Saturday, August 28, 2010

Screwed Over By Crackers and Cookies

If you read the business pages, you may recall something about a local pasta company being bought out by a large snack food company. My mother, works for the former, and has done so for almost a decade.

Chief Bosshole named Jack, who has a long history of selling companies he happens to be running at the time, pioneered the sale to said snack food company, who was ran by his bff. Their wives are good friends, too. Which made people wonder if this was something that he had intended when he first took over the helm of the pasta company.

When the news broke earlier this summer, Chief Bosshole Jack assured the worker bees that their jobs were safe for at least a year after the sale was finalized.

Recently, Mother was told that she would no longer have a job after the end of the year. Her, and about 20 others (and that list keeps growing), including higher ups who put blood, sweat, and tears into the company were "let go". Some of these people, award-winning businessmen, and one award-winning chef.

Mother was, and is, devastated.

Since getting the news, Crappy Cookies and Crackers Company has moved those axed higher ups to some cube farm in the same building, the replacements of their choosing already making themselves at home in the new posh offices. To pour salt on fresh wounds, Mother and others in her particular area, will have to train their own replacements. They also have to sign an agreement stating that they have to tow the line, and not say bad things about CCCC, lest they risk losing their severance package...one week's pay for every year of service, payable one week at a time.

And Chief Bosshole Jack? Oh, he's not staying with the company either. But he's walking away with $19 million. I don't suppose he'd care to share that with the people he just fucked in the ass without so much as a kiss? Probably not. He'll just move onto the next company, like a parasite, and fuck them over as well. Because he is also a chickenshit, he's been on vacation since news of the cuts have been made so he doesn't have to face the people he screwed over, most of them being let go right around the Christmas holiday season.

I like my employer, but I'm not a cheerleader of my job. Oh, you know the types...they are loyal servants of the master who signs their paycheck with the false impression that their company considers them as part of the family. When truth is, you are part of the family only when it's convenient for you to be. People who get let go from their jobs are left shocked. They can't fathom how their own family would boot them out. You are a valued team member, until you're not. At the end of the day, they are running a business, and they have to look out for number one.

I once read that the generations below me don't exhibit loyalty in the the companies they work for, which may explain why they job hop. I have to say, when I applied to work at ACME Hospital, the nurse recruiter's eyes damn near popped out of her head when she had seen that I spent at least five years with previous employers. Nowadays, two years is considered tenure. Older generations scoff at this ambivalent attitude, but maybe they are onto something. If you don't put your heart into your work, then you never run the risk of getting it broken.

As for Mother, I hope she is able to find another job before her time is up at Crappy Cookies and Crackers Co. Then, she can give them the finger and they can train their own damn replacements. If I was a millionaire. I'd tell her to quit tomorrow and then I would pay for a full page ad in the Kansas City Star, telling CCCC to go fuck themselves with a splintery log full of termites.

Meanwhile, I'm boycotting all products made by Crappy Cookies and Crackers Co, in addition to their new pasta acquisition. Stupid, I know. My paltry dollars wouldn't even cause a blip on their radar, but at least I know my money isn't going to a company that blatantly lies and fucks over the little guy.

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