Corporate Shenanigans
My dear wife has to go in early today to hear an announcement from her employer. A huge corporation that sells a completely unnecessary and unhealthy product that uses prodigious amounts of water in production and an equal amount of fuel to ship their shit over the globe.
It’s been a bone of contention for the past five years, but she’s now seeing the light about how corporations really work. They’re not benign, especially large, multi-nationals, and they more or less uniformly treat people extremely poorly.
I’m sure the announcement will be a lot of “rah rah” shit, where the corporate communication and marketing departments, known as propaganda to thinking people, will say something basically like this:
“Thank you for joining us today. It’s a wonderful day at Super Big Corporation That Sells a Worthless Product, as we announce the marriage of three great organizations. I know many of you have questions about how the new and improved Super Big Corporation That Sells A Worthless Product will operate, and we’re here today to answer any questions and discuss this exciting new merger.”
What they should really say is this:
“Thank you for joining us today. It’s a wonderful day at Super Big Corporation That Sells a Worthless Product, as we announce the cannibalization of two other companies. I know many of you are wondering if you’re going to get whacked, and we’re here today to dance around that question and focus more on how wonderful we are and how we plan on selling more shit to more people.”
Questions about job loss are reframed with diction like “…the purchase will obviously mean there may be some realignment of personnel as we all work together to streamline our processes and prepare the company to successfully compete in today’s challenging marketplace.”
They’ll obfuscate at great length about exciting new roles without explaining that my wife’s role, and others like her, will probably be to pack their shit and go home. They’ll be escorted out the door by a large man with a gun on his hip and have their boxes searched. Can’t have people stealing paperclips or scissors, goddamnit!
A Vice President that works with my wife once told her that their product was “critical” to people. Huh? Since when is crap food critical to people? It’s comical, because he really believes it. This is the same man that terrorized her for two hours one day during a ruthless interrogation about vacation pay that the Human Resources Department wanted to pay her. He asked her questions like “What do you do with your money anyway?” “Do you really need a job,” implying she had a successful husband and should go home and be a good housewife.
Which brings me to another point, use of the term “Human Resources.” It’s one of the creepiest things corporations have ever created. A term that basically equates human beings with some sort of replaceable item in the production line. We’re about as important as lug nuts, washers or wheels on the conveyor belt.
And at the end of the day, that’s the ugly truth about corporations. You, the worker that gave many years of your life and tried to be a loyal employee, are replaceable. Ultimately, there’s no loyalty to you. The only thing that matters is a maniacal focus on the holy grail, returning share holder value, which almost always means devaluing humans in the process.