Friday, April 01, 2011

Liberal Dogma: Do As I Say, Not As I Do

This is a personal observation based on years of dealing with people who say one thing, but do another. This type of behavior is far more prevalent in the more liberal individuals and businesses than conservative ones because of the hurdles and litmus tests required for the type of ideological purity demanded by the far Left. Although they claim to be open to differences, in reality some of the worst and most biased individuals and businesses are the biggest offenders when it comes to such ideas as free speech, honesty and fair treatment. Years ago I worked for a very chic, well known home products company. They regularly make it on local and national "best places to work" lists. I beg to differ. My experience was that they would add responsibilities without promised compensation. I also saw people who were in common terms "suck ups" who pandered to the political and personal biases of the people in charge on a social level get promoted over people who did the heavy lifting. And while this company likes to pat itself on the back, I still here stories of people hired to work there and expected to work off the clock, not take lunches and work on holidays where most other stores are closed. So we more onto a more personal view. My son worked for more than two and half years for a very well known store that catered to the skating crowd. He was, in fact, for two years running, in what was called "The 100K" in that they sold more than $100K in merchandise during the years. That's alot of tee shirts and jeans. My son was doing well and in October was asked to move "temporarily" to a store thirty miles from home. They promised him a promotion and a raise in January. So he worked his tail off. He even went in to do inventory right after his car was totaled in a driving rainstorm. He worked more than forty hours a week, took hours for people that couldn't work and even helped after not one but two break ins. He was the top salesperson. But he had a hotshot manager who had always been a top salesperson who just could not handle that she wasn't top sales. So she made up complaints, and despite the fact that his sales were helping the store make goal, fired him. Needless to say, in this economy, finding an entry level job is not easy. But what is grating is that when he talked to company brass at 100K in January, they were big on "we are a family, we care about our employees." Evidently not because the regional manager didn't even have the common courtesy to return calls and the rest of the managers he has worked with are mad as hell because they were counting on having him work as first assistant manager when they got stores. So to all those folks who shop at Zumiez, look carefully at what you buy. Because you aren't supporting a friendly, liberal, casual skating store, you are supporting a corporation monolith that thinks employees are disposible and customers are chumps.