AKA "How Gen Y is Completely, Hopelessly and Totally Screwed" Part 5.
There are, however, some important observations about how the private sector and corporate America has become so impaired due to the people under it's employ that NOTHING can get done, and certainly, there's no hope it will "save" the country. Instead of productivity, we worry about "corporate social responsibility." Instead of efficiency and profit, we worry about the customer's feelings. And dare any of you young go getters come up with an idea or innovation that may make/save millions, you will be disciplined.
Enjoy the decline!
Innovation has been squelched for a long, long time. My dad was employed by AT&T long distance. When things broke, he could fix them. Instead of crating and shipping huge relay racks or other equipment, my dad would just turn a screwdriver and fix them.
ReplyDeleteThe CWA union screamed foul, said he was taking jobs away from their repair team. And that was the end of it for him. He had no other desire to work once he was so bitterly rewarded for saving them thousands and thousands of dollars. Retired soon afterward.
I've had three bosses so far and all of them have been Gen-Xers. They definitely did not give a shit about "corporate responsibility", what they cared about was making their business successful and earning a lot of money. I'm a Millennial, by the way, and glad I've never had to work for either a Boomer or around a union.
ReplyDeleteThose five steps are great -- I'd figured this out around ten years ago at my job, when I learned (the hard way) genuine innovation is the quickest way to get bitch-slapped if not fired.
ReplyDeleteSo, I buzzed along, doing as little as possible, working from home, and developed a huge freelance business on the side. Eventually I was able to leave the job.
American business is so screwed up by petty management and people who never quite grew up it's amazing anything gets done at all. Then there's the HR crew, with its strangling politically correct rules.
One of the "innovations" I suggested a half decade ago, the "pay wall" for newspapers, is now the norm. Yet it's been instituted far too late to matter. Goodbye, America!
-- Days of Broken Arrows
I also meant to ask: can you post Part 6 of this video series? I've watched the whole thing and think you'd do everyone a service if you put this all out. Really informative stuff.
ReplyDelete-- Days of Broken Arrows
I'd go as far as proposing the "Baby Boomer killer strangelet theory", that you can produce a divergent change that not only collapses jobs within a company, but also collapses entire sectors along with the companies that serviced them.
ReplyDeleteThe Boomers live in fear of the "killer strangelet" that swallows up everything they ever knew.
Fortunately, it starts out as a localised effect that you can build through innovation, rather than iteration. That makes this doubly strange to them ...