The questions below (and more to come) represent an intellectual and instinctive investigation into what has become of the American workplace and the role of the American worker. Although it seems that these concepts are recent, or recently dominant, they have hardly sneaked up on us over the last 40 years or so.
The trend is troubling, and I believe is one of many tools or devices implemented by forces/people/organizations who are manipulating economies to consolidate power and control. Paranoid as it sounds, I have heard or seen no other logical reason for this sad and failed state of capitalism to exist.
Does hard work mean work hard anymore?
Or has multi-tasking, that is, one person doing more than one job simultaneously, come to mean hard work?
Does work still mean to produce...or does it mean
to perform repetitive tasks which create profits for an entity?
What is a job?
Is it a contractual agreement, spoken or written, to perform specialized tasks in exchange for money and/or other benefits on a predetermined schedule and place?
Or is it a non-contractual agreement to be available 24/7 and to be summoned to perform assorted, non-specialized tasks, with flexible scheduling and locations?
To whom or what is one's allegiance and loyaty?
The actual work?
The workplace?
One's supervisors/managers?
The chain of command?
The Company?
The shareholders?
The Profit Margin?
What is an Associate?
How is an Associate different from an employee?
How have labor laws been eroded to such a point as it effectively destroys family life and impoverishes people?
What has happended to the protections and advancements which unions fought so hard to integrate into the work place?
Why do people feel so helpless to do anything about it?
