MrFedEx
Engorged Member
For something like 30 years now, the main methodology for FedEx to deal with employee unhappiness, anxiety, or fateful new takeaways has been the barbecue. You know, cheap food, bottled water, and off-brand sodas, or if you're really lucky, some gristly cheap cut of mystery meat and potato salad, all prepared with questionable cleanliness and zero refrigeration...yum. Bad food, and possibly food poisoning. For awhile, food budgets were eliminated, but apparently the almighty BBQ is rising like a phoenix from the ashes to be foisted upon us once again. Goody.
Here's the real message behind the BBQ..."FedEx Cares" and "We hear your concerns". First, no they don't care, and second, they could care less about what you think. You are units of production...nothing else, and they don't want your input or opinion, just your labor. If you think about it, what motivates most employees? That's right...money, OR the ability to take more of it home through quality benefit programs. Some people are also motivated by being "team members" as in 1+1=3 as part of a synergistic effort toward mutual goals. Doesn't exactly sound like that's happening here, does it?
For $100 or so per station on average, they think they are buying your continued loyalty and dedication, AND also defusing any sort of move toward unionization. The fact that they think this still works is disturbing enough, but to continue trotting it out forever is really pathetic. One would think the SFA results that were so horrific that they had to kill and bury them in a New Jersey landfill would be enough to provide a clue, but no, the force field that protects MEM from reality is still fully intact and apparently, incapable of being penetrated by logic and common sense.
Weenie roasts, hamburger cookouts, and the like motivate children, not adults, and that's how MEM views us...as little kids. Can you imagine what would happen if Microsoft, Apple, and other companies actually operating in reality offered their workers BBQ instead of a raise? Or if they performed a self-insurance ripoff scam on employees and tried to blame other factors to "explain it away"? There would be chaos, and the talented people would start to leave, kind of like what's happening now at FedEx.
So, the next time you bite into that delicious Costco weenie that cost Fred a quarter, and drink down that warm bottled water or soda that cost a dime, think about the motivation the corporation has for "treating you", and the ramifications of that mindset. Just don't eat the potato salad that has been setting in the sun for 5 hours...because that is analogous to what this company has become.
Here's the real message behind the BBQ..."FedEx Cares" and "We hear your concerns". First, no they don't care, and second, they could care less about what you think. You are units of production...nothing else, and they don't want your input or opinion, just your labor. If you think about it, what motivates most employees? That's right...money, OR the ability to take more of it home through quality benefit programs. Some people are also motivated by being "team members" as in 1+1=3 as part of a synergistic effort toward mutual goals. Doesn't exactly sound like that's happening here, does it?
For $100 or so per station on average, they think they are buying your continued loyalty and dedication, AND also defusing any sort of move toward unionization. The fact that they think this still works is disturbing enough, but to continue trotting it out forever is really pathetic. One would think the SFA results that were so horrific that they had to kill and bury them in a New Jersey landfill would be enough to provide a clue, but no, the force field that protects MEM from reality is still fully intact and apparently, incapable of being penetrated by logic and common sense.
Weenie roasts, hamburger cookouts, and the like motivate children, not adults, and that's how MEM views us...as little kids. Can you imagine what would happen if Microsoft, Apple, and other companies actually operating in reality offered their workers BBQ instead of a raise? Or if they performed a self-insurance ripoff scam on employees and tried to blame other factors to "explain it away"? There would be chaos, and the talented people would start to leave, kind of like what's happening now at FedEx.
So, the next time you bite into that delicious Costco weenie that cost Fred a quarter, and drink down that warm bottled water or soda that cost a dime, think about the motivation the corporation has for "treating you", and the ramifications of that mindset. Just don't eat the potato salad that has been setting in the sun for 5 hours...because that is analogous to what this company has become.