I was watching some stupid show where the owner of a company pretends to be a lowly employee- you know- slumming it so he can "know" exactly how the rest of us feel. As if. Like the knowledge that you don't have to do this low grade demeaning labor, and can go back to your mansion at any time you want doesn't color your perception just a bit.
A show like that is only good for one or two seasons anyway, or for as many shows that they can tape before the first one airs, because after that, no one is going to be fooled. No one will believe anyone is making a documentary about Tony and his first day at K-Mart.
Anywho, this poor hourly schlep is working in a shipping warehouse, where his job is to package up products to ship out. All these different items come down a conveyer, and he has make an appropriate sized box, put the item in it, fill it with packing materials, seal it up, and properly stick on the shipping label. Every ninety seconds - or you're fired.. All the while his "co-workers" are muttering about he's just not going to "make it". So much for human dignity. No person should ever work like a machine, nor should they be expected to. If you want a machine to do a job for you, then buy a machine. Don't hire a minimum wage nothing and try to frighten a machines day of production out of him by threatening his job. If you have to wait another minute or two for your copy of "Big Jugs", (it's a book about pottery) so be it.
Now don't get me wrong, when you are "on the clock" you should be working. But no one can work every second of every hour it's just not possible. Plus these rules never seem to apply across the board, or to the board. Any supervisor, middlemanager, or boardmember feels entitled to stop working, chat, take a break (or many breaks), come in late, and leave early or just screw around all day- leaving the "rules" to be followed by the lowest waged nothings. As if how much money you make determines how much humanity you are allowed.
Why companies feel they have to rob their employees of their self-respect to get a days work out of them I'll never understand. I believe they do this simply to make themselves feel like a big man, because they can force you to comply with a bunch or meaningless or arbitrary rules. To actually tell your workers that they can be fired for sitting down, when half of their job is looking up things on a computer, has to be nothing but a power trip. Are you really going to fire a good hard working employee because he sat down once. I've known people that would. Crazy, stupid people mind you, but people non the less
