The Crash Is On Its Way

Wisdom Nuggets: "There is only one way in which one can endure man's inhumanity to man and that is to try, in one's own life, to exemplify man's humanity to man." - Alan Paton

Alan Paton (Photo from: todayinliterature.com)

 A woman who worked in a small office, so that her boss could see what she did all day, had to use the toilet a lot because she was pregnant. The boss made a note of how long she was gone each time and took the minutes out of her lunch hour. Another employee, a salesman had leukemia and was very sickly. His boss insulted him every day and doubled his sales quota while he was still undergoing chemotherapy. He quit and recovered. One American film producer had 109 assistants in five years, not counting those who stayed less than two weeks. He fired one for buying him the wrong breakfast muffin. A man's hand was cut off by a giant cutting machine in the factory where he worked. After 6 months of being admitted in the hospital due to the loss of limb, he was laid off the job. He was considered a waste of company resources. Yet another staff was involved in a fatal motor accident while on official duty as sales rep. He was still battling with the trauma of the accident in his hospital bed 3 months later when he was informed that he has just lost his  job. The company figured out it will be too expensive to pay his medical bills. Till today in my country, a lot of house helps are not treated better than the 12th century slaves in Brazil : physically, sexually and mentally abused just to remind them that they are different from the cute kids of the house owner. They eat sparingly, sleep seldom and work for long hours.

Believe it or not, the way you treat your staff, domestic or corporate, will either attract a blessing or bring down a curse on your organization, your family and your life. When Job's entire world crashed, trying to figure out where he had gone wrong, this is one of the questions he asked.
 “Have I ever been unfair to my employees when they brought a complaint to me?What, then, will I do when i am confronted?When my books are examined, what will I say? Didn’t the same God who made me, make them?Aren’t we all made of the same stuff, equals before God?

The truth is you may be the world's richest man and your organisation may be responsible for the livelihood of a million families who would suffer if you did not employ them, but Job says before our Creator you are no different from your staff. You are equals. The only difference is that you have been privileged to have these great cooperations in your care. You have been entrusted with the opportunity to extend His blessings to others.

Life never blesses us for ourselves but we are blessed so that we can be blessings to others. Some CEO's adopt a Eugenistic attitude, which gives the feeling that they came from a superior breed from their staff and therefore, embark on a program of deliberate and systematic dehumanisation, humiliation and degradation. Most employers suffer psychological abused, emotionally traumatized and physically drained. Fact is today you can be the boss and tomorrow a staff too.

First ,if you treat your staff as a worthless bunch of people you are just doing a favour, it will reflect everyday in their poor performance, affect their self esteem and deplete the company's market share.

Secondly, employers who treat employees shabbily and pay them poorly must hear these words: "you are not pilling up wealth but judgement." You'll need buckets for the tears when the crash comes upon your  organisation.

"...And a final word to you arrogant rich: Take some You’ll need buckets for the tears when the crash comes upon you lessons in lamentation. You’ll need buckets for the tears when the crash comes upon you. Your money is corrupt and your fine clothes stink. Your greedy luxuries are a cancer in your gut, destroying your life from within. You thought you were piling up wealth. What you’ve piled up is judgment. All the workers you’ve exploited and cheated cry out for judgment. The groans of the workers you used and abused are a roar in the ears of the Master Avenger. You’ve looted the earth and lived it up. But all you’ll have to show for it is a fatter than usual corpse. In fact, what you’ve done is condemn and murder perfectly good persons, who stand there and take it..."

Speaking of crashes: the whole world has recent been dealing with a global economic meltdown. Maybe we are just discovering some of the reasons behind the crash sweeping the world's big businesses.

Robert Burns said "Man's inhumanity to man makes countless thousands mourn!"
To which Alan Paton replied "There is only one way in which one can endure man's inhumanity to man and that is to try, in one's own life, to exemplify man's humanity to man."
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