Is Capitalism Preparing to Bury Itself?

[romp]

Where is Henry Ford when you need him?

You may remember Henry -- the ruthless industrialist who nonetheless refused to be hobbled by suicidal ideology when it came to doing business. He realized as his workers cranked thousands of new cars off the assembly line that none of those workers would likely ever own one, because he didn't pay them enough

Comments

[azetburcaptain]

csb but in communist Romania some factories had daycares, company outings and everything. It's interesting that in the USA there have been people moving in similar directions.

[romp]

There's a list of reasons for in-house childcare with all these proven benefits. It even saves money!

But few places will do it. Because they don't have to or because they feel it would "reward" women who have children (fools they!). We're left with gov'ts paying women minimum wage to go to jobs and be away from their kids for 9+ hours *and* paying for those kids to be in childcare.

I had someone in HR tell me that a parent doesn't just have emergency childcare, she also has emergency childcare to cover than emergency childcare. So there's no way an employee can't show up for work because of her kids! I couldn't think of anything to say, just stared at her.

[romp]

It's the same mentality that doesn't want us to call in sick even though working sick means we get to pass on the bug to our coworkers and the public AND we can be sick for a week instead of kick it early with a day in bed.

But they start with a mindset that the staff are poised to screw the company over at a moment's notice. It's so classic.

[louisadkins]

I recall a study that found that investors were making more money jumping from company to company every 5 years (and running each in company in to the ground by maximizing for short term profit over company survival) over investing in a company who was looking at long-term profits. The spring-boarding allows for the investor to always be feasting on their host company, and when the host dies they move on to infect other companies.

[bellonia]

Cool story, bro. I had strep throat and worked in a call-center at one point. I attempted to call in and wheeze that I couldn't come in that day b/c hello, strep throat. My supervisor told me if I missed that particular shift, I'd be fired b/c I should have called the day before (nvm that for me, strep goes from a cold to wait, I can't talk D: overnight). And, no insurance = no doctor's note... Out of our center of 25 people, 4 came down with strep in the week after, and a straggler caught it from another co-worker. I felt so bad but I couldn't afford to lose my job.

[azetburcaptain]

LOL WHAT @ their reasoning, tbh. Irrational.

Whoa... emergency backup for emergency childcare. That's... provided by the company? If so... that's nice!

[romp]

No, not provided by the company. It's part of a management vs. staff mentality which is infuriating because the staff ARE the company as far as the customers are concerned. And it's so cliched! You'd think they'd be embarrassed for that reason. We're just a bunch of people wanting to do the right thing FFS.

[ecrivais]

ugh, I wish I could be shocked by that reasoning, but I'm not, at all. I have had to go into work with 102ºF fevers and when my sales weren't good that day, I have been lectured about "forgetting about your problems"

I mean, really? One time my BOSS saw how sick I was (I could barely speak coherently) and was like "Ok I'm leaving, don't call me." Then I was left alone for 5 hours. With a fever.

Thank God that bitch was fired less than two months afterward.

[erunamiryene]

NGL, I've got about three backups for my childcare because I CANNOT afford to lose this job. It's ~awesome.

The ONLY place I haven't had to worry about this is in the goddamn military. I call in, my kid is sick, they go "okay, don't get sick, call me and tell me what's going on tomorrow" And that's it. The only stupid part was if *I* got sick, I had to drag my sick ass onto base and go to medical to get a piece of paper saying "yep, she's sick" before I could go back home and pass out. /eyeroll

[gundamtsubasa]

Ahh yes. I remember that very well. I had a 30 minute drive to base and was sick to the point of being delirious. Going in for 3 minutes to see my corpsman to prove that I was sick and then driving back made for an interesting morning.