Buddy, Can You Spare a Water Bottle?

Something happened at work recently that was a stark and rather sad reminder of how dismissive employers are of their workers.

There was a stack of water bottles in the kitchen. Thinking said water bottles were meant for the staff, I put two in the refrigerator to cool. But when I went back later, there was a sign on the rack of bottles:

Please do no take. These bottles are only meant for meetings and visitors.

Oh, now I get it. When the big kahunas have meetings or a visitor comes to the office, they get the water bottles, but the rest of us mere cubicle dwellers cannot.

So I apologized to the office manager and put the water bottles back. But I was steamed.

Aren’t we part of the staff? Are visitors more important to the company than we are, the people who are actually putting together the products and services that are generating the firm’s revenues? It just says to us that management does not think we are very important.

Yes, we have a water cooler in the office. Why can’t they just get a cup of water from that? It’s good enough for us, but not for upper management and visitors?

Despite the tone of this blog, I actually do understand why companies have to make personnel cuts in choppy economic times. I understand why they cannot give out raises or year-end bonuses in certain years.

I don’t expect much in the way of extras. I can do without summer company picnics and pizza Fridays.

I also believe that the biggest (non)perk of all should be outlawed: the company holiday party with an open bar. I have been to too many of those where I’ve been ignored by the cool kids and watched co-workers get drunk and nasty. Ug. Then there was my all-time low point for a company holiday party: The time a crazybitch colleague screamed at me because she thought I somehow messed with a CD she wanted to dance to. Yes, she was drunk. For the record, I was simply retrieving a CD I brought to the event and had no idea she was waiting to dance. But what really got me was that she was going to dance with a bunch of other women. George Clooney wasn’t out there waiting for her.

I’d rather go for a root canal.

But water bottles? Come on. We workers put up with a lot…no raises, crappy health plans and double workloads, all for the sake of a steady paycheck. But this is so, well, cheap.

Are things that bad, or does the company think so little of us, that they cannot give us bottles of better water? 

Loyalty is a One-Way Street

We are in the dog days of summer and my beloved Mets are doing their annual second-half flop to last place. So naturally my thoughts turn to football, and that brings me to…Peyton Manning.

Yes, the same Peyton Manning who was unceremoniously dumped by his former team, the Indianapolis Colts last year. Even after he brought the team a Super Bowl title and did nothing but play like a superstar for the Colts, management decided to go with a younger quarterback.

Not that I can’t blame the Colts. Manning is, after all, well into his 30s and coming off neck surgery. In sports, younger is better. And there was the not insignificant matter of a $28-million bonus the team would have owed him had they kept him on the roster. (Odd isn't it, that the same management that agreed to that ridiculous clause used it as a reason for not keeping him.)

Yet I can’t feel too sorry for Manning, either. He signed on with the Denver Broncos for about $90 million. Not exactly chump change.

Nevertheless, the whole incident shows just how little loyalty employers have toward their employees, even the great ones. Loyalty between employers and employees is a one-way street nowadays. Employers expect workers to be loyal to the company yet they give us no loyalty in return.

Companies know employees can’t move easily to others jobs; therefore, they know we must put up with little or no raises, bad working conditions and high-deductible health plans. Really, some deductibles are so high that the only way anyone could meet those numbers is to get hit by a truck.

If we complain? Too bad, say bosses. If you don’t like it find something else. But they know we can’t. The general attitude is we are lucky to have a job.

And what are companies giving workers in return?

Cue the sound of crickets chirping…

Not much. Companies have made it very clear they will cut workers en masse when it suits them, even if we are doing a good job. Their loyalty is to the bottom line, not us.

So we sit in our cubicles and seethe, waiting and hoping for the economy to turn and create more jobs.

Because when the economy does turn, and eventually it will, it always does, how much loyalty do we think we are going to show our employers?