I apologize if I misdirected that comment to you.
So, you agree that one is under no moral obligation to buttonhole the bosses and convince them that one is "capable of more." So, you agree that one is under no moral obligation to accept a so-called "promotion"
Sure, there is no "moral obligation." I don't know of any career-oriented worker who would do that; they want the increased pay, the increased responsibilities, and the increased positions of influence in the corporation. Only clock-watchers just want to put in the time for the paycheck and otherwise be left alone.
And you think it necessary to employ the epithet of "slacker" to describe such a person!
And "clock-watcher," too.
The 1960s called, and want your image of Corporate America back!
That's too bad. I worked for one MegaCorp for 40 years, and that image was still going strong into the 2020s. But I'll cede you this one point: the company was full of life-long employees who brought their 1980s ethos with them. As the Great Crew Change in corporate America completes with the retirement of that generation of workers, the Napster Generation of situational ethics is taking over.
Literally millions of honest, hard-working Americans have observed that the career ladders, etc. that were dangled in front of their eyes were relicts / artifacts from the past, and that Upper Management had absolutely no intention of actually honoring them anymore.
I've read the horror stories about Disney and IBM forcing long-term employees to train their H-1B replacements or lose their severance benefits, but there are MANY corporations out there who don't act that way. Even my company had its periods of layoffs during economic downturns, as well as tactical use of overseas workers, but in the long run it was widely understood how these processes worked and what was expected to maximize your likelihood of being above the cut line. My company eventually did away with cheaper contract labor and established employee offices in other countries, partly to move work to cheaper geographies and partly to serve a global workforce that didn't entirely operate to USA time zones. We needed a follow-the-sun presence that required overseas workers alongside of American ones, at the cost of displacing some domestic workers. It was the Personal Computing revolution of the 1990s and the commoditization of the World Wide Web that made this a practical option for corporations.
Simply transferring work to foreign countries is not enough to say that managers dangled promises that were reneged when one works in a global multinational corporation.
Millions of Americans joined companies offering competitive salaries, interesting training options, handsome pension benefits, stock options, and plenty of other incentives - only to discover, over time, that they had joined just a few years too late, that that era had been quietly relegated to the junkyard of history.
Count me in the group that joined just in time, then.
That said, much of what you wrote there was due to the changing dynamic of the workforce. Defined pension plans came out of the impacts of the GI Bill and companies competing for returning WWII veteran labor. After the Personal Computer revolutionized IT in the 1990s, a new generation of worker entered the workforce. This generation wanted to be more mobile and not tied down to one company for life-long benefits. Traditional defined pension plans were replaced or supplemented with 401(k) plans that followed the worker from job to job. The idea of company-sponsored career development was replaced with self-managed training and job-hopping to different companies for higher salaries and new challenges, not just more senior career-ladder responsibilities at the same company.
In my case, I got both a pension and a 401(k) with matching employer contributions. If someone was vested in a pension plan, they couldn't lose it unless the company went bankrupt or the government underfunded it.
Companies don't clearly announce: "That tier of engineers, middle management, specialists, and assembly line workers who were hired just five years before you - They were the last of that era. Just after we hired you, we hired a consultancy firm that advised us to immediately impose a permanent hiring stop, to outsource as much of our production as possible to low-wage countries, and have all our current employees begin training the Indians and Chinese who are to replace them, etc."
And the world didn't announce to those companies that the price of oil would collapse in 1987, or the dot com bubble would burst in 2000, or the mortgage bubble would burst in 2008, or BREXIT and the China economic slowdown of 2018 would rattle stock markets, or a pandemic would hit in 2020 disrupting global supply chains, or Putin would invade Ukraine in 2022 and shock the oil market. Anyone who works for a corporation understands that the first obligation of a corporation is to its shareholders.
Companies also merge, get bought out, get liquidated. Corporations have to adapt to the changing demographics of the marketplace. It does happen that if ACorp acquires BCorp and BCorp has a better marketing department than ACorp, then the workers in ACorp's marketing department may be at risk. So what do they do? Most companies will offer a severance package to the ACorp's marketing department staff; some will offer to move ACorp's best marketing department staff to BCorp's location. It's not the worker's fault, the company didn't renege on any promises to ACorp's marketing department workers, the company just did what was necessary for its long-term viability and fiduciary responsibility to its shareholders.
The "career ladders, salary levels, and pay grade ranges" to which you referred continued to exist, on paper - but were practically unobtainable. The "annual performance evaluations and career development discussions," however, were actually intensified - but they were in fact only shams.
I've been trying to avoid saying this, but you sound disgruntled. Nothing that you wrote has been my experience. I've been at the top of a pay grade, promoted to a new pay grade, and climbed up that new pay grade. I even reached a point in my career where I wasn't going to be upwardly mobile anymore (the pyramid effect), so I retired.
Of course, there have always been employees who shirked their responsibilities, cut corners, etc. to the detriment of the enterprise. But someone who chooses to just "float along" in today's environment and perform the minimum of work required of him should not be labelled with such a dismissive epithet. Workers who have lost hope, seen their earlier enthusiasm and commitment spat upon, and gone into "internal exile" didn't do so in a vacuum. They did it because Corporate America quietly changed the rules.
They did it because they were not paying attention to their careers, like the poor nephew working the graveyard shift so he can be left alone to play with his phone.
Maybe those people you described who "lost hope" did so because of decisions they made years ago that left them in this position? I don't know, but people have always had the option to manage their careers, either by being visible performers who seek advancement, or who take jobs in different companies to expand the breadth of their career experience. The people who did neither and just expected the corporation to hand them attaboys and kudos for just showing up learned a hard lesson in reality.
I'm sorry that your experiences seem to be much harsher than my own. Maybe I just worked for a better-run company.
FRegards,
-PJ
No apology necessary! Was just pointing it out.
Only clock-watchers just want to put in the time for the paycheck and otherwise be left alone.
I don't doubt or deny your experience in the least! But that is all that it is: Your experience!
We were not "clock-watchers." We were people who were told that excellence would pay off. Besides working hard, we were encouraged to launch smaller, independent, unbudgeted projects (to restructure work flows, boost efficiency, etc.) on our own initiative. We were encouraged to prepare presentations. We were urged to engage in "mentoring programs." We were required to undergo training programs (Six Sigma et al.).
After a few years, we noticed that, aside from a lot of "attaboys," these efforts were going unrewarded. We noticed that some of our sister plants were being closed and operations shifted to Third-World countries. We noticed that the annual evaluations had become farces. The occasional department head to whom one might have a particularly close and trusting relationship might let drop, "We have to give everyone the same grade: A 'B.' The overall average of all grades for each dept. isn't allowed to be above a 'B.'"
But I'll cede you this one point: the company was full of life-long employees who brought their 1980s ethos with them.
That was true of my factory, too. Lots of workers who had experienced the deprivations of post-war Germany first-hand! Who still remembered ration cards!
I've been trying to avoid saying this, but you sound disgruntled.
I am trying valiantly to state the facts as objectively as possible. As I said: My experience simply differs from yours. (That doesn't make me want to discount or question your experience, or engage in innuendo about your mental state.)
They did it because they were not paying attention to their careers, like the poor nephew working the graveyard shift so he can be left alone to play with his phone.
Yes, "inner exile" (abandoning all hopes and ambitions and simply "putting in one's time" and performing the bare minimum required of one) is NOT the only alternative. Others spent a big chunk of their time "networking," burnishing their vitae, sending out job applications like crazy, etc. (Needless to say, their job performance may have been negatively impacted by all of this.) These were the coworkers who, in the cafeteria, would exhort their fellows to be less optimistic about the future, who would, e.g., opine that our plant, too, might soon be closed - and then smugly state that they had "already taken the necessary steps."
Older coworkers with families and mortgages and deep roots in the area had little choice but to clench their teeth grimly.
The more-mobile and dynamic coworkers thus vanished. These "short-termers" (mostly young, with no children, etc.) were the "smart ones," you would probably say. The guy with 38 years at the same company, with deep roots in the town, should have been "on the bounce" and been looking around for new opportunities, you would probably say. He should have recognized that the annual evaluations were a sham, and that the extra effort he put in training (online) 20-something Indians to do our jobs was self-destructive. He should have dropped out of the mentoring program, refused the voluntary training programs (all very company-specific), not bothered to master the new spare parts management software (that was scheduled for obsolescence in 5 years anyway!), quit the company soccer team, etc.
Anyone who works for a corporation understands that the first obligation of a corporation is to its shareholders.
It's funny, but NONE of the "inspirational posters" hung demonstratively around our factory mentioned that. Instead, they talked about "continual striving for excellence" and "our workers are our true capital!"
A "smart cookie" like yourself would have seen through this malarky. But you neglect to remember that a lot of people are good-natured, trusting, maybe also on the lower end of the I.Q. range. That doesn't mean that they "had it coming" when the company shutters the plant and they find themselves jobless at age 58.
Regards,