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this post was submitted on 23 Dec 2023
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Sadly, COVID and a weakened economy have pointed out just how poorly many top companies are run.
I'm going to take a shot in the dark here and clarify the sad part is that our top companies are poorly run (often showing us that the capitalism doesn't work the way it's supposed to as per ideology). And it's sad that it took a tragedy like the COVID-19 epidemic to put it in sharp bas relief.
It's not sad that high-level mismanagement of companies became visible, except maybe to those managers are going to see consequences for failures they couldn't have prevented.
I'm no fan of capitalism, but it is kinda working. These companies aren't seeing extended growth, so they are suffering. Sadly, that is being put on the workers instead of the leaders, and managers at a certain level are avoiding all blame and consequences. Internally, if you were to look at most of the tech companies that have made huge job cuts, you'll see dozens, if not hundreds of executives that were drafted from failing arms of the business to a new area entirely, days to weeks before layoffs. At both Google and Amazon, it's now basically an exodus sign for many when a VP moves from, let's say YouTube, over to Search.
It's why I really wish that the tech industry in particular was smart enough to unionize. The problem that tech faces is that many view it as a meritocracy, and they're happy to see widespread decline...as long as it doesn't affect them.
I enjoy the schadenfreude and I'm happy to play the game. Having worked in door-to-door sales, phone sales, warehouses, as a barista, bartender, gigging actor, musician, dancer, comedian, supply teacher, retail, children's birthday party magician... my office job is the least hard work I've ever done but one where I have to play the part as if it's incredibly difficult and taxing. And then go into meetings where I say, "hmmm... well if we're going to market this product... we have to really think about the market we're bringing it to." And everyone nods sagely. h If capitalism is a machine that sucks up money to the top by pretending CEOs are working hard, it's perfectly fine for me to suck money out the side by pretending being a senior manager is working hard.
I can and do work hard when I have to, but also, American culture is so fucked that people genuinely think it's better to seem like you're doing something than actually doing something