Tuesday, September 18, 2007

To My Former Bosses

What's great is I was informed that some of my former bosses do indeed read Cappy Cap.

So this one is for you guys (you gray haired, middle aged, numb skull schmutzes);

I

TOLD

YOU

SO!

10 comments:

Able Archer said...

It seems that they will permanently remain the in category of "former boss", given the way you are treating them now.

Captain Capitalism said...

Even if I wanted to go back and work for them, I couldn't. Most of them have been fired or their companies have gone bankrupt.

Think of it as burning a bridge to a sinking island.

Ed Kohler said...

What's the economic benfit of public airing of work grudges?

It doesn't seem like a resume builder to me, assuming you're living a resume dependent lifestyle.

Captain Capitalism said...

No, you make a good point Ed, but (and this will shock you coming from me) sometimes it calls for foregoing your "resume" when there is such an egregious abuse by corrupt people that you have to point it out. I look at what a wreck this housing crash has become and how much it has and will cost the American people (not to mention foreign countries invested in these CDO's as well) that out of the benefit for the public good you should mock and ridicule those responsible for such a ruinous event.

Forget the subprime borrowers who shouldn't have been loaned money in the first place, I'm talking about these banks and developers who were so greedy to line their wallets with commissions and money that they didn't even bother to do an absorption study and just went ahead and approved developments and deals that flooded the market with a gluttonous level of housing.

It would be all fine and well if the damage was just contained to the bankers and developers who were stupid enough to engage in such idiocy, but they've now effectively affected all homeowners by flooding the market with housing, thereby decreasing the value of people's homes and thus their net worth, not to mention putting us all at a greater risk of recession.

The absolute minimum I can do is mock these people, if not report them to the banking regulators. And there REALLY isn't any loss of a career there. These companies and firms are going bankrupt by the dozen. And it's not like they're hiring. If anything my record of warning against a housing bubble as documented on this blog will show companies with any ounce of integrity and desire to run a good business that I'm damn good at predicting the economy.

Anonymous said...

You are right, your employer was wrong, and on top of that they were evil, according to you.

You wouldn't post my more blunt comment, but ask yourself, if you were interviewing yourself for a job and read this kind of attitude, would you hire yourself? I think you would think the same of yourself as you think of your former bosses.

Captain Capitalism said...

Fortunately (very fortunately) I am in the employ of people who actually value my blunt opinion, but yes, if I were as Ed put it "resume dependent" yeah, I'd be shooting myself in the foot.

That being said, don't you ever yearn to be Lester Bernham from "American Beauty?" To just tell your boss off, and just be intellectually free? My best job was putting in retaining walls in Wisconsin. No politics, no BS, no "massage these figures" just "say, that's a good job on that retaining wall." Or "that sod was laid nice."

Seriously though the more I've thought about this, the better an idea I think it is. If employees were allowed to just rip apart their bosses and tell them to shove it and why the system/company/etc. isn't working, or go over their head, such a blunt exchange would result in companies being more efficiently managed. Imagine if the standard employee/employer relationship allowed the employee to rip apart the boss and give them "quarterly evals". The efficiency and labor productivity that would result from that would be insane. I often find us in the US like the US auto industry mocking and ignoring Dewey back in the 50's.

Besides which, when I die, I don't want to be known as the corporate cog nobody that did what he was told, even though he knew it was wrong. I want to be Lester Berham.

Anonymous said...

You also have to consider that many employees are even more stupid than their bosses. In this case, productivity would go down if bosses had to listen to their evaluations and advices...

Captain Capitalism said...

Maybe, depends on the company. I've only worked at a handful where the boss/es were good leaders and had their act together. The majority, seriously though, the employees would have done a better job. Then again, it could just be the industry I'm in.

Anonymous said...

Seriously, as smart as you are, you realy, really miss how a company gels together to become a competitive force. This requires everyone...executives, managers, employees to give their all...Now what motivates them to give there all?

What makes a winning team is the same in business as in sport..it is the sense that everyone is in it together...and it's not that Super bowl bound teams have the right to tell the coach and the owner that (s)he doesn't know #*it!

There are smart people who may have good ideas, but who damage the winning spirtit of a winning team...these need to stay on the sidelines and whisper their thoughts into the ear of a better leader who decides how or whether to adopt this notion......

Maybe it's just that you have never played for or worked for a winning team that you don't know what really winning is like???

Captain Capitalism said...

I'll go with that, I agree. But agree with me then that if the quarterback is throwing the ball in the other direction then at least I have the right to pipe up? Or, maybe a better analogy would be if the quarterback is using steroids and gambling on games I at least should maybe consider reporting them to the authorities? I mean I know there's office politics, that will never change, but I'm talking outright fraud and criminal negligence.