I’m 30, I work, I come home, sleep, and repeat. I wonder what this hard work is going towards as I see pensions suddenly dropped from employee’s plans, rising health care cost even with insurance, my 401k shrinking with it all. The values that I was taught growing up seem to have taken on a sudden change. Work hard and you can accomplish anything, work hard and you will be able to take care of a family. I’m not even sure if I work hard I will be able to care for myself in 20 years. I see my future as never ending harder work just to stay employed. Not to have an increase in pay that actually means anything, actually the increase in cost of living pay is usually pennies on the dollar and fails to keep up even in a slowing economy.
Although, I’m lucky that they even give cost of living increases in my employment. I remember my father working hard at his job and saved for retirement. There was something profoundly different in the working generation when I was a child though. Employees where more than a mere number on the books eating away at resources till they could find a way to make people do even more work with less, so they could lay off or eliminate the job and make record profits. Do I think there is anything wrong with record profits or making billions of dollars a year? No, I absolutely don’t think there is at all. Yet, as time goes on I notice one thing in my 30’s working. The companies don’t care about you the employee or anything other than profits and will go as far as sacrificing the financial security of America to become richer.
As the middle class slowly disappears into thin air it leaves people treading water. As 30 year old American’s it seems we are left with two options become rich somehow or become poor because that is the realization that is upon us. Where inventory cost, production percentage is crunch into dollar amounts and being told more, more, more. I have not had one friend dare to ask for a raise in their pay because they already know the answer regardless how hard and how much they have done for their respective employers. The employer will simply say no and you can quit and find a job somewhere else if you would like. Knowing that tomorrow they will go out on the street and pay someone less to do just enough even though you were going above and beyond.
Business doesn’t value our work as employees any longer and we have just turned into a number on an accounting page. They rarely sponsor company Christmas parties, little league teams, help hard working employees during a family crisis, etc. I work with a small group within a large company and we get the preprinted card on the holidays that I would prefer they didn’t even bother because I know it is a cheap attempt to make one feel as though we are human to them. Where is the country going when all my money in Social Security is disappearing, pensions going away, and 401k savings disappearing? Should I become like my Grandmother and hide sums of cash in my home? I can’t even cash a check at my own bank from another person that uses the same bank without having a three day hold and a check cashing fee.
Free market does work when there is a form of regulation, especially today. When money is all that matters and million dollar bonuses are given to a CEO even though they were in charge when the company was ran into the ground. What hard work did they do to deserve that bonus, what did they achieve during their time at the company? Nothing, yet we see them rewarded because of their position and people they know and not what they have done. My generation has watched while people are rewarded constantly for things they didn’t accomplish or deserve. I hear the frustration in people when they speak about the future. You have to wonder is this something the government can fix or has the companies grown more powerful than the government to the point they can do whatever it is they want. Even when it jeopardizes everyone in America or is companies just the victims in this? Did the government cause the companies to act that way in the first place? What do you think?
