This page belongs to:
Matt Ehrmann
summary of things to come.
alienation in the workplace.
My topic is alienation in the workplace. This is not just physical alienation
which I speak of, but in some cases, an alienation of human rights. The
following is an outline with some examples of alienation, and a few brief
comments. Coffee will be served directly following.
1) What a crappy job takes away from a person.
A. Satisfaction of completion. If a worker is just a cog in the machine,
he or she would not be able to look at the finished product and say "hey,
I made that. The most this worker could say would be,"hey, I sewed
that one button on that shirt. Four thousand times." Pride is important
to people, and feeling unproductive can damage that pride, even though the
workers are not the ones who imposed these conditions upon themselves.
B. The camaraderie one experiences in the workplace. If you work at
Mcdonalds, there would not be much time to enjoy the company of your co-workers,
and still respond to the series of dings and buzzes reminding you that every
second counts. The hamburger game is no joke, kid. It used to be that one
would come into work, have a cup of coffee, chat with the guys (or girls),
and ease pleasantly into the workday. Now one must come in, clock in, and
start working until they take their ten minute break four hours later.
C. Natural human conversation and interaction. If you have a job where
time is a major factor, there is obviously no time to shoot the shit with
the customer. I noticed this especially in Garson's chapter about airline
reservation agents. When the phone rings on their end, the clock starts.
Pick it up within 12 seconds, act cheery, get the customer to drop some
cash, and get off the phone, in two minutes or less. The whole conversation
is basically scripted. It is a prepackaged action. Were I an employee, I
would have reservations about not giving the customer all the help and information
they needed, while still trying to get them to spend their money. It is
not fair to ask workers to compromise themselves or their ethics in the
name of efficiency.
D. If you work at an idiot-proof job, people will think you are an idiot,
along with all of your dope smoking, idiot co workers. If someone is standing
at a cash register with no numbers, but little pictures of hamburgers and
drinks, no matter how smart they are, people will not give them the respect
they deserve. Mcdonalds does not have a different cash register for their
smart employees, or name tags that say "Hi, I'm Bob. I graduated from
college, and am working here because of a depressed job market." The
company has no interest in making it a better place to work. They have no
interest in making their employees feel better. They do know, however, that
they will never run out idiots to hire.
E. How a bad job can take over your life. When Mr. low paid comes home
at night, he will be tired, irritable, and pissed at the various forces
which have him trapped. Since he cannot change his situation, his anger
will be released in other ways. These ways could include blowing up at wife,
kids, roommates, etc. He is so frustrated, that it does not occur to him
that these people have nothing to do with his situation. His low paying
job has thus alienated him from his right to have a normal life outside
of work, and normal human interaction with those he sees on his free time.
When he is at work, he thinks about leaving. When he is off, he can only
dread going back. Bad jobs also lead to drinking and drugs. If one hates
their job, they will want to do whatever they can to forget about it the
minute they possibly can. Leave work, go to the bar, bitch about life, go
to sleep. Next morning, back to work. Some people probably blow their whole
paycheck on ways to forget their job, thus defeating the point of working
altogether.
2) The desire to right vs. the duty to be efficient.
1986: "The doctor would like for you to stay for a week or so, just
so we can keep an eye on your recuperation"
Result: Patient stays until doctor releases them.
1996: "The doctor would like to run these particular tests on you.
It's probably nothing, but better safe than sorry."
Result: The HMO only allows you to stay for two days for this procedure.
Your insurance will not cover those tests. If you want them, you will have
to pay for them. Doctors will be penalized if they disobey the insurance
companys lists of ailment-treatment rules.
Health care is now being run by the insurance companies, thus compromising
care for profit. Medical decisions should be made by a doctor who is confident
that the hospital will back whatever diagnosis he comes to. Insurance companies
are alienating health care professionals from their duty to give the most
thorough care they can. This is what they were trained to do in med school.
Compromised care goes against the Hippocratic oath, which every health care
professional has taken. It must be very frustrating to have those who know
less than you controlling your actions, especially regarding something as
important as peopleºs lives
Alienation from the true importance of things.
Large corporations rarely value people. The companies will try and find
out all their is to know about you, but only to find the most effective
way to get advertising of some sort in your hands. They are like private
detectives, determined to find a way to get to you, somehow. If you are
home all day, some data gathering service probably knows this, thus making
you a target for telemarketing. If you are a TV head, you will see numerous
avenues in which to part with your money, right in your own living room.
There should be a law against trying to sell people things which they donºt
need, and didnt ask for in the first place. Punishable by death with a spoon.
Stop thief! How corporate sponsorships have taken the glory out of sports.
Wander back to 92 for a minute, would you? The Dream Teamæ have just
swept the Olympics, undefeated, bringing a tremendous amount of national
pride to us folks in the states. Spirits were high, but after examining
the dirty nature of things to come, maybe it was just the athletes who were.
The presentation of the gold medal for excellence in athletics is without
a doubt the highest honor that can be bestowed on an athlete. One would
think that someone about to get this award would be in a state of unbelievable
glee, but this was not so. The plot thickens
The Beaverton Connection
It was learned that Reebok had paid a considerable sum to have their warm-up
suits on the athletes when they accepted their medals, and since many of
the members of the dream team were sponsored by Nike, this was not good
news. Instead of just wearing the suits, these players, backed by Nike,
caused a very childish scene. The arguing went back and forth, and finally
it was decided by the Nike players that while they had to wear these warm-up
suits, their was nothing stopping them from casually dangling an arm in
front of the Reebok logo while on the stand. Very 3rd grade. Heaven forbid
that somebody might actually see Michael Jordan with something that was
not a selling point. I feel that these men unknowingly robbed themselves
of the glory of being the best, and were encouraged to do so by sponsors
who felt that the solar system would collapse if their corporate logo was
not present at this hallowed event. It is obvious where the priorities lie.
What these companies are doing is shifting the importance from the event
to the accompanying product. Bud Bowl is a prime example. They turned a
beer ad into a sensational festival of graphics and hype, which was visually
more exciting than the Super Bowl itself. The companies do not respect you
enough to just let you watch the game. They have to get you however they
can, which could be hyping up a fictional football game between beer bottles.
Alienation from the true importance of things is not reserved for advertisers,
however. Take a look at any modern political race for office. In this, the
era of television, politics has been reduced to mudslinging. Bill Clinton
smoked pot once. I was hearing this before I ever heard anything about his
political stance. The goal of the modern candidate is to create enough moral
question in the minds of the voters to disqualify their opponent, while
hyping up their own values.{read"bullshit"}
Enough
Alienation in the workplace. What needs to be done about it will never be
done unless modern business theory does a Dukes of Hazardesque 180 degree
turn. The way companies are run affords no luxuries for employees. I am
not trying to generalize, however. Iºm sure there are a few companies
who really do care, but not many. In the fast paced world of big biz, it
is all about cost cutting, deskilling, and increasing production. If this
means you pay workers less, then that is just an unfortunateæ necessity.
I went to the Nike world headquarters last Tuesday, and talked to one of
their production employees. He said that Nike will no longer be making shoes
in China, because the workers they have been exploiting for so long have
finally wisened up, and refuse to work for what Nike was paying them. They
are moving factories to places like Vietnam, and Bali. There are no morals
in business anymore. You just have to be willing to do what the other guy
wont, which isn't much anymore. {See Outsourcing &
Nike}
Some sites of interest to this issue...
Disgruntled
poor
treatment of workers
Funny Disgruntled postal
worker page
Anti-Work
Comics and images Page
Created by ehrmann@lclark.edu
Updated: 1-Aug-95
Expires: 1-Dec-99