The Peripatetic Philosopher a cultural tic:

THE FALLACY OF THE COMPANY "AS FAMILY"

Excerpt from the pages of

TEN CREATIVE STAGES TO CONFIDENT THINKING

James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.

© June 16, 2017

Companies encouraged the prevailing attitude of dependency by creating the impression that the company "is a family." No company or workplace "is a family." No organization in any type of enterprise "is a family." The idea that an overreaching authority is “family” to the man inside the group is an illusion. Yet, the symbolism of "family" is powerful. It was formed in childhood and has been altered little to become something of a truism. Unfortunately, the truism has no legs.

You don't throw the family out on the street; don't make fam­ily members redundant; don't move everything to another state or country and claim you had no choice. With family, there is no such thing as an "outside authority." Family is blood and des­tiny with no special lifeboats for select members when the ship is going down. Family controls its destiny if it has the courage to do so. Companies often lack such gumption.

We are born alone, we live largely alone, and we die alone. We all have peers, but the child is parent to the man. Each man is sovereign in his own way and life and right. The illusion of "fam­ily" or outside authority that wraps its magnanimous arms around us and looks after us is the romanticism of the utopian dream. It is the safety net that we crave seeded with the hope of escaping personal responsibility and saved from ourselves. English poet John Doone (1571 - 1631) "Triple Fool" touches this woe:

"I am two fools, I know for loving, and for saying so in whining poetry:

But where's that Wiseman, that would not be I, if she would not deny!

Then as the earth's inward narrow crooked lanes do purge sea water's fretful salt away, I thought, if I could draw my pains through rhyme's vexation, I should them allay,

Grief brought to numbers cannot be so fierce.

But when I have done so, some man, his art and voice to show,

Doth set and sing my pain, and, by delighting many, frees again, grief, which verse did restrain.

To love and grief tribute of verse belongs, but not of such as pleases when `tis read,

Both are increased by such songs: for both their tri­umphs so are published,

And I, which was two fools, do so grow three; who are a little wise, the best fools be."

I've often read this poem when I've been down on myself and   somewhat discouraged for whatever reason. The poem reminds me that we stumble forward as individuals, and that it is a false promise to believe the "family" sentiment of corporate society as parent rescues us from that reality. 

The workplace or the Congress of the United States or the church cannot protect us from ourselves, but it can make us weak and vulnerable children. Our employers can intimate by innuendo that they have our backs and can protect us from the ravages of life; from the ravages that make us strong, straight, wise and courageous.  All we have to do is give up our freedom.  But we were not made to be protected from life or ourselves.  Nor were we meant to be protected from failure which is the only route to success.  We were meant to be free which allows us to fail and fall and to pick ourselves up again and again. Why deny us that possibility; why trap us in the permanent state of children forever dependent as employees on the CEO or his equivalent as parent with him with a "god complex"?

It is because of this social syndrome why parents still control their fifty-year-old children, and why CEOs make 500 to 1,000 times as much as the aver­age worker. We are willing to pay that heavy price to an "outside authority" to maintain the approval of a parent or stay in the perpetual good graces of the boss. When we do this, and most of us do in corporate society, we abdicate our "inner authority" and our freedom but not without consequences.

We hear and believe the CEO when he says, "It is only a rumor that there will be massive layoffs. We are optimistic about our future." Countless examples of these dissembling lines sur­faced in the 2007-2008 with the global economy meltdown. A generation ago, Enron's founder and CEO said those precise words repeat­edly before he and the Enron CEO team vanished into scandal­ous infamy in 2001.

President Barak Obama lied dozens of times from 2008 through 2013, when Obamacare was being implemented stating, "With Obamacare, you can keep your health care plan if you want, period!" Dissembling has become second nature to those in leadership positions, while paradoxi­cally advocating transparency.

Notice the pageantry, the pomp and circumstance when the CEO of a company visits one of his far-flung satellite operations. You can see the trusting eyes of the workers as the CEO utters his reassurances. He is their father figure, affable, approachable, but always godly. Workers place him on a pedestal so his head is always higher than theirs; his reach always farther, his horizons always wider, and his words balm for their worried souls. They believe because they want to believe, like children.

The CEO entertains select questions collected beforehand. The questions have the implicit character of infantile demands: "Is this plant going to stay open?" "Will we have the option to continue working if we don't want the buyout?"

Workers want the reassurance once provided by their parents. The CEO, coached by his public relations people, answers as if a politician on the stump:

"I looked in our three acre parking lot this morning and I saw it full of vehicles, not an empty space. Does that answer your question?"

Of course it doesn't, but who is going to challenge “god”?  Instead, it is appropriately followed by supportive laugher, clap­ping, and even a few hoorahs.

The child-in-the-worker says, "He means we're in business for the long haul." Wishful thinking, fueled by the CEO's comment, can become a deadly disease.  Then, to the second question about a "buyout," the CEO grows merry; his countenance takes on the demea­nor of a cherubic archangel. "I've been looking at those buyout packages, and think I'd be tempted to take one and go fishing myself."

Laughter again rises from the floor to another non-answer to the question. It lifts the CEO off his throne and carries him through a sea of complacent idolaters. No one dare break the spell.

Companies have paid dearly for this, as we now know. The only guarantee a worker should truly expect is a full day's pay for a full day's work. There are no guarantees in life, and why should work be any different? It puts the worker on his mettle when he knows he always has to perform. When I was a college student, and something of a grind, I was often asked, "Why do you study so hard? You've already clinched an “A”? You could flunk the final and still ace the course."

First of all, it was my nickel that put me in school, all my own nickels. Secondly, I was determined to learn as much as I possibly could. And thirdly, and this was important, I believed in my own heart that I could flunk out at any time. Nothing was ever taken for granted because I knew I could never charm a professor to get a good grade. I was stuck with me, and that me was not always too easy to take.

It will take some time, and I'm sure, reprogramming, if work­ers are to assume responsibility for their own security and future. It is clear they must find a way to add value status to their job. This will promote individual security, and by extension, company stability. Somehow this got lost in post-World War II euphoria, and now everyone is suffering for this failure.

It has been my observation that for every hard working per­son, there are four that are dogging it.

What is sad about this is that everyone knows who these peo­ple are, but no one does anything about them. Mired in learned help­lessness, hard workers don't want to be labeled snitches, while loafers know how to play the system to their advantage. Since loafers are paid the same, they busy themselves looking for ways to redirect attention by constant complaining or flattering their bosses. Like the disruptive child that used tears to get its way, these workers know the squeaky wheel gets the oil. So, while hard workers are focusing on work, these other workers are nitpicking or focusing on making an impression. Loafers have killed the golden goose, and now, with matters as they are, with a global economy in full swing, the blame game has no fire or audience.