That kinda feels like a cheap shot at me MFE? Just as being a courier isn't for everyone, neither is mgmt. I'm not going to pretend like it's all sunshine and rainbows, but dang, it isn't that bad....I haven't had to sell my soul or anything.....not yet anyway.
I agree, not everyone is for management. The best part of this is that even Fred knows this. He's said it openly that most of FedEx (Managers) are either Military or came up through the ranks inside the company. What this causes is inbreeding bad concepts and management styles into our own future. I work for many people (my employees) that have no desire to become management and I respect that. I don't push them to become promotable, they want to be left alone to work their shift and leave, and I allow it because it's what makes them happy. On the selling your soul bit, that's a choice you have to make. If you sell your soul it's not to Fred, or anyone other than your boss really. If your boss doesn't have the skills to perform their job equitably then they will see you as a threat and make an attempt to neutralize you. The best way to do this is to compromise your integrity because it's so easy to do, once done, they own you as long as you are both there. If you don't give in, then you'll face a harsh uphill road that you may or may not be able to endure as it's entirely based upon your own will. Again, this is moreover based on your boss and what you're willing to give to keep your work life easy. In my opinion the jeers at Fred are by and large un-waranted, he's running his company how he always dreamed of running it. I can't hold that against any American businessman. It's effective too, ask his employees if they think FedEx is making moneys.
Not a cheap shot at all. You're more honest than most of them, but FX Manager doesn't sugar-coat any of it. I fully respect that.
My employees respect that too. They screw up, I tell them policy, not opinion and certainly not threats. They succeed they get the satisfaction of knowing they did good and possibly a thanks from me. (which by the way is about all we can do anymore, getting a BZ approved is like pulling a bowling ball out of...well, a not so large hole)
There's pro's and con's to every company, you get job security with a large company, this means you get lower pay because it costs money to create the security. You get benefits, 401k and pension even. The downside there, over time they'll get worse and worse until the camels back breaks. It's really intelligent what is going on right now if you think about it. How far can we push without breaking the camels back? Poor economy aside look at the past few years. Each year something gets quietly stripped away, no one makes a huge fuss. This year something big got stripped away. But not if you live in Memphis, nope you get to keep your CIGNA (which isn't perfect but it's sure not as bad as Anthem). Let's not make the people who take the Fortune surveys mad, that'll be a huge PR loss. Nope, Memphis is happy land where you get steaks for employee appreciation days and you can get away with almost anything.
The issue of the day is that there are extremists who push for too much, which are a huge minority. Then there's the complacent group who makes up the majority, they want change but don't care enough to even put thought into how to get it into action. Finally, you have the thinkers, this is the important group because they can show the intelligence and foresight needed to everyone to come up with a suitable answer for an issue at hand. The problem with them? Nothing, the problem is that the bad managers that exist ignore them and the good ones placate them because their under the bad ones, lol. Sadly that makes the most heard and recognized group the extremists because they won't shut up and force feed their ideals down peoples throats. (Am I going to rant on here every night?...Possibly, it's very stress relieving.)
You know, I might have gone on one too many rants and inadvertantly diverted the topic of this thread to a meaningless pulp. (Best kept secret of the year, your prescriptions are through Express-Script.com now, not Anthem, no one bothered to bring this up.)