I wish I could do the same too. I could change careers, but that would result in a drop in salary that I can't really make work at the moment.
I can't change the company from within, because no matter how much they talk about "values", they are all the same really. In fact, the MORE a company talks about value, the worse it behaves.
--- SBBSecho 3.11-Linux
So funny you brought that up. My first real career was with a retailer
within consumer electronics. They were the Nordstrum of electronics if you will. Instead of tile floors, carpet. Very "feel at home" paint colors. We offered every customer a pop or coffee (or bottle of water) when they
arrived. We really prided ourselves and consistently executed their version
of "The 10 commandments to customer service." People loved shopping in our stores. We averaged 30,000sqft in size, and carried everything best buy did, but also the high end shops.. We had no intent on selling al ot of $50,000 home theatre systems, however we had a high end movie theatre room set up for people to expeience ... actually had about 4 different type of experience rooms. Most customers came in wanting the $99 speakers. After experiencing
a $20,000 audio system, then listing to the $99 version, they would typically spend an average of $1500 on at least definitive techology or klipsch
speakers. I fell in love with the company and the people I worked with, however as we grew, profits were needed to sustain the growth, and slowly but inevitably a lot of the "10 commandments" went away -- the culture collapsed.
After leaving that company, I started working for Sears as a General Manager.
I remember them stating over and over again the need to learn things "their way," and about their unique culture of customer service. It pailed in comparison to where I had previously worked. matter of fact, the company was struggling so much that their expectations of a well merchandised store was impossible to maintain. I ran a 120,000sqft store that did 30 million per year. We would have ONE employee "approved" by the corporation to
merchandise the entire upstairs apparel area, which on it's own was a good 20-40,000 sqft and heavily shopped.
Moving on to another local company here in Indiana -- rinse and repeat --
"Must laern our culture," "must learn what we do and how we do it," "must
learn our systems," etc... It was ALL the same, but in this case, their
culture was a very agressive sales approach like old school car dealerships. Horrible experience, despite the increase in pay.
My final stop was Best Buy. Now this company really wanted me to drink some funky Koolaid -- build relationships, employee moral committies, etc.... It
was tailored to 18 years olds with sensitive personalities that constantly needed pats on the back, and rewarded for simply doing their job. This is when my mom passed and I was able to break free of (circling back to what you're saying ...) corporations.
I think, as I babbled, to your point .. what I found in common with ALL of them, is that each felt their culture was unique. Despite each being within the same industry and most using similar systems .. they each felt that they were so remarkably different that NONE of them were open to a fresh set of
eyes who could possibly positivly impact their business. And most important, I've found that the cliche' "that we are no longer valued employees, just another disposable number," or "cog within a wheel," were all so true and
often subtle messages sent to leaders as means of motivation to drive
corporate goals.
This is why I prefer small businesses, or interacting with those on BBS's,
that still believe in doing great things, and the value of people helping
them acheive it. Like a small business with the belief they can create a
truly unique retail store, beit true or not that they will succeed, the
energy and passion behind the hard work to do so is the only type of company I'd work for again -- otherwords, I'll just start my own again. More and
more people seem to appreciate local and small businesses these days at least where I live. And I guess, how it relates to BBS's, I prefer to discuss "how to gain users" then to think of them as nothing more than "museums" and "archives in history"
If you like the people you work with, and the work is fun, I imagine its
worth staying as in my eperience, that experience is usually not recreated again when a job change is made within the same field. Most of the time.
Not from a corporate culture prospective.
Now .. .the owning a business thing has significant advantages, mostly flexibility of time and more time working from home in the presence of
family. However, I learned over the last 7 years, it takes A LOT of business to make a decent personal income, as a result of the business expenses that become necessarry to meet demand if successful in the communities eye.
--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A45 2020/02/18 (Windows/32)
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