“Don’t waste time on it. I don’t care how many people sign that fucking petition.”
Jamie Dimon, CEO, JPMorgan Chase
I saw this in an article and it made me laugh. Not because I am a fan of Jamie Dimon, or the big fucking banks and financial institutions that are fucking us all over. But I am also not a fan of entitlement and stupidity. And when workers are signing petitions because the company they work for is telling them to get back into the office and stop working from home, that is a clear indicator of both entitlement and stupidity.
The entitlement is in the belief that a worker who is contracted to fill a role as an employee in a company, has the choice to work from wherever they like, as if it is some law of nature like gravity, or decreed by one of the many gods. The stupidity comes from signing a petition to appeal to a corporation, as if it would make one iota of difference. People forget, an employee is not entitled to do the job they hold any way they want to, they are to do it the way the employer wants. If the employee doesn't like the rules and conditions, they are free to leave.
And they should.
But it is good to acknowledge that while it might seem like a threat, everyone is expendable to the company. You might think yourself super important and not replaceable, but in all likelihood, barely anyone will notice that you are gone, before you are replaced with someone who has opted into working under the very conditions that you were unwilling to work for, perhaps for less pay, perhaps for more. Regardless, you would be replaced.
I don't condone this kind of policy in companies, but the thing is, whether I like it or not, this is the way companies work, and employees have to accept that there is a trade-off to get paid for work, without having to face the risk of loss. Most employees Aren't invested in the companies they work for, so what can be lost is future money, not money already invested. This means being able to take value (salary) from the company, without direct financial exposure to the company performing poorly or failing.
And I say that people should leave if they aren't happy with the conditions, because otherwise all the stress trying to change the unwilling would be for nought. Complaining, signing petitions, screaming at strangers on social media, and then still having to bend the knee and accept the changes anyway. Staying is a sign that while entitled and stupid, you also need the company to look after you.
Don't worry. You aren't alone.
Most of us are employees and most of us have obligations to meet that require income. So, most of us aren't able to just "quit" unless we have something else lined up. Quitting isn't a punishment for the company, if we are the ones who are going to suffer financially and have harder lives. However, if employers treat their people poorly or do not reward them enough, they will struggle to find the right skills and the right people for the roles and over time, the company will face some consequences, and be forced to adjust their position which is very expensive, or fail.
The only way to really punish corporations though, is to defund them by not using them at all. However, that isn't actually what people want to do, because it is inconvenient. As a result, JP Morgan Chase are making record profits and in the time Dimon has been CEO over the last 19 years, the stock price has gone from around $35 to $276 today. Less than 0.3% of the global employees have signed the petition, so I am guessing that there might be headcount reductions of around 1000 people soon.
It is silly that corporations like this don't have to care for their people really, but it is also the way the economy works, because we put profit over wellbeing as the mechanism of incentive. People will keep "putting up" with shitty conditions, because they have to, because they are living in a debt cycle, and need to cover their obligations. Right or wrong, the obligation to service their debt will override most people's desire to work from home. And the corporations know it. So while there will be complaining, grumbling, threats and petitions, in the end, with a little bit of staff turnover, the majority will comply.
This is the sad reality.
Corporations don't care what their people think, because the economy doesn't care about people, and they align themselves to the economy, not society. They aren't looking to make the world a better place, they are looking to make profits. That is it, end of story. the only times companies do the "right thing" is if it is in their best profit-making interest to do so - otherwise, they won't. When it comes to working from home, I suspect that as far as productivity is concerned, the majority people should be back in the office. And if it makes more money to have people in the office, that is what they will do. If at some point it would make them more money to have people work from home again, than that is what they'll do.
Remember, the company isn't there for you.
You are there to fill a skills gap they need filled in order to make money. If you are unable or unwilling to fill that gap, they will remove the dead weight and jam someone in that can.
Isn't the profit economy beautiful?
If you don't like it, you can always start petition to change it.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
