It's better film (superior color saturation)and cheaper than Kodak.
Posted on 10/23/2002 11:38:57 AM PDT by rwjst4
Rochester, NY - A Greece man, who was fired a few days ago from Eastman Kodak, said giving his opinion in an e-mail lead to his termination.
Kodak's diversity group sent out an e-mail asking employees to "be supportive" of colleagues who choose to come out on Gay and Lesbian Coming-Out Day. Rolf Szabo replied to the memo telling the company not to send him this type of information and that he found it "disgusting and offensive."
"I said it and I meant it. I'm not going to take it back," Szabo said.
Although Szabo does not condone the gay lifestyle, he said this isn't a gay issue. Rather, he said, it's an issue of Kodak crossing the line via e-mail.
"I don't need this to do my job. It has nothing to do with gay. It could've been any other topic. It's just that enough is enough. We really don't need this to do our jobs," he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at iknowrochester.com ...
Kodak must prove to the government that they have active conditioning programs in order to remain eligible for government contracts.
We are talking unequal treatment under the law since Kodak's compliance with the law has led to this man being fired. He was fired because of his belief on a social matter.
The only hope is for this man to demonstrate his unequal treatment under the law by filing a discrimination suit.
We can never allow the law to be applied unequally (of course it already is en masse)
Major corporations are the primary tool the government uses for social engineering.
"A lie, turned topsy-turvy, can be prinked and tinselled out, decked in plumage new and fine, till none knows it's lean old carcass." -- Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906)
You can observe a hundred operations and that will not make you a surgeon. You can spend hundreds of hours wathing a pharmacist and that will not make you one. People understant this almost universally, with two notable exceptions: management and government. Even people like you, who never managed anybody and have barely learned how to manage themselves pass judgement on management --- and not merely judgement, but in most strong terms.
Well, not knowing even basics of management and yet calling Kodak management stupid is not smart: it only shows the ignorance of the speaker. Learn something about management before you form opinions and pass judgement in this area.
If amorality and pandering to deviants are necessary management skills, American business is doomed.
If we believe that private businesses have a right to decide who they want to work for them, then we can't criticize Kodak for what it did.
...makes no sense. I think you meant this:
If we believe that private businesses have a right to decide who they want to work for them, then we can't [call on the government to punish] Kodak for what it did.
Trust me, they are. The system broke down time after time, and it cost the company hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars. Because of a management screw up, I saw them have to THROW OUT two months worth of their flagship product. All because of an ill-considered costcutting move.
It's better film (superior color saturation)and cheaper than Kodak.
At the same time, one has to lay blame where it belongs: our culture in general and the educated elite. It is common, especially on this board, to blame elites --- university professors, media companies, etc. For us this target is very visible. Yet, the main culprits are you and I, our friends and neighbors: all changes in society are effected by small groups but they are made possible by the indifference of the masses.
The retreat of Christianity in Europe, which began at the end of XVIII century created a vacuum that was subsequently filled with socialism. Has Marx and Lenin killed 100 million people? Of course not: the mob killed its fellow countrymen in Germany (because those were Jewish, Catholic, of Roma) and Russia (because those had a cow). It is when an average man in the street ceases to believe in the extant teaching --- that is when new teachings become attractive. The man in the street listens to the one that speaks louder. And when the Church lost its voice, he became mesmerized by another speaker --- Marx, Lenin, Hitler, Mao.
For the last 50 years or so, we experience the same phenomenon: American dream has been focused (by the then formed association of Realtors) on real estate ownership. "Give me chicken in every pot and a car in every garage --- or give me death!" is now our motto. The generation that grew up in Depression and defeated Hitler felt it deserved to live well. It is this "greatest generation" that has failed to instill American values in its offspring. It is these people who gave birth to the most egotistic and self-absorbed generation this country has ever seen. It is not surprising therefore that into this moral vacuum the Leftists stepped in. Their voices became loudest. But it is not the elites but the average man (and woman) in the street that walks out on his kids when marriage no longer "feels right." It is he (and she) who replaced in 1990s the age-old American tradition of loyalty to the employer with job-hopping. It is also he who does not really care one way the other about homosexuality or anything else ("Of course I disagree with Hitler, but who is to say that he was morally wrong?" said recently an Ivy League student). No, I did not forget to the issue at hand. To see the role of management in this, recall that we are talking about management of something --- people. The role of the manager is not to educate --- this is done by schools and universities; not to instill morality --- that is supposed to be done by our churches ad synagogues; but to organize and direct employees towards productive ends. It takes employees essentially as they are, on average. Now you can see fully the relevance of my earlier point: on average Kodak's employees do not care whether you promote or oppose homosexuality. Given such circumstances and the objective to create a harmonious atmosphere at work, the human-resources people introduce specific measures such as tolerance to this or to that.
In sum, the management both panders to and represents ourselves, the American people. It is hired by the owners of the firm ---- retirees, present and previous employees of Kodak, etc. --- to do just that. The blame with what they do lies not with their mandate but with us. If and when we return to "Give me freedom --- and I would add, give me Judeo-Christian values --- or give me death!" all such nonsense and rape of American values will stop.
The fight is in the courts. This man must file for a discrimination suit and either prove or disprove that right.
There ARE hiring/firing laws. If you do business with the government in any form whatsoever you must abide by their extensive cultural indoctrination programs. All major corporations abide by these contracting requirements.
To answer your question: yes, you have no clue about the quality of decisions made by the management. Moreover, even a person who knows management cannot form an opinion about that until he or she studies the circumstances of particular decisions.
But you've never been a manager! You can't possibly know that ruining two months worth of the product is a bad thing.
Likewise, you can't possibly know that, say, a line of cars that tends to blow up as soon as you start it is poorly designed unless you're an engineer. And you can't know that Caligula was a bad emperor unless you've been emperor.
Aristotle pointed out that the wearer of a shoe knows better than anyone else if it fits. Even without being a shoemaker.
The system What on earth is that? Well, I know, I know: when you don't even know how to call it and yet want to sound knowledgeable, "system" does the job.
broke down time after time, and it cost the company hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars. In this one sentence you show that you have no clue about Kodak's market. (Perhaps, you know something about the industry, but do look up the difference between the two).
Because of a management screw up, I saw them have to THROW OUT two months worth of their flagship product. All because of an ill-considered costcutting move.
There you go: a typical arrogance of a low-level employee who wants to feel a general for a day. Ill-considered? Were you in the room where that move was discussed? What do you know about the considerations that went into that decision?
Let me guess: not only you were not present at the discussions --- you never spoke to anyone in your life who was. And you did not even use the bathroom next to the room where those considerations were deliberated.
It is not my purpose to reduce this to personalities. All I wanted to put a bit of doubt in you and show you that your opinions are... well, let's say, ill-founded. I believe that it was Mark Twain who said that, towit, "A smart man is not the one who says smart things: it is the one who refrains from saying something stupid."
As I said ealier, learn something about the subject before you form opinions, let alone speak, about it.
The next time someone asks you to sign a non-disclosure simply scrawl 'I don't agree' on the signature line and hand it back to the HR drone. They never notice.
They often form group think (I refrain from using the vulger metaphore) and are often motivated by politics. It takes an outsider to state 'the emperor wears no clothes'.
Good managers know to pay attention to those in the trenches. Why? Because they usually have better though narrower data and the smart manager knows it, he also knows better then trusting his middle managers. Management attracts politicians like...
That is'nt to say that there are'nt sometimes hidden variables visible only to managment. But when a manager says 'there are factors of which you are unaware' to explain an apparently insane discision the odds are 90%+ that the manager is full of something. The factors I've seen have included that the presidents office turned out to be 4 inches smaller in one dimension then the VPs, hence the remodel is stopped, floor gutted, a scapegoat was found and tens of thousands were wasted.
Hindsight is wounderfull, to judge a manager from the trenches on a single summers work is stupid, but to say that patterns are'nt formed and valid judgements can't be made from the trenches is equally stupid.
The worst I've seen this is in old big companys (like Kodak). The 'system' is the only thing you can call it. It is to messy for anybody to grok, senior managers included. When managers have 'perverse' motivations all sorts of insane things can happen. (e.g. the company takes it in the shorts but manager A gets fired, manager B promoted. All arranged by manager B. Happens all the time.)
We do not disagree and have to be more precise.
Let me give you a simple model. Temperature in my room drops by five degrees. I kick up the thermostate by two notches. The temperature drops further before rising again (diffusion of heat takes times, which I undestimated).
Was I effective in combating the temperature drop? No: I allowed it to drop further. Was my action stupid? I doubt anyone would call it that. In hindsight, turning the nob by three notches would be better, but two notches was not really a stupid decision.
Now, suppose you could not see me doing what I just described. How can you conclude that my actions were stupid or smart?
That is what happens with managerial decisions: most of them are made in private and based on the information that only that team has. Just like the temperature drop, Kodaks' market changes abruptly, and the team tries to develop a response. A quarter later, they do not return the company to profitability. How do you know that their decision was stupid? Surely you can judge that the problem is not resolved. You can judge that from the treches, much like a soldier can see without a general whether the battle was won or lost. But he does NOT know how and CANNOT judge how his general's decisions contributed to the result.
You describe situations that point to nothing else but teh limitations of human nature. Scapegoat was found. A coup orchestrated by B to overthrow A. What is teh difference from your own teammates, who lie to you that they had a doctor's appointment while they had a hangover instead? Or the same teammates who, when discovered having made a bad engineering call, blame it on you, their project leader, saying that you ordered them to do so?
People at all levels are people and most are not saints. Management is not better in that than the rest, but not worse either.
It is easy to bring more anecdotal evidence on the limitations of human nature. Yes, egos are inbolved. As I mentioned in an earlier post, management cannot be better thant the rest of the culture: it is drawn from that culture.
Most of us cannot judge the quality of decisions, however, even if we work in that company. Even if you know management, you have to be brought onboard --- as a team member or a (trusted) consultant --- and get acqainted with the circumstances in which the decisions have been made before you can even form an opinion.
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