Economy may be recovering but …
Usually everyone at work is excited when Friday arrives — a much welcomed break from the craziness of work, a few days to regain some sanity, and we’re ready for Monday’s helping of management-by-chaos. Last Friday was a little different when an emergency plant-wide meeting quickly curtailed our excitement. We learned that some of us would have pay cuts while others would be working one or two days less per week. Not because the economy was bad or because we couldn’t pay the business loans to the banks. No, that was all covered. What happened was the result of banking greed and bad planning by our leaders. Our financial geniuses at the top had promised the banks that we would sell more stuff in December than we actually will. Missing that sales goal means that the banks could triple the interest rate of the loans (which makes me wonder if a crook is simply a banker without an office). Actually, our sales were right on target for this time of year. In fact, any high school student could look at the past 10 years of sales and see that the numbers are high during spring and summer and low during fall and winter. It’s not rocket surgery or brain science.
So the company missed their fantasy income by almost half a million dollars. Judging by the hastily arranged meetings, our fearless leaders didn’t realize the mistake until last Thursday. Then, panic ensued among the powers-that-be. To make up the $500,000, they quickly decided that we should cut our pay and hours to give them almost $50,000 in savings. OOOOOOOooooooo! That’ll satisfy those mean ol’ bankers.
Of course, the exercise did provide us some valuable lessons about our employer. When management announced who would have their hours cut and by what amount, it was obvious that company leaders have not a clue about who is critical to the operation of their business. When they told us that we would have to work harder, we realized that they don’t know or care about the tremendous effort of unpaid overtime, the multiple jobs that each of us have had to take on and numerous sacrifices we’ve already made to help keep the business going.
If anyone had doubts about leaving, this is no longer the case. I believe I am watching the end-of-days drama of a company as it is run by bean counters and sales instead of by principled business leaders. The countdown begins….
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I understand your disappointment. Still you have to be sure that there is another job waiting for you before you quit. Take care. Josh
Took me time to read all the comments, but I enjoyed the article.
It is a sad fact of life that we live in times when companies are run by people straight out of business school who think you can run a company by fiddling with figures on bits of paper rather than understanding how things are made or services delivered.
Since the administration gave banks the bailout, some very unfortunate deals have been struck by the banks.
The banks have taken the bailout money, used it to buy from the Fed. Taken the spread earnings, which is 2.75%, and paid down the TARP money, thus allowing the banks to grant huge bonuses again to their executives as well as show a positive earnings balance this year.
Also, by making a profit based on a guaranteed spread from the Fed, the banks no longer have to take the risk of making loans to businesses or individuals.
So the banks are in the middle, making a virtually guaranteed spread by borrowing from the Fed (backed by the US tax payer), not lending to the public, and paying off TARP with Fed money, thus allowing them to award big bonuses to their executives.
It’s easy to show a profit when one receives hundreds of billions of dollars from the very tax payers that the banks will not lend money to.
And, unfortunately, Tim Geithner wasn’t experienced enough to put the tax payers anywhere near the top in his negotiations either with Wall Street investment houses or banks. He just didn’t know how the game is played by the big boys. That will hurt us tax payers for decades to come. We really shouldn’t have turned out complex country over to this administration.
I asked one young black woman I know how she felt about Obama at this point. She said, “He’s cute but a disaster as President. Just a lawyer who loves black people. But, not a very skilled person when it comes to understanding money.”
I suppose that sums up a lot of things.
Joan
ToysPeriod is a leading online shop specializing in lego sets and model railroad equipment.
Wasn’t that money suppose to “recapitalize” the bank…good job bernanke? Funny how 70% went in bankers pockets. How about pass a law stripping them of all their bonuses for 3 years!
I wish Bernanke & Co. would provide a clue by what the Fed. means when they say, “the forseeable future…” 6-months? 1-year? 2-years? My 85-YO Father is desperately struggling now due to the horrible interest rates being offered on secure FDIC insured CD accounts. Are you going to tell an 85-YO man he needs to risk his entire life-savings via the highly volatile bond/stock markets? I don’t think so…At least not my Father…My Father won’t even consider a fixed income annuity & advised me he’d be happy if he could at least lock in a 5-Year CD @ 4.00%, but there’s just no such FDIC insured institution offering such a rate. The best I’ve seen thus far is 3.63% @ DiscoverBank.Com, but even that’s for 10- vs. 5-Years. It would be ludicrous to lock his life savings in for that long, at such a dismal rate.
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