profession]. I could go there. I could definitively use some time on [insert your favorite feature]." Fancy food at the caffeteria, pool tables, slides, relax-rooms... you name it.

Maybe that's all still on, but when you read that Yahoo! is laying off people, you look around your battered office, your "ergonomical" chair that gives you more headaches that the folding chair your use at the dingy, smelly caffeteria to which you are already used to drag yourself to somehow sniff up your meager, homemade lunch and sit for 45 minutes or less (if you have to return to the office and brush your teeth) laughing like crazy on the jokes of your colleages, or pouring your liver out talking and hearing about "what the HEADS did or said now". It doesn't look so bad now. At least you still have a job, your job, and even of it's crappy and you wish evers day to be somewhere else, working something more fulfilling, surrounded by less assholes and more people who actually has an idea about what they should do and how should they behave with their peers. At least you have a job. You look at those idillic pictures and idillic workplaces and work envitonments, and the cold runs down your back. They flew so high and they are falling now. The Icarus tragedy. It's amazing how people in misery can bond so tight and look out for each other, care so much and pay so much attention. The shitier the job, the tighter the relationship among the people. Well, my experience at least. Do Google and Yahoo! workers have the same?

World crisis is taking its toll all over the place, smacking sensitive places: jobs. Who are being laid off? It wouldn't surprise me that it's the lower ranges that are being decimated by the crisis. I always wondered why companies ain't more practical and slash the higher heads. Those make the more money, so by firing a few you could save a lot. Or don't fire them, simply cut their income. The lower ranks do the job for which all the others are paid, why bringing the ax to them? Because the ones deciding that the lay offs are neaded are the HEADS and they would never take the ax to their own necks. Stupid, really, because they may save their jobs, but they are fucking up the enterprise. Why would you need the decision makers when there's nothing to make decisions on? A Head would NEVER roll up it's sleeves and do what the lower ranks used to do. That's "serf-job", and they don't do "serf".

Think for a moment: they need to save costs. The lay off X thousand workers, and it's up to the rest to cover for them. Bosses remain. The more lay offs the more work to the remaining, thining layer of ants. Productivity takes a nose-dive. Company "struggles" (makes the ants work harder, lays off some more) and then either crumbles or the crisis ends and people starts buying again (because someone had to hire them or they won't have any money to buy), and they can get on their feet and hire again, get back to normal. If companies would lay off bosses and keep the ants, they could make a serious expense cut, keep the productivity up, and I'm sure bosses have plenty of secretaries and assistants to do the thinking for the laid off heads as well. The productivity would remain and probably the company wouldn't have to "struggle" so much, because there where also more people out there with jobs, and so with money to buy their goods.

Then again, unlike economics, business is not about rational, but about profit. The profit of the Heads.

1 comment:

Storm Bunny said...

Soy de la idea que las sillas "ergonómicas" que tenemos en la oficina están prohibidas por la Convención de Ginebra. Fijo las usaban en Guantánamo.