Friday, December 4, 2009

Corporate Cartoon Characters

I'm assuming that most people who are going to read this and have children,and at some point in time have watched nickelodeon's Sponge Bob Squarepants, so by now you are looking at the title of this post and saying what does Sponge Bob have to do with corporate america? Well i will explain with this quick back story. Sponge Bob works at a restaurant in this cartoon, he is a punctual,loyal prideful employee who lives and breathes his work. He puts his all into and goes above and beyond,giving the customer 1000% hoping that he will one day be rewarded with a promotion but yet he is so loyal he would probably work for free and represents how people should feel about their job,or at least the way companies sell themselves. Unbeknown to Sponge Bob the owner of the the restaurant Mr Krabs is a cheap,greedy selfish person aka corporate america who could give a damn less about anything other than their bottom line,the employee themselves are just a number and in the grand scheme of things they do not matter.The last character to bring up is another worker Squidward who also works there as well, he unlike Sponge Bob is hip to corporate amercia, he knows that the company truly doesnt give a damn about him, his well being or if he gets promoted so his attitude reflects this by not being on time, uncaring attitude and little to no morale.Mr Krabs or the corporation has the attitude that your job should be enough to keep you content and that employees are interchangeable and can replace you with someone else who will happily take you place and most likely for less money then their predecessor. The point of all this is that corporations sell everyone a dream everyday that they care about you and your career path long gone are the days when our grandparents got a job and they stayed there for 30 years and retired there well those days are over. Companies bring you in kill your spirit and find ways to keep their bottom line in the black while selling you on the fact that they are here to help. In talking to some of my friends ranging from the ages of 22-37 the longest tenured employee is 3 years and they despise their job as they are constantly asked to go above and beyond but, haven't received a raise in 2 years, looked over for promotions and threatened with possible layoffs almost daily, but they should be happy right? i mean you do have a job. So i pose this question the these CEO's in their plush office. How much do you really care? Because if you did employees would be promoted by their work and not by the people they know. Hard work would be appreciated with monetary bonuses instead of a good ole pat on the back thanks for being here. And lastly just the common decency to know that simply as long as you show up and try you will have a job,because in the end that's all we can ask for.