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How Companies Manipulate Employees (With Examples)

18 points by Melchizedek 7y ago

_Hill_ 7y ago
Holy f*ck. That's my reaction so far, still need to process that information deeper.
FatDrunknStupid 7y ago
Kinda obvious. What isn't - some people are possessed and do really believe. Never Mind.
clay_the_ripper 7y ago
The overall tone of this article is really bitter and seems like it’s written by someone who has a really aggressive anti-corporate stance. I’m not familiar with the publication, maybe that’s their agenda. As a business owner, I strongly disagree with the fundamental premise of the article. I, as a business owner, take on a significant amount of risk to start a business. I sell services to clients and change the clients more than I pay my workers in order to turn a profit. My workers get paid a fair hourly wage and are treated well in exchange for selling their labor. That’s the arrangement. As a worker you have two options: 1. sell your labor in exchange for a fair wage. You make money. I make a profit. As the owner of the business I get to keep the profit. 2. Start your own business. Then you get to keep the profit in exchange for a lot of work, stress and risk. It’s a simple equation. If you don’t want to do number 2, then you’ll be doing number 1. It’s simply a matter of preference. Neither is better than the other.
- xkcd-sucks 7y ago
  Is it mischaracterizing anything though? The nature of life is to eat other life. The nature of corporations is to propagate atany cost. The nature of employees is to accept what's given, but the nature of humans is to take what's possible to take. There is a lot of grey between accepting everything and starting a business, e.g. anyone that's "high level". It's human to accept what's "realistic", e.g. a "fair" wage, and it's also human to take all that one can take. Presumably you started your companies because you were sick of someone else's perceived bullshit, and you probably had a bunch of structural help in order to become an employer.
ListeningPie 7y ago
I agree with the articles and have seen these manipulations in my large employer. I wanted to drink the kool aid and be a happy camper but I developed a cognitive dissonance that resulted in my quitting. My salary was good and I was not being exploited in any way, it was just the constant lie that money was not the overarching decision maker that made me sick. The only alternative I see is paying employees their worth, and admitting the only tool of any worth is money. Of course a company wants to save money wherever possible, because who is the leadership responsible to, the owners, not the customers and not the employees. As an employee then maybe it is about taking on the values of the leadership, money first, but that is not the employee's job. The employee has a task that needs to be solved and if that task will be done for less money because of values then it is the responsibility of the leadership to exploit those values. Leadership has decided how employees time is to be used effectively and that is why they provided employees with a list of tasks. For me honesty was more important than the job, but I know I’m in the minority and paying the price for it.
_Hill_ 7y ago
I thought about it, and it's genius. At least if you want to understand human nature

18 points by Melchizedek 7y ago

_Hill_ 7y ago

Holy f*ck. That's my reaction so far, still need to process that information deeper.

FatDrunknStupid 7y ago

Kinda obvious. What isn't - some people are possessed and do really believe. Never Mind.

clay_the_ripper 7y ago

The overall tone of this article is really bitter and seems like it’s written by someone who has a really aggressive anti-corporate stance. I’m not familiar with the publication, maybe that’s their agenda. As a business owner, I strongly disagree with the fundamental premise of the article. I, as a business owner, take on a significant amount of risk to start a business. I sell services to clients and change the clients more than I pay my workers in order to turn a profit. My workers get paid a fair hourly wage and are treated well in exchange for selling their labor. That’s the arrangement. As a worker you have two options: 1. sell your labor in exchange for a fair wage. You make money. I make a profit. As the owner of the business I get to keep the profit. 2. Start your own business. Then you get to keep the profit in exchange for a lot of work, stress and risk. It’s a simple equation. If you don’t want to do number 2, then you’ll be doing number 1. It’s simply a matter of preference. Neither is better than the other.

xkcd-sucks 7y ago
Is it mischaracterizing anything though? The nature of life is to eat other life. The nature of corporations is to propagate atany cost. The nature of employees is to accept what's given, but the nature of humans is to take what's possible to take. There is a lot of grey between accepting everything and starting a business, e.g. anyone that's "high level". It's human to accept what's "realistic", e.g. a "fair" wage, and it's also human to take all that one can take. Presumably you started your companies because you were sick of someone else's perceived bullshit, and you probably had a bunch of structural help in order to become an employer.

ListeningPie 7y ago

I agree with the articles and have seen these manipulations in my large employer. I wanted to drink the kool aid and be a happy camper but I developed a cognitive dissonance that resulted in my quitting. My salary was good and I was not being exploited in any way, it was just the constant lie that money was not the overarching decision maker that made me sick. The only alternative I see is paying employees their worth, and admitting the only tool of any worth is money. Of course a company wants to save money wherever possible, because who is the leadership responsible to, the owners, not the customers and not the employees. As an employee then maybe it is about taking on the values of the leadership, money first, but that is not the employee's job. The employee has a task that needs to be solved and if that task will be done for less money because of values then it is the responsibility of the leadership to exploit those values. Leadership has decided how employees time is to be used effectively and that is why they provided employees with a list of tasks. For me honesty was more important than the job, but I know I’m in the minority and paying the price for it.

_Hill_ 7y ago

I thought about it, and it's genius. At least if you want to understand human nature