Posted on 04/07/2007 7:25:14 PM PDT by Vince Ferrer
I notice no sources listed?
I’ll check with him and freepmail you.
T
There are other cultures I work with that while they are very smart, simply cannot think outside a box.
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I would like to see management able to think outside a box! I am semi-retired now and only work part-time but I see old equipment being repaired for the same reason over and over and over. Nobody ever looks for a more permanent solution, one problem in particular I look at and I am sure I could make a change that would stop the breakdowns and do it in a short time with very little expense but nobody seems interested. Meanwhile some of the changes that ARE made just create even more problems and all the old hands walk around muttering and trying to figure out what idiot came up with that. In one case a much needed turntable was finally installed but it was obviously not built nearly strong enough for the weight involved, I looked at it in a crate and commented that it would not work and more than a year after installation it still gives trouble. At first it would not work four hours without problems, after months of figuring out modifications it has been beefed up to the point that it will ALMOST work reliably now but will never be what it should have been. When an honest mechanic can look at something and see that it is not up to the job why can’t an engineer see it? And what kind of financial controller lets people buy cheap equipment and then spend money working on it every week as long as it is in use? A lot of this stuff is not exactly rocket science, my father with his eighth-grade education could have done better than some of what I see going on.
How long until some perverse form of slavery is adopted in those backwaters of UN ignored humanity.
If the killing machines can slaughter with impunity and human traffickers enslave without worry, why can't they sell labor in kind to the highest bidding multinational consortiums?...........
The answer is in the arcane rules of accounting used by businesses, and the labrynthine tax laws in place in the United States. Oh, and internal politics.
At the broad brush level, there are two types of money in companies--capitalization and expense. For each type of money, there are two factors influencing how it is seen--taxation and income reports for investors.
There is also the matter of "the real world" but it is often a minor consideration at best.
Most companies prefer to run with as much debt as possible, to lower taxes, and to maximize the return on invested capital, to prop up the stock price, which makes executives rich.
But the debt is real, and interest has to be paid. And this is OK when the economy is doing well. But when the economy heats up too much, two things happen. First, the Federal Reserve raises the interest rate, so debt becomes more expensive. And if a company has to renew loans, they have to pay more interest. Goodbye, cash flow. And this happens just before the interest rates slow down the economy, so that the company has less money coming in.
So the answer? Fire people. They cost money.
The other part is capitalization vs. expense, which affects how things look in the financial statements. Anything which is a fixed expense (permanent employees) is bad. Anything which is temporary, or which can be written off over time, (leases of equipment, contractors, depreciation) is good.
So there is often a perverse incentive to buy cheap crap and have temps work on it--because the financial appearances are more important than whether or not the actual work ever gets done. Marketers and others are trained to lie their way aournd that kind of problem. But when it comes to executives' bonuses, NOTHING must stand in the way of that.
Cheers!
Thanks. My pastor is from Lagos and he goes back there often for businesse reasons. I would just like some background on the situation over there.
This is why no one with any sense will work at a public company in a non-executive position. The smart guys are doctors, lawyers, or have their own business. The large corporations will get the dregs, and then wonder why they have so many problems.
Of course, if companies are really stuck, they can always hire expensive contractors to do the work.
No, but as I noted previously, I work in a multinational company with people from all over the world. This fits with what my Indian and Chinese friends are telling me.
“What makes you think I’m bitter about working evenings and weekends trying to clean up after the marketers thinking outside the box?:-(”
I’m sure your experience is unique. </sarcasm.
;-)
“The large corporations will get the dregs”
So, what do you do for a living?
Sincerely,
Mr. Dregs
You won't find much political correctness is a real semiconductor physics book, or a introductory digital logic textbook.
Engineers are not being bred with that garbage....they don't have time for it in the classroom.
Just fyi, my young life is long ago. I’m a lot closer to 60 than 30, FRiend.
I DID suck it up, and left where I was freezing AND starving to death to go where I would just starve. I got through, but I have nothing but contempt for those who deny that the “downsizing, rightsizing and undersizing” fad of the 80’s and 90’s ruined a lot of lives, and are a major cause of the problems we now face.
Where I currently work is realizing now that all those “extraneous bodies” that were floating around were supposed to be happy getting one or two shifts a month, and stay on call until one of the reduced positions became available, at a lower rate than they originally hired on for. They all left, and no-one was stupid enough to apply for those jobs. Now we can’t find anyone to come in for relief work, and there’s an awful lot of overtime going on, just to cover vacations. We’ve also got 3 retirements to deal with in the next 14 months, and we don’t have enough part timers to fill the positions already available.
That to me is what this article is about. These same folks who screwed a large part of my generation over are now trying to do the same to those they hired to displace us.
Like I said earlier, I hope their children face the same challenges forced upon us. We eventually prevailed, but then we had a far better (though far from great) public education system than what is available today. I did my lemonade thing. I just couldn’t afford any sugar to sweeten up my attitude. ;)
With such hugh numbers, could this get series?
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