There’s a Method to the Madness – Or: When Male Life Runs Berserk – Or: When Business Meets Cruelty

It can be one of those dark days in life when you face real evil in your own life for the first time. I have read so many books and ‘digested’ so many stories, those that were told in person and those that you see on the big screen; yet, to see real evil is new to me, even.

A few patterns emerge:

I. The Patriarchal Hierarchy and Willfulness in Play Again

• • Patriarchy not for decades but for thousands of years has enforced the stereotypes:
    Man is the ‘hunter’ – and not just for game (deer, wild boar, etc.); women are the ‘hunted’, the ‘booty’.
  • Any man who is really interested to be counted among ‘the guys’ will do what he can to ‘get it’ as often as possible.
  • If it should so surface, the management power in business can be used to ‘serve’ the ‘booty’, the ‘dish’, right up – nice and ‘easy’:
    • *Women, single and apparently easy to fool into believing they did something wrong can be used in order to ‘try one’s luck’:
    • Hire them under a pretense then do your best to get them into the ‘prone position’.
    • Should that not work legally, in a manner of a certain time, fire them under those pretenses.
    • Repeat from *.
    • And so turns the merry-go-round of jobs and people who seem to be job hopping – when in effect they are part of that secret game of ‘push and shove’…

II: Intricate Business Calculations

• • Say, your branch of business is facing a severe slump. No sales, much and that due to a saturated market segment.
  • Yet, you need to take care of customer demands in a certain department.
  • But the budget doesn’t allow to hire a person or persons over a longer period of time.
  • Additionally you have found that searching these people takes time, effort and some experience to filter the really good ones.
  • What do you do?
    • *Find an agency that does the searching and finding.
    • Hire the good ones.
    • Make them work hard and almost reach the finish line.
    • Bother them and intimidate them in a tough market with ridiculous claims of misbehaviour.
    • Even invent false claims of shortcomings and spread those by and by among colleagues and the rest of the management.
    • Use the accumulated ‘reasons’ to base a lay-off on and – fire them, after a year.
    • Then pretend to be searching another, better fitting employee – for another year.
    • Finally, hire the next candidate.
    • Repeat from *.
  • What’s the result?
    • You get the agency ‘on the cheap’ because firing those employees too soon for reasons of being unfit saves the fee due to the agency – who will have to return at least part of it.
    • You save lots of money on salary, you actually pay half the price, because, in alternating years there’s an employee.
    • Then, there is not….

III: Intricate Business Calculations No 2

• • Say, you need to lend employees to other companies.
  • But the economy is slow, salaries are too high for some businesses.
  • In addition, really well-trained employees are hard or impossible to find.
  • *So, you start actively searching.
  •  Make them an offer of the appropriate high salary.
  • Hire.
  • Let them work in the actual customer’s place.
  • After a little while start bothering them, s.a., with ridiculous claims of misbehaviour, intimidate them.
  • After a few months working this method get them to sign a ‘reduced-hours-per-week’ agreement.
  • After a year, fire them.
  • Result: Cheap salary; except for the employee facing unemployment and job hunting all over again – all concerned are satisfied.
  • Repeat*…

IV: Intricate Business Calculations No 3

• • The business you have runs well, but sales are slow.
  • The economy’s contracts with trade unions rule that every four years salaries have to be raised.
  • Also, that beginners in the company or a certain job earn less than the ones already in place for more than four years.
  • What do you do?
    • *Hire employees, sign the contracts.
    • Every four years, make lay-offs appear necessary, firing the previously hired employees.
    • Fire under pretenses, also after four years.
    • Hire from other countries, even far away where knowledge of local conditions, contracts, systems, taxes and prices is nil.
    • Keep a couple of employees – perhaps even with different contracts out of trade union conditions – to make the image credible that you have employees in place for long periods of time, the ‘faithful ones’.
    • Repeat*…
    • Result: The salaries stay low and the employee turnover is not too apparent so the company’s reputation is safe.

Whatever the patterns – they are shameful to watch and cruel to suffer from.

Additionally, it’s a huge waste of resources for any country’s economy…

Make it stop. Now.