“
God is not an employer looking for employees. He is an Eagle looking for people who will take refuge under his wings. He is looking for people who will leave father and mother and homeland or anything else that may hold them back from a life of love under the wings of Jesus.
”
”
John Piper (A Sweet and Bitter Providence: Sex, Race, and the Sovereignty of God)
“
Resources are hired to give results, not reasons.
”
”
Amit Kalantri (Wealth of Words)
“
12% of employees eat because they are hungry. 88% of employees eat because it is 1 o’clock.
”
”
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
“
When you are unemployed, weekends are seven days long.
”
”
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
“
Mental illness" is among the most stigmatized of categories.' People are ashamed of being mentally ill. They fear disclosing their condition to their friends and confidants-and certainly to their employers.
”
”
Elyn R. Saks (Refusing Care: Forced Treatment and the Rights of the Mentally Ill)
“
Provisional Definition 2: a bullshit job is a form of employment that is so completely pointless, unnecessary, or pernicious that even the employee cannot justify its existence
”
”
David Graeber (Bullshit Jobs: A Theory)
“
Somebody is born.
Somebody goes to school.
Somebody learns to conform.
Somebody types a CV.
Somebody gets a job.
Somebody follows orders.
Somebody gets a golden watch.
And then, eventually,
Somebody dies.
And, a Nobody is buried.
”
”
Mokokoma Mokhonoana (The Confessions of a Misfit)
“
Belonging to the working class is the economy’s punishment for those who did what they were told to do in class.
”
”
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
“
Schooling is a manufacturing process whereby the raw material called curious boys is turned into products called obedient men.
”
”
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
“
73. ...There is no law that says we have to go to work every day and follow our employer’s orders. Legally there is nothing to prevent us from going to live in the wild like primitive people or from going into business for ourselves. But in practice there is very little wild country left, and there is room in the economy for only a limited number of small business owners. Hence most of us can survive only as someone else’s employee.
”
”
Theodore J. Kaczynski (Industrial Society and Its Future)
“
When unions get higher wages for their members by restricting entry into an occupation, those higher wages are at the expense of other workers who find their opportunities reduced. When government pays its employees higher wages, those higher wages are at the expense of the taxpayer. But when workers get higher wages and better working conditions through the free market, when they get raises by firm competing with one another for the best workers, by workers competing with one another for the best jobs, those higher wages are at nobody's expense. They can only come from higher productivity, greater capital investment, more widely diffused skills. The whole pie is bigger - there's more for the worker, but there's also more for the employer, the investor, the consumer, and even the tax collector.
That's the way the free market system distributes the fruits of economic progress among all people. That's the secret of the enormous improvements in the conditions of the working person over the past two centuries.
”
”
Milton Friedman (Free to Choose: A Personal Statement)
“
Employers are at their happiest on Mondays. Employees are at their happiest on Fridays.
”
”
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
“
An education system is best belittled when the so-called educated gets hired by a company that’s owned by a so-called dropout.
”
”
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
“
The housewife is an unpaid worker in her husband's house in return for the security of being a permanent employee: hers is the reductio ad absurdum of the employee who accepts a lower wage in return for permanence of his employment. But the lowest paid employees can be and are laid off, and so are wives. They have no savings, no skills which they can bargain with elsewhere, and they must bear the stigma of having been sacked.
”
”
Germaine Greer (The Female Eunuch)
“
The office’ is a cemetery of dreams.
”
”
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
“
For their holidays: the rich go see the world; the poor go see their parents.
”
”
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
“
If working-hours were natural, then employed men would only get erections between 5 p.m. and 9 a.m. … during the week.
”
”
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
“
Once employed, the employed's friends are reduced to creatures that he only sees when he has a new problem, or, something new to show off.
”
”
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
“
Literacy makes man a victim of advertising. Education makes him a victim of employment.
”
”
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
“
The employed are punished by having to do what they do not love. The self-employed are punished by the opposite.
”
”
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
“
In some cases, you can tell how somebody is being treated by their own boss from the way they are treating someone to whom they are a boss.
”
”
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
“
He often said he had to be a writer because he wasn't good at anything else. He was not good at being an employee. Back in the mid-1950's, he was employed for Sports Illustrated, briefly. He reported back to work, was asked to write a short piece on a racehorse that jumped over a fence and tried to run away. Kurt stared at the blank piece of paper all morning and then typed, "The horse jumped over the fucking fence," and walked out, self-employed again.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Armageddon in Retrospect)
“
A good manager is more eager to compliment peoples strengths than they are to criticize their weaknesses.
”
”
Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr.
“
Weekends are an employee’s parole.
”
”
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
“
An employee is sheep. His employer is the shepherd. His salary is grass.
”
”
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
“
It's good to celebrate the value your business adds. Every employee in the business should celebrate the value the business adds. What you celebrate, you give life to.
At Mayflower-Plymouth, we're here to help your business figure this out, and to provide holistic solutions.
”
”
Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr.
“
Providing employment is the best form of social service, as it serves you, others, your country, your world - the entire society.
”
”
Amit Kalantri
“
A job interview is a competition won by those who are qualified the most, and, those who are willing to be payed the least.
”
”
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
“
To be enslaved then, you needed to be ignorant. To be enslaved today, you need to be knowledgeable.
”
”
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
“
Retirement is a stage where an employer discards an employee that he cannot exploit further.
”
”
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
“
Employment frees man from the nightmare of unemployment, while it chains him to his employer’s dream.
”
”
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
“
फिसको पैसा जम्मा भएको दिन मैले पहिलोपल्ट एक बोतल जुस किने र आँशुसँगै पिएँ ।
”
”
Sanu Sharma (एकादेशमा [Ekadeshma])
“
सातै दिन केवल पानीले पाउरोटी निलेर म अठार-बीस घन्टा, भेटे जति काममा खटिन थालेँ ।
”
”
Sanu Sharma (एकादेशमा [Ekadeshma])
“
दश वर्षदेखि म यो बिरानो देशमा रगत र पसिना बेचिरहेकोछु ।
”
”
Sanu Sharma (एकादेशमा [Ekadeshma])
“
I hired a counterfeiter the other day. I told him, “As for your salary, how much you make is really up to you.” I love a business model where the employee pays the employer.
”
”
Jarod Kintz (This Book is Not for Sale)
“
Employment is the exploitation of the employer’s courage, and, the employed’s fear of failure.
”
”
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
“
School is a factory where the raw material called student is turned into a product called employee.
”
”
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
“
A salary is, to a man's employer, what his wife's vagina is to his wife: a tool used to (1) reward; and (2) control him.
”
”
Mokokoma Mokhonoana (Divided & Conquered)
“
Employment is slavery. Workers merely have a choice over where to serve their daily eight-hour sentence.
”
”
Mokokoma Mokhonoana (The Confessions of a Misfit)
“
Make no mistake:
Your salary is held to the same standards your grades were held to in the educational system, where you couldn't surpass a 100 no matter how hard you worked or how intelligent you were.
”
”
Carlos Roche (How to Turn Your Boss Into Your Employee)
“
You get teamwork in the workplace by giving teamwork in the workplace. It's not only about your personal career success or your colleagues' personal career success, but it's also about the success of the company - which is good for everyone employed at the company.
”
”
Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr. (Business Essentials)
“
As an employee, you should care about the profitability of your employer. If the company you work for is succeeding in the marketplace, that means more job security for you.
”
”
Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr.
“
It's fun working with people who pursue greatness in everything they do. It's fun working with people who hold themselves to high standards.
”
”
Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr.
“
Which came first:
the change-ready company or the change-ready employee?
”
”
Lorii Myers (Targeting Success, Develop the Right Business Attitude to be Successful in the Workplace (3 Off the Tee, #1))
“
Old Age homes are civilization's dumpsites for human beings who it cannot exploit further.
”
”
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
“
Some people are unemployed because they lack the minimum required education. Others are unemployed because they lack the minimum required obedience.
”
”
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
“
12% of employees study further to learn more. 88% of employees study further to earn more.
”
”
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
“
Thanks to his salary, an employee is free to eat whatever, wherever. However, because of his job, he is not free to eat whenever.
”
”
Mokokoma Mokhonoana (N for Nigger: Aphorisms for Grown Children and Childish Grown-ups)
“
He who makes $25,000 annually through passive income is more enviable than he who earns $100,000 annually through a salary.
”
”
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
“
A good son obeys his father;
A good student obeys his teacher;
A good employee obeys his employer;
Obedience lifts you to a higher position in life.
”
”
Luffina Lourduraj
“
When employees are unhappy with their job, they underperform and they're less productive. Smart employers invest in employee happiness.
”
”
Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr.
“
Safety is really important in the workplace. And ensuring safety is the responsibility of both employers and employees.
”
”
Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr.
“
You can be the most productive and most effective, but politics show up as ego, jealousy and sabotage from bosses who can’t perform.
”
”
Richie Norton
“
An 'Employee of the Month' is a titled given to someone who best helped someone else actualize their dream—in that particular month.
”
”
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
“
A diploma is a piece of paper that is used to acquire another piece of paper: an employment contract.
”
”
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
“
Back then, work revolved around life. Today, life revolves around work.
”
”
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
“
A salary is a tax employers pay, every four weeks, for putting an employee’s dream on hold.
”
”
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
“
Most self-employed people remain slaves to the employed’s working hours.
”
”
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
“
For their holidays: the rich’s kids travel the world; the poor’s kids roam around their grandparents’ yard.
”
”
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
“
Inviting someone to work for pay is a sacred privilege and a trust. It must be regarded a high honor to be able to give another person work, and neither employer nor employee should abuse this relationship
”
”
Judy Frankel
“
It’s unfair to see managers buying brand new cars for themselves when the salaries of their workers still remain unpaid! Good leaders are not selfish thinkers!
”
”
Israelmore Ayivor (Leaders' Watchwords)
“
Able hands' are more favorable to business than 'adorable hearts'.
”
”
Amit Kalantri
“
Most employees are smarter than their employers. All employers are braver than their employees.
”
”
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
“
Prostitutes are paid for taking their clothes off. Celebrities are paid for putting others' clothes on.
”
”
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
“
A celebrity's body is an advertiser's canvas.
”
”
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
“
Employment is an employee’s kissing of an employer’s ass. A salary is the employer’s pretense to be cleaning his ass.
”
”
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
“
Working overtime is an underpaid man’s salvation.
”
”
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
“
Education inspires the educated to think for themselves. Schooled programs the schooled to work for others.
”
”
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
“
With homework, school prepares students for overtime. With reports, it prepares them for payday.
”
”
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
“
Behind every rich employer, there is a not-so rich employee.
”
”
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
“
The difference between a retiring man and a used condom is that the condom isn’t given a golden watch to inspire the illusion that it still matters to whomever that has just used it.
”
”
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
“
A bad attitude from a chronic complaining employee is like a cancer; it will only spread and infect others. This can take your business down in a nanosecond. You must cut out the cancer and invite them to seek employment elsewhere. Quickly.
”
”
Beth Ramsay (#Networking is people looking for people looking for people)
“
Dedicate yourself above all else to becoming the-best-version-of-yourself. It is the best thing you can do for your spouse, your children, your friends, your colleagues, your employees, your employer, your church, your nation, the human family, and yourself.
”
”
Matthew Kelly (The Rhythm of Life: Living Everyday With Passion and Purpose)
“
What these [personality] tests tell employers about potential employees is hard to imagine since the 'right' answer should be obvious to anyone who has ever encountered the principle of hierarchy and subordination. Do I work well with others? You bet, but never to the point where I would hesitate to inform on them for the slightest infraction. Am I capable of independent decision making? Oh yes, but I know better than to let this capacity interfere with a slavish obedience to orders . . . The real function of these tests, I decide, is to convey information not to the employer but to the potential employee, and the information being conveyed is always: You will have no secrets from us. We don't just want your muscles and that portion of your brain that is directly connected to them; we want your innermost self.
”
”
Barbara Ehrenreich (Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America)
“
Not every single broke and unemployed person needs a job; some need customers.
”
”
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
“
A deep breath is a technique with which we minimize the number of instances where we say what we do not mean … or what we really think.
”
”
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
“
*Employee* is a label given to a creature that could not hold on to its dream.
”
”
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
“
Employees go to school for 12 – 18 years merely to impress prospect employers in a 12 – 18 minutes interview.
”
”
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
“
An employer’s fart is music to his employees’ ears.
”
”
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
“
People had Jewish friends, good friends; Jewish employers, good employers; Jewish employees, hard workers. They obeyed the laws, they didn’t hurt anyone. And here was Hitler saying they were to blame for everything. ‘So when the vans came and took them away, people didn’t do anything. They stayed out of the way, they kept quiet. They even got to believing the voice that shouted the loudest. Because that’s the way people are, particularly the Germans. We’re a very obedient people. It’s our greatest strength and our greatest weakness. It enables us to build an economic miracle while the British are on strike, and it enables us to follow a man like Hitler into a great big mass grave.
”
”
Frederick Forsyth (The Odessa File)
“
In our generation, we have moved away only one step from slavery. The difference is that, every work deserves a payment nowadays. But the employees are still under the mercy of the employer.
”
”
Mwanandeke Kindembo
“
Good management has a lot to do with incentives and decentives. It's about making sure the company has systems in place that incentivize desired behaviors and decentivize undesirable behavior.
”
”
Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr.
“
...It is necessary for the average citizen, if he wishes to make a living, to avoid incurring the hostility of certain big men. And these big men have an outlook - religious, moral, and political - with which they expect their employees to agree, at least outwardly.
”
”
Bertrand Russell (Sceptical Essays (Routledge Classics))
“
In a patriarchal society, one of the most important functions of the institution of the family is to make feel like a somebody whenever he is in his own yard a man who is a nobody whenever he is in his employer’s yard.
”
”
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
“
The principal object of management should be to secure the maximum prosperity for the employer, coupled with the maximum prosperity for each employee. The words "maximum prosperity" are used, in their broad sense, to mean not only large dividends for the company or owner, but the development of every branch of the business to its highest state of excellence, so that the prosperity may be permanent.
”
”
Frederick Winslow Taylor (The Principles of Scientific Management)
“
Let us consider the power of FAITH, as it is now being demonstrated, by a man who is well known to all of civilization, Mahatma Gandhi, of India. In this man the world has one of the most astounding examples known to civilization, of the possibilities of FAITH. Gandhi wields more potential power than any man living at this time, and this, despite the fact that he has none of the orthodox tools of power, such as money, battle ships, soldiers, and materials of warfare. Gandhi has no money, he has no home, he does not own a suit of clothes, but HE DOES HAVE POWER. How does he come by that power? HE CREATED IT OUT OF HIS UNDERSTANDING OF THE PRINCIPLE OF FAITH, AND THROUGH HIS ABILITY TO TRANSPLANT THAT FAITH INTO THE MINDS OF TWO HUNDRED MILLION PEOPLE. Gandhi has accomplished, through the influence of FAITH, that which the strongest military power on earth could not, and never will accomplish through soldiers and military equipment. He has accomplished the astounding feat of INFLUENCING two hundred million minds to COALESCE AND MOVE IN UNISON, AS A SINGLE MIND. What other force on earth, except FAITH could do as much? There will come a day when employees as well as employers will discover the possibilities of FAITH. That day is dawning. The whole world has had ample opportunity, during the recent business depression, to witness what the LACK OF FAITH will do to business.
”
”
Napoleon Hill (Think and Grow Rich)
“
The travails of being an employee include not only uncertainty about the duration of one's employment, but also the humiliation of many working practices and dynamics. With most businesses shaped like pyramids, in which a wide base of employees gives way to a narrow tip of managers, the question of who will be rewarded - and who left behind - typically develops into one of the most oppressive of the workplace, and one which, like all anxieties, feeds off uncertainty. Because achievement in most fields is difficult to monitor reliably, the path to promotion or its oppositie can acquire an apparently haphazard connection to results. The succesful alpinist of organizational pyramids may not be the best at their jobs, but those who have best mastered a range of dark political arts in which civilized life does not usually offer instruction.
”
”
Alain de Botton (Status Anxiety)
“
Of the twelve, the most powerful questions (to employees, guaging their satisfaction with their employers) are those witha combination of the strongest links to the most business outcomes (to include profitability). Armed with this perspective, we now know that the following six ar ethe most powerful questions:
1) Do I know what is expected of me at work?
2) Do I have the materials and equipment I need to do my work right?
3) Do I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day?
4) In the last seven days, have I received recognition or praise for good work?
5) Does my supervisor, or someone at work, seem to care about me as a person?
6) Is there someone at work who encourages my development?
As a manager, if you want to know what you should do to build a strong and productive workplace, securing 5s to these six questions would be an excellent place to start.
”
”
Marcus Buckingham
“
What do you have to forget or overlook in order to desire that this dysfunctional clan once more occupies the White House and is again in a position to rent the Lincoln Bedroom to campaign donors and to employ the Oval Office as a massage parlor? You have to be able to forget, first, what happened to those who complained, or who told the truth, last time. It's often said, by people trying to show how grown-up and unshocked they are, that all Clinton did to get himself impeached was lie about sex. That's not really true. What he actually lied about, in the perjury that also got him disbarred, was the women. And what this involved was a steady campaign of defamation, backed up by private dicks (you should excuse the expression) and salaried government employees, against women who I believe were telling the truth. In my opinion, Gennifer Flowers was telling the truth; so was Monica Lewinsky, and so was Kathleen Willey, and so, lest we forget, was Juanita Broaddrick, the woman who says she was raped by Bill Clinton. (For the full background on this, see the chapter 'Is There a Rapist in the Oval Office?' in the paperback version of my book No One Left To Lie To. This essay, I may modestly say, has never been challenged by anybody in the fabled Clinton 'rapid response' team.) Yet one constantly reads that both Clintons, including the female who helped intensify the slanders against her mistreated sisters, are excellent on women's 'issues.
”
”
Christopher Hitchens
“
Hopefully not another employee stealing credit cards, Brooke mused. Or any sort of headache-inducing “oops moment,” like the time one of the restaurant managers called to ask if he could fire a line cook after discovering that the man was a convicted murderer.
“Jeez. How’d you learn that?” Brooke had asked.
“He made a joke to one of the waiters about honing his cooking skills in prison. The waiter asked what he’d been serving time for, and he said, ‘Murder.’”
“I bet that put an end to the conversation real fast. And yes, you can fire him,” Brooke had said.
“Obviously, he lied on his employment application.” All of Sterling’s employees, regardless of job position, were required to answer whether they’d ever been convicted of a crime involving “violence, deceit, or theft.” Pretty safe to say that murder qualified.
Ten minutes later, the manager had called her back.
“Um . . . what if he didn’t exactly lie? I just double-checked his application, and as it turns out, he did check the box for having been convicted of a crime.”
Brooke had paused at that. “And then the next question, where we ask what crime he’d been convicted for, what did he write?”
“Uh . . . ‘second-degree murder.’”
“I see. Just a crazy suggestion here, Cory, but you might want to start reading these applications a little more closely before making employment offers.”
“Please don’t fire me.
”
”
Julie James (Love Irresistibly (FBI/US Attorney, #4))
“
flexibility cannot be the solution to work-life issues as long as it is stigmatized. The question that young people should be asking their employers is not what kinds of family-friendly policies a particular firm has. Instead, they should ask, “How many employees take advantage of these policies? How many men? And how many women and men who have worked flexibly have advanced to top positions in the firm?
”
”
Anne-Marie Slaughter (Unfinished Business: Women Men Work Family)
“
Contentment is the virtue that contrasts with restlessness, ambition, avarice. It means realizing, once again, that we are not our own — as pastors or parishioners, parents or children, employers or employees. It is the Lord’s to give and to take away. He is building his church. It is his ministry that is saving and building up his body. Even our common callings in the world are not really our own, but they are God’s work of supplying others — including ourselves — with what the whole society needs. There is a lot of work to be done, but it is his work that he is doing through us in daily and mostly ordinary ways.
”
”
Michael Scott Horton (Ordinary: Sustainable Faith in a Radical, Restless World)
“
To combat socialism Bismarck put through between 1883 and 1889 a program for social security far beyond anything known in other countries. It included compulsory insurance for workers against old age, sickness, accident and incapacity, and though organized by the State it was financed by employers and employees. It cannot be said that it stopped the rise of the Social Democrats or the trade unions, but it did have a profound influence on the working class in that it gradually made them value security over political freedom and caused them to see in the State, however conservative, a benefactor and a protector. Hitler, as we shall see, took full advantage of this state of mind. In this, as in other matters, he learned much from Bismarck. “I studied Bismarck’s socialist legislation,” Hitler remarks in Mein Kampf (p. 155), “in its intention, struggle and success.
”
”
William L. Shirer (The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany)
“
TRUE OR FALSE? Employers are prohibited from practicing sex discrimination in hiring and promoting employees.1 ANSWER: False. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1987 that in job areas dominated by men, less qualified women could be hired.2 It did not allow less qualified men to be hired in areas dominated by women (e.g., elementary school teacher, nurse, secretary, cocktail waiting, restaurant host, office receptionist, flight attendant). The law also requires sex discrimination in hiring by requiring quotas, requiring vigorous recruitment of women, and requiring all institutions that receive government aid to do a certain percentage of their business with female-owned (or minority-owned) businesses.
”
”
Warren Farrell (The Myth of Male Power)
“
The sex-based segregation of labour is the key, to maintaining not only the family, but also the economy, because the economy would collapse like a house of cards if this unpaid domestic labour had to be paid for by somebody, either by the husband or the employer. Consider this: the employer pays the employee for his or her labour in the workplace. But the fact that he or she can come back to the workplace, the next day, depends on somebody else (or herself) doing a whole lot of work the employer does not pay for—cooking, cleaning, running the home. When you have an entire structure of unpaid labour buttressing the economy, then the sexual division of labour cannot be considered to be domestic and private; it is what keeps the economy going. If tomorrow, every woman demanded to be paid for this work that she does, either the husband would have to pay her, or the employer would have to pay the husband. The economy would fall apart. This entire system functions on the assumption that women do housework for love. *
”
”
Nivedita Menon (Seeing Like a Feminist)
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The next time you drive into a Walmart parking lot, pause for a second to note that this Walmart—like the more than five thousand other Walmarts across the country—costs taxpayers about $1 million in direct subsidies to the employees who don’t earn enough money to pay for an apartment, buy food, or get even the most basic health care for their children. In total, Walmart benefits from more than $7 billion in subsidies each year from taxpayers like you. Those “low, low prices” are made possible by low, low wages—and by the taxes you pay to keep those workers alive on their low, low pay. As I said earlier, I don’t think that anyone who works full-time should live in poverty. I also don’t think that bazillion-dollar companies like Walmart ought to funnel profits to shareholders while paying such low wages that taxpayers must pick up the ticket for their employees’ food, shelter, and medical care. I listen to right-wing loudmouths sound off about what an outrage welfare is and I think, “Yeah, it stinks that Walmart has been sucking up so much government assistance for so long.” But somehow I suspect that these guys aren’t talking about Walmart the Welfare Queen. Walmart isn’t alone. Every year, employers like retailers and fast-food outlets pay wages that are so low that the rest of America ponies up a collective $153 billion to subsidize their workers. That’s $153 billion every year. Anyone want to guess what we could do with that mountain of money? We could make every public college tuition-free and pay for preschool for every child—and still have tens of billions left over. We could almost double the amount we spend on services for veterans, such as disability, long-term care, and ending homelessness. We could double all federal research and development—everything: medical, scientific, engineering, climate science, behavioral health, chemistry, brain mapping, drug addiction, even defense research. Or we could more than double federal spending on transportation and water infrastructure—roads, bridges, airports, mass transit, dams and levees, water treatment plants, safe new water pipes. Yeah, the point I’m making is blindingly obvious. America could do a lot with the money taxpayers spend to keep afloat people who are working full-time but whose employers don’t pay a living wage. Of course, giant corporations know they have a sweet deal—and they plan to keep it, thank you very much. They have deployed armies of lobbyists and lawyers to fight off any efforts to give workers a chance to organize or fight for a higher wage. Giant corporations have used their mouthpiece, the national Chamber of Commerce, to oppose any increase in the minimum wage, calling it a “distraction” and a “cynical effort” to increase union membership. Lobbyists grow rich making sure that people like Gina don’t get paid more. The
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Elizabeth Warren (This Fight Is Our Fight: The Battle to Save America's Middle Class)
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After the New Deal, economists began referring to America’s retirement-finance model as a “three-legged stool.” This sturdy tripod was composed of Social Security, private pensions, and combined investments and savings. In recent years, of course, two of those legs have been kicked out. Many Americans saw their assets destroyed by the Great Recession; even before the economic collapse, many had been saving less and less. And since the 1980s, employers have been replacing defined-benefit pensions that are funded by employers and guarantee a monthly sum in perpetuity with 401(k) plans, which often rely on employee contributions and can run dry before death. Marketed as instruments of financial liberation that would allow workers to make their own investment choices, 401(k)s were part of a larger cultural drift in America away from shared responsibilities toward a more precarious individualism. Translation: 401(k)s are vastly cheaper for companies than pension plans. “Over the last generation, we have witnessed a massive transfer of economic risk from broad structures of insurance, including those sponsored by the corporate sector as well as by government, onto the fragile balance sheets of American families,” Yale political scientist Jacob S. Hacker writes in his book The Great Risk Shift. The overarching message: “You are on your own.
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Jessica Bruder (Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century)
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NO PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT OR EMPLOYEE FEEDBACK PROCESS Your company now employs twenty-five people and you know that you should formalize the performance management process, but you don’t want to pay the price. You worry that doing so will make it feel like a “big company.” Moreover, you do not want your employees to be offended by the feedback, because you can’t afford to lose anyone right now. And people are happy, so why rock the boat? Why not take on a little management debt? The first noticeable payments will be due when somebody performs below expectations: CEO: “He was good when we hired him; what happened?” Manager: “He’s not doing the things that we need him to do.” CEO: “Did we clearly tell him that?” Manager: “Maybe not clearly . . .” However, the larger payment will be a silent tax. Companies execute well when everybody is on the same page and everybody is constantly improving. In a vacuum of feedback, there is almost no chance that your company will perform optimally across either dimension. Directions with no corrections will seem fuzzy and obtuse. People rarely improve weakness they are unaware of. The ultimate price you will pay for not giving feedback: systematically crappy company performance.
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Ben Horowitz (The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers)
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The relationship between the Sophotechs and the men as depicted in that tale made no sense. How could they be hostile to each other?”
Diomedes said, “Aren’t men right to fear machines which can perform all tasks men can do, artistic, intellectual, technical, a thousand or a million times better than they can do? Men become redundant.”
Phaethon shook his head, a look of distant distaste on his features, as if he were once again confronted with a falsehood that would not die no matter how often it was denounced. In a voice of painstaking patience, he said: “Efficiency does not harm the inefficient. Quite the opposite. That is simply not the way it works. Take me, for example. Look around: I employed partials to do the thought-box junction spotting when I built this ship. My employees were not as skilled as I was in junction spotting. It took them three hours to do the robopsychology checks and hierarchy links I could have done in one hour. But they were in no danger of competition from me. My time is too valuable. In that same hour it would have taken me to spot their thought-box junction, I can earn far more than their three-hour wages by writing supervision architecture thought flows. And it’s the same with me and the Sophotechs.
“Any midlevel Sophotech could have written in one second the architecture it takes me, even with my implants, an hour to compose. But if, in that same one second of time, that Sophotech can produce something more valuable—exploring the depth of abstract mathematics, or inventing a new scientific miracle, anything at all (provided that it will earn more in that second than I earn in an hour)—then the competition is not making me redundant. The Sophotech still needs me and receives the benefit of my labor. Since I am going to get the benefit of every new invention and new miracle put out on the market, I want to free up as many of those seconds of Sophotech time as my humble labor can do.
“And I get the lion’s share of the benefit from the swap. I only save him a second of time; he creates wonder upon wonder for me. No matter what my fear of or distaste for Sophotechs, the forces in the marketplace, our need for each other, draw us together.
“So you see why I say that not a thing the Silent One said about Sophotechs made sense. I do not understand how they could have afforded to hate each other. Machines don’t make us redundant; they increase our efficiency in every way. And the bids of workers eager to compete for Sophotech time creates a market for merely human work, which it would not be efficient for Sophotechs to underbid.
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John C. Wright (The Golden Transcendence (Golden Age, #3))
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What is a “pyramid?” I grew up in real estate my entire life. My father built one of the largest real estate brokerage companies on the East Coast in the 1970s, before selling it to Merrill Lynch. When my brother and I graduated from college, we both joined him in building a new real estate company. I went into sales and into opening a few offices, while my older brother went into management of the company. In sales, I was able to create a six-figure income. I worked 60+ hours a week in such pursuit. My brother worked hard too, but not in the same fashion. He focused on opening offices and recruiting others to become agents to sell houses for him. My brother never listed and sold a single house in his career, yet he out-earned me 10-to-1. He made millions because he earned a cut of every commission from all the houses his 1,000+ agents sold. He worked smarter, while I worked harder. I guess he was at the top of the “pyramid.” Is this legal? Should he be allowed to earn more than any of the agents who worked so hard selling homes? I imagine everyone will agree that being a real estate broker is totally legal. Those who are smart, willing to take the financial risk of overhead, and up for the challenge of recruiting good agents, are the ones who get to live a life benefitting from leveraged Income. So how is Network Marketing any different? I submit to you that I found it to be a step better. One day, a friend shared with me how he was earning the same income I was, but that he was doing so from home without the overhead, employees, insurance, stress, and being subject to market conditions. He was doing so in a network marketing business. At first I refuted him by denouncements that he was in a pyramid scheme. He asked me to explain why. I shared that he was earning money off the backs of others he recruited into his downline, not from his own efforts. He replied, “Do you mean like your family earns money off the backs of the real estate agents in your company?” I froze, and anyone who knows me knows how quick-witted I normally am. Then he said, “Who is working smarter, you or your dad and brother?” Now I was mad. Not at him, but at myself. That was my light bulb moment. I had been closed-minded and it was costing me. That was the birth of my enlightenment, and I began to enter and study this network marketing profession. Let me explain why I found it to be a step better. My research led me to learn why this business model made so much sense for a company that wanted a cost-effective way to bring a product to market. Instead of spending millions in traditional media ad buys, which has a declining effectiveness, companies are opting to employ the network marketing model. In doing so, the company only incurs marketing cost if and when a sale is made. They get an army of word-of-mouth salespeople using the most effective way of influencing buying decisions, who only get paid for performance. No salaries, only commissions. But what is also employed is a high sense of motivation, wherein these salespeople can be building a business of their own and not just be salespeople. If they choose to recruit others and teach them how to sell the product or service, they can earn override income just like the broker in a real estate company does. So now they see life through a different lens, as a business owner waking up each day excited about the future they are building for themselves. They are not salespeople; they are business owners.
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Brian Carruthers (Building an Empire:The Most Complete Blueprint to Building a Massive Network Marketing Business)