There's an idea that all you need to escape poverty is a job, and that poverty is caused by laziness beyond all else. Apparently only 2% of people living in poverty are able to work but do not work:
Today as then, the able-bodied, poor and idle adult remains a rare creature. According to the Brookings Institution, in 2016 one-third of those living in poverty were children, 11 percent were elderly and 24 percent were working-age adults (18 to 64) in the labor force, working or seeking work. The majority of working-age poor people connected to the labor market were part-time workers. Most couldn’t take on many more hours either because of caregiver responsibilities, as with Vanessa, or because their employer didn’t offer this option, rendering them involuntary part-time workers. Among the remaining working-age adults, 12 percent were out of the labor force owing to a disability (including some enrolled in federal programs that limit work), 15 percent were either students or caregivers and 3 percent were early retirees. That leaves 2 percent of poor people who did not fit into one of these categories. That is, among the poor, two in 100 are working-age adults disconnected from the labor market for unknown reasons. The nonworking poor person getting something for nothing is a lot like the cheat committing voter fraud: pariahs who loom far larger in the American imagination than in real life.
Of people in poverty, a third are children who can't work. 11 percent are seniors who can't work. 24 percent are adults working or searching for work. 12 percent are disabled and can't work. 15 percent are students and caregivers who can't work. 3 percent are early retirees. Only the remaining 2 percent stand to benefit from a new job. Even if you lump in that 3 percent with the 2 percent, 95 percent of people in poverty aren't just lazy people who are choosing not to work. You can't say "just get a job and you'll stop being poor" to a child.
Wages have been stagnant for decades even as worker productivity has skyrocketed. People provide massive value to their employers but simply don't get paid as much as they contribute to the company, for the sole reason that it's in your employer's best interest to pay you as little as possible. Without strong unions or government-mandated benefits or a high minimum wage, employers have every reason to keep wages and benefits low. We want wages to increase, but we don't expect employers to actually pay higher wages--we expect workers to somehow force their employers to pay reasonable wages.
What is a "reasonable wage?" A reasonable wage is a wage that matches what the worker contributes to the company. You should earn as much money as you make for your employer. In other words, a reasonable wage should match productivity. How much is that?
Since 1973, American productivity has increased by 77 percent, while hourly pay has grown by only 12 percent. If the federal minimum wage tracked productivity, it would be more than $20 an hour, not today’s poverty wage of $7.25.
This is why I think we need a corporate tax rate that depends on how many Americans the company employs and how much the company pays its employees in wages and real benefits. That will actually provide an incentive for employers to pay higher wages, without simply pricing out minimum wage jobs (which people have feared a higher minimum wage might do) or subsidizing low-wage positions (which amounts to corporate welfare, since it lets companies like Walmart skim off the top).
We also need some stronger unions to fight for higher wages and benefits. God knows your employer and your Congressional representatives aren't doing anything to increase your wages. And it's not like the average American isn't doing anything to earn a reasonable wage for themselves--Americans are actively working long hours at high productivity. It's no coincidence that the American middle class was biggest and strongest back when unions were numerous and powerful in the mid-twentieth century, before new government rules crippled them in the Reagan era.
We have a situation where Americans are working hard and being productive and learning more and more skills. Unemployment is low, but working people still have stagnant wages. Young folks in particular are working more hours and have more years of education and training. Yet their employers choose to pay low wages. Why?
Because they can. It's in a corporation's best interests to bleed their workers dry, so they do it. We can solve this problem with a few basic policies: strengthen collective bargaining and provide incentives to employers who pay reasonable wages to their workers.
That's not true on all counts. Corporations like the one I work are actively competing to attract skilled workers. If you're good at what you do and your skills are in demand, it's not bad out there. Unskilled labor is definitely not in that same boat, however...
I suppose it is reasonably safe to discuss this now, since I have gotten confirmation of the new one (finally), but I lost the job I had held for well over 2 years back in June. Just like the last time it happened, the decision was made without any actual explanation by people who drive two brand new trucks (one their personal one and one given to them by the company), and were clearly conservative in their political views based on conversations I overheard. The manager who was given the task of letting me go tried to save my position and was shot down. But at least he and the quality control manager took over an hour out of their day to let me vent, mostly because what I was telling them was all true (that the person who made the decision to let me go had no idea what my job actually entailed, and what problems they were going to to encounter after I was gone). I didn't bring up the fact that we spent thousands of dollars on a golf cart so the person who decided to eliminate my position could ride around the plant after his knee surgery, but I digress. I was approved for TWO raises in the previous year. Paltry, but still raises. I was given a "way to go" on running the shipping office by myself when the manager in charge was on vacation for ten days. But lo and behold, a week after some consultant came in, I (who have never missed so much as a single day of work in over two years) was kicked to the curb. I would have choice works for either of the two men responsible for costing me my last two jobs if I ever see them in public.
I was on unemployment for about 6 weeks (again, a process which requires you to put in a fairly decent amount of work to even get the meager benefits), before finally being able to land a job that I thought would fit my skill-set. Turns out it is the 9th circle of hell. Though they give you 500 hours to reach it, the productivity they expect is not only high, but nearly impossible. To the point that even filling up a water-bottle or taking a piss can cause you to miss it. The work is back-breaking, breaks are once every 3 hours for 15 minutes (and are announced in an almost prison-like fashion by alarm over the loudspeakers). Apparently, it has almost an 80% turnover ratio. It does pay fairly well even to start, but it has to or people would never even consider it an option.
I knew immediately I could not work here long-term, and even if I wanted to, I had no confidence I would ever be able to meet their insane productivity standards. So I almost immediately set out looking for something else, which I finally got the concrete go-ahead on in the last couple days after a stressful weeks long process. What is the point of this post?? Something I wanted to get off my chest for awhile actually, but also to reiterate the fact that the American business treats it's workers like cogs in a machine. No matter how loyal you are, you may get tossed aside with no warning (in regards to my old job). Indeed, companies may be designed in such a way to use up employees and simply move on to the next one (my current job). Thankfully, I only have one or two days left at my current position, but I have VERY little faith in this capitalistic experiment of ours after spending the last couple months on the receiving end of it. Yeah, there are jobs out there. That doesn't mean you can trust your employer or that they aren't absolutely soul-crushingly awful.
What type of compensation, if any, did you get for being laid off at your last job of two years?
I was allowed (or maybe I was owed, I have no idea) to cash out all my accrued vacation time, which amounted to just over a week of wages. Other than that, they didn't contest my unemployment (basically writing me a letter that said I was laid off, not fired for cause, as the later does not allow you to collect benefits). My guess is that the only reason that happened is because my direct manager insisted upon it. Left to the devices of the person who made the call, I seriously wonder if that would have been the case.
I told myself at my previous job I lost in such an abrupt fashion I would never put myself in this situation again, to be put at the whims of whoever is in charge, but I let myself fall into a false sense of security because I had been so obviously flexible, loyal and dependable for the last couple of years. I didn't think they could afford to get rid of me. Some bean counter they brought in who never even spoke a single word to me must have decided otherwise. Now I have to make sure to tell myself to be constantly on guard for signs of doom at any future job to head things off at the pass. At the moment, I am simply overjoyed I will no longer be working at my current job, which is so bad I dread calling in every afternoon to see if they need me to work.
He also goes on to say Martin Shkreli (currently in jail) did nothing wrong.
There's just some areas of life where capitalism needs to be well regulated - healthcare is one of those areas. You can't have greed trumping people's health.
Workers rights is another area where there need to SOME safeguards against predatory capitalism.
I've never been able to get unemployment benefits. Both Chic-Fil-A and Big Lots lied about my firing and they were never required to offer any proof.
In this recent case, my direct manager is a good guy. He always had my back, and I believe he wants to run the company a different way (in the way I was sold on it when I started basically). He said it isn't the first time something like this has happened, as he has had the same boss in the past, and he said loyalty should count for something and apologized he wasn't able to live up to what I was told when I got hired on. All well and good, but it wasn't his fault. He was simply given a task. He has a wife and two kids to support, and saving my job doesn't come before that.
Things are terrible in Canada, too. Corporations do everything they can to avoid hiring full-time so they don't have to pay benefits, which either means permanently under-scheduling workers or hiring on contract. Even governments (at all levels) and universities are doing this.
I've never been able to get unemployment benefits. Both Chic-Fil-A and Big Lots lied about my firing and they were never required to offer any proof.
Chic-Fil-A? The supposedly Christian company screwed you over?
I don't hold much stock in ANY company being "Christian", or even religious at all. Its just a company image that may or may not be upheld even nominally by the owner. Despite Big Lots firing me for tending to my son's health issues, I remember it MUCH more fondly than Chic-Fil-A. We were all consistently treated like garbage by management, no exception. I hated every day at that job, and being "fired" was a huge relief.
I've never been able to get unemployment benefits. Both Chic-Fil-A and Big Lots lied about my firing and they were never required to offer any proof.
Chic-Fil-A? The supposedly Christian company screwed you over?
Chic-Fil-A's main claim to "Christianity" seems to be marketing themselves as a place to buy anti-gay chicken sandwiches after that controversial dust-up a few years back. I hear they are tasty, but I have no plans to ever visit them or Hobby Lobby. I'm not "boycotting", I'm simply not ever going to patronize either business. I'm sure they'll do fine without me, however.
. We were all consistently treated like garbage by management, no exception. I hated every day at that job, and being "fired" was a huge relief.
It's horrible when you're in that boat, isn't it? I can even remember interviewing for jobs and knowing just from that that it was going to be terrible. You desperately need the job, yet you're hoping you don't get it. It's a strange sensation.
I've never been able to get unemployment benefits. Both Chic-Fil-A and Big Lots lied about my firing and they were never required to offer any proof.
Chic-Fil-A? The supposedly Christian company screwed you over?
Chic-Fil-A's main claim to "Christianity" seems to be marketing themselves as a place to buy anti-gay chicken sandwiches after that controversial dust-up a few years back. I hear they are tasty, but I have no plans to ever visit them or Hobby Lobby. I'm not "boycotting", I'm simply not ever going to patronize either business. I'm sure they'll do fine without me however.
I have to admit I've never tried an anti-gay chicken sandwich. Are they similar to an anti-transgender hamburger? It's a very strange world we live in now...
I've never been able to get unemployment benefits. Both Chic-Fil-A and Big Lots lied about my firing and they were never required to offer any proof.
Chic-Fil-A? The supposedly Christian company screwed you over?
Chic-Fil-A's main claim to "Christianity" seems to be marketing themselves as a place to buy anti-gay chicken sandwiches after that controversial dust-up a few years back. I hear they are tasty, but I have no plans to ever visit them or Hobby Lobby. I'm not "boycotting", I'm simply not ever going to patronize either business. I'm sure they'll do fine without me however.
I have to admit I've never tried an anti-gay chicken sandwich. Are they similar to an anti-transgender hamburger? It's a very strange world we live in now...
Well, it wasn't them EXPLICITLY advertising that way, politicians and right-activists did it for them. It was revealed the owner of the franchise donated to groups opposed to same-sex marriage. That was when people like Mike Huckabee stepped in and encouraged people to start eating there. It's frankly not all that different than liberals who are buying Nike right now because of the Colin Kapernick ad. On the one hand, the left has found solidarity with a pretty terrible corporation, and the right has miraculously started to care about the fact that they use cheap labor in other countries. That being said, I think standing on the side of anti-police killings is alot more noble than standing for the idea that homosexual couples shouldn't be able to get married, but I digress.
What type of compensation, if any, did you get for being laid off at your last job of two years?
I was allowed (or maybe I was owed, I have no idea) to cash out all my accrued vacation time, which amounted to just over a week of wages. Other than that, they didn't contest my unemployment (basically writing me a letter that said I was laid off, not fired for cause, as the later does not allow you to collect benefits). My guess is that the only reason that happened is because my direct manager insisted upon it. Left to the devices of the person who made the call, I seriously wonder if that would have been the case.
I told myself at my previous job I lost in such an abrupt fashion I would never put myself in this situation again, to be put at the whims of whoever is in charge, but I let myself fall into a false sense of security because I had been so obviously flexible, loyal and dependable for the last couple of years. I didn't think they could afford to get rid of me. Some bean counter they brought in who never even spoke a single word to me must have decided otherwise. Now I have to make sure to tell myself to be constantly on guard for signs of doom at any future job to head things off at the pass. At the moment, I am simply overjoyed I will no longer be working at my current job, which is so bad I dread calling in every afternoon to see if they need me to work.
In Canada, I don’t know if this changed, reading about it looks like it did a bit,
If you were laid off without cause after 3 months to a year, you got one week salary + your benefits for that week.
For a year it was 2 weeks, and every full year after that added another week till 8 weeks. So a maximum of 2 months paid + benefits.
A company could give you a layoff notice, which allowed you to work for X amount of weeks, where X is the weeks of compensation you were owed. If you quit prior to that time, you were owed nothing though.
If a company said they laid a person off for cause, that person can bring it to the labour board in an attempt to get their due compensation or even their job back.
These laws give companies a huge pause before issuing mass layoffs as it could cost them more to do so than save money.
Yes many companies in Canada are refusing to hire full time and are even resorting to contract work instead of hiring outright, but as I stated prior labour costs is the only thing (besides price of product) a company has full control over. To turn profits, and keep everyone employed, keeping those labour costs low is beneficial to everyone. Some businesses, like the one I currently work for, keep them too low (we as a division have went down from 400 man hours in 2011, to 210 now) but this also has to do with the company going from private, to publicly traded, and shareholders are expecting more of a return.
@jjstraka34: That's just cruel--and self-destructive, too! I'm sorry to hear that your employer treated you like that.
My boss had a similar experience at the homeless shelter. She ran a highly successful program and was very popular among our members, but the director fired her without notice or explanation. When I tried to get him to explain why he fired my boss, he evaded the question until finally lying that it was proprietary information (a non-profit organization, of course, does not have proprietary secrets; the only secrets we kept were the identities of the homeless population for their safety) and then stole my badge. I'm not sure if he had the authority to take my badge, but with my boss gone, my role in the organization was also gone, so there wasn't much reason to object.
The really galling part was that the director had no idea what program he was canceling. He didn't even know where I worked until the week before it ended, nor did he ever set foot in the classroom. He actually sought me out after he canceled the program specifically to get me to explain to him how to re-create the program. He didn't even know the basic outline of the program; he was reduced to asking a teaching assistant how to do his own job.
I didn't help him clean up his mess. The homeless population is a very vulnerable group, and the last thing you need is an incompetent man running a program for them. You don't throw people a deflated life raft; it'll just distract them from the ones that actually float.
And to be clear, I am talking about two very specific people who eliminated my position at the last couple long-term jobs. And both were in charge of everything (ostensibly) at my location, yet completely oblivious to everyday aspects of their own work sites. I have been fired for legitimate reasons when I was younger. That sucks, but doesn't carry with it the sense of anger that comes when you lose your job for no reason at all. I was livid both times. In the end, I was probably treated better at the temp agency I worked for in-between them.
Let me reiterate on what @semiticgod said about what happened at the homeless shelter. This situation where the people who are at the top of the food chain have no idea what they are doing seems to be the rule rather than the exception. At a previous job, the person in charge was in his position because his daddy owned the company. His assistant manager (who, like my most recent job, I liked alot and had respect for) did EVERYTHING and when he had finally taken enough of this guy's shit and struck out for a better opportunity (with a rival no less) the whole operation started to fall apart. My firing in that case was nothing but one of many scapegoats. There was literally one time where he blamed me for screwing up an order he had pulled himself. I knew he was lying, HE knew I knew he was lying, but I had to sit there and take it, because that was the power dynamic.
At my most recent job of two years, everytime I saw the actual boss, I felt uncomfortable. Since he didn't understand what my job was, he was constantly asking what I was doing. It got to the point where anytime I ran into him when I was walking anywhere, I automatically assumed he would go to middle management and try to account for my activities, even though if he had taken 10 minutes with me on even ONE occasion I could have explained to him what my daily routine was. The fact is he just didn't like me, and my direct boss I dealt with on a daily basis was my shield right up until the point he couldn't be anymore. I was (outside of management) one of only two people left from when we were just getting the plant off the ground.
And this is the same scenario that happened to a favorite member of a podcast of mine. He describes losing his job often during the financial crisis the exact same way as @semiticgod does. A successful person axed because of office politics, and then they had the audacity to call him for advice when things fell apart in his immediate absence. I myself told my manager and the quality control guy what series of events would take place once I left, and I am 99% certain it went down exactly that way. They just knew better than to call me, because they at least understood I was getting screwed over. In that talk, my manager said he wanted my perspective to prevent what was happening to me from happening in the future, and I went on at length simply because I needed to vent in that moment. Anyway, moral of the story is, your boss is likely incompetent, and if they need a fall guy, well, as they say, shit rolls downhill. Or something.
Well, they can claim to be. Me, any corporation or business that calls itself Christian doesn't get my business. It doesn't make them any more trustworthy, they just want me to trust them. Why? I find myself distrusting that.
The Natural disaster killed 64 people. The man made disaster killed a thousand more.
There might be some truth to Trump’s word, but the death toll is higher than 67 and he let American citizens down.
The next hurricane is crossing red states so expect billions doled out for compensation. The contrast between PR and the Carolinas will be staggering IMO.
Trump already sucked money from FEMA to imprison more kids in camps. So, he shorted FEMA. Just add more to his already hundreds of trillions in deficit.
"Money was also taken from other agencies, including millions from theTransportation Security Administration and the U.S. Coast Guard, to help ICE, the document states.
The document lists the additional money was taken to help ICE detain immigrants along the southern border, fund beds in detention centers and remove undocumented immigrants from the country."
The Natural disaster killed 64 people. The man made disaster killed a thousand more.
There might be some truth to Trump’s word, but the death toll is higher than 67 and he let American citizens down.
The next hurricane is crossing red states so expect billions doled out for compensation. The contrast between PR and the Carolinas will be staggering IMO.
The pass Trump gets for Puerto Rico from the media is inexcusable. Yesterday he called it an "inaccessible island" as if it is sitting in the fog of the Bermuda triangle.
Only inaccessible to his brain. Remember, this is the same guy who, when told the US was in debt, said, "print more money". He had to be told he couldn't do that, and why.
Trump is spending the morning claiming the death toll in Puerto Rico is fake and designed to make him look bad. This kind of narcissism is just unfathomable. He is a terrible, terrible person. He is basically claiming it was a false flag operation designed to help Democrats win in the mid-terms. Even for him, this is beyond the pale. He not only ignored the island, but now he is claiming the people who died in the aftermath aren't really dead.
You know, last night I watched on YouTube what I find to be perhaps the most poignant scene in film history. And it's near the end of "Schindler's List", as Oscar Schindler is being forced to flee his industrial plant, and is surrounded in a send-off by all the Jews he saved. Schindler then looks at his car, at his gold Nazi Party pin, and breaks down in Ben Kingsley's arms in mental anguish saying "I could have done more." In the process of saving over a 1000 lives, he now understood the gravity of life and death. It moves me to tears every time I watch it.
And then I wake up this morning and find that the President of the United States is just flat-out trying to erase the existence of 3000 dead American citizens. The economy isn't everything people. What kind of monster have we put in charge??
Comments
Wages have been stagnant for decades even as worker productivity has skyrocketed. People provide massive value to their employers but simply don't get paid as much as they contribute to the company, for the sole reason that it's in your employer's best interest to pay you as little as possible. Without strong unions or government-mandated benefits or a high minimum wage, employers have every reason to keep wages and benefits low. We want wages to increase, but we don't expect employers to actually pay higher wages--we expect workers to somehow force their employers to pay reasonable wages.
What is a "reasonable wage?" A reasonable wage is a wage that matches what the worker contributes to the company. You should earn as much money as you make for your employer. In other words, a reasonable wage should match productivity. How much is that? This is why I think we need a corporate tax rate that depends on how many Americans the company employs and how much the company pays its employees in wages and real benefits. That will actually provide an incentive for employers to pay higher wages, without simply pricing out minimum wage jobs (which people have feared a higher minimum wage might do) or subsidizing low-wage positions (which amounts to corporate welfare, since it lets companies like Walmart skim off the top).
We also need some stronger unions to fight for higher wages and benefits. God knows your employer and your Congressional representatives aren't doing anything to increase your wages. And it's not like the average American isn't doing anything to earn a reasonable wage for themselves--Americans are actively working long hours at high productivity. It's no coincidence that the American middle class was biggest and strongest back when unions were numerous and powerful in the mid-twentieth century, before new government rules crippled them in the Reagan era.
We have a situation where Americans are working hard and being productive and learning more and more skills. Unemployment is low, but working people still have stagnant wages. Young folks in particular are working more hours and have more years of education and training. Yet their employers choose to pay low wages. Why?
Because they can. It's in a corporation's best interests to bleed their workers dry, so they do it. We can solve this problem with a few basic policies: strengthen collective bargaining and provide incentives to employers who pay reasonable wages to their workers.
That's not true on all counts. Corporations like the one I work are actively competing to attract skilled workers. If you're good at what you do and your skills are in demand, it's not bad out there. Unskilled labor is definitely not in that same boat, however...
I was on unemployment for about 6 weeks (again, a process which requires you to put in a fairly decent amount of work to even get the meager benefits), before finally being able to land a job that I thought would fit my skill-set. Turns out it is the 9th circle of hell. Though they give you 500 hours to reach it, the productivity they expect is not only high, but nearly impossible. To the point that even filling up a water-bottle or taking a piss can cause you to miss it. The work is back-breaking, breaks are once every 3 hours for 15 minutes (and are announced in an almost prison-like fashion by alarm over the loudspeakers). Apparently, it has almost an 80% turnover ratio. It does pay fairly well even to start, but it has to or people would never even consider it an option.
I knew immediately I could not work here long-term, and even if I wanted to, I had no confidence I would ever be able to meet their insane productivity standards. So I almost immediately set out looking for something else, which I finally got the concrete go-ahead on in the last couple days after a stressful weeks long process. What is the point of this post?? Something I wanted to get off my chest for awhile actually, but also to reiterate the fact that the American business treats it's workers like cogs in a machine. No matter how loyal you are, you may get tossed aside with no warning (in regards to my old job). Indeed, companies may be designed in such a way to use up employees and simply move on to the next one (my current job). Thankfully, I only have one or two days left at my current position, but I have VERY little faith in this capitalistic experiment of ours after spending the last couple months on the receiving end of it. Yeah, there are jobs out there. That doesn't mean you can trust your employer or that they aren't absolutely soul-crushingly awful.
What type of compensation, if any, did you get for being laid off at your last job of two years?
I told myself at my previous job I lost in such an abrupt fashion I would never put myself in this situation again, to be put at the whims of whoever is in charge, but I let myself fall into a false sense of security because I had been so obviously flexible, loyal and dependable for the last couple of years. I didn't think they could afford to get rid of me. Some bean counter they brought in who never even spoke a single word to me must have decided otherwise. Now I have to make sure to tell myself to be constantly on guard for signs of doom at any future job to head things off at the pass. At the moment, I am simply overjoyed I will no longer be working at my current job, which is so bad I dread calling in every afternoon to see if they need me to work.
Millionaires need to raise prices on drugs that people need to live in order to get a little more money.
Quote is: "It is a moral requirement to make money when you can . . . to sell the product for the highest price." - Nostrum Laboratories’ Nirmal Mulye
https://www.ft.com/content/48b0ce2c-b544-11e8-bbc3-ccd7de085ffe
He also goes on to say Martin Shkreli (currently in jail) did nothing wrong.
There's just some areas of life where capitalism needs to be well regulated - healthcare is one of those areas. You can't have greed trumping people's health.
Workers rights is another area where there need to SOME safeguards against predatory capitalism.
If you were laid off without cause after 3 months to a year, you got one week salary + your benefits for that week.
For a year it was 2 weeks, and every full year after that added another week till 8 weeks. So a maximum of 2 months paid + benefits.
A company could give you a layoff notice, which allowed you to work for X amount of weeks, where X is the weeks of compensation you were owed. If you quit prior to that time, you were owed nothing though.
If a company said they laid a person off for cause, that person can bring it to the labour board in an attempt to get their due compensation or even their job back.
These laws give companies a huge pause before issuing mass layoffs as it could cost them more to do so than save money.
Yes many companies in Canada are refusing to hire full time and are even resorting to contract work instead of hiring outright, but as I stated prior labour costs is the only thing (besides price of product) a company has full control over. To turn profits, and keep everyone employed, keeping those labour costs low is beneficial to everyone. Some businesses, like the one I currently work for, keep them too low (we as a division have went down from 400 man hours in 2011, to 210 now) but this also has to do with the company going from private, to publicly traded, and shareholders are expecting more of a return.
My boss had a similar experience at the homeless shelter. She ran a highly successful program and was very popular among our members, but the director fired her without notice or explanation. When I tried to get him to explain why he fired my boss, he evaded the question until finally lying that it was proprietary information (a non-profit organization, of course, does not have proprietary secrets; the only secrets we kept were the identities of the homeless population for their safety) and then stole my badge. I'm not sure if he had the authority to take my badge, but with my boss gone, my role in the organization was also gone, so there wasn't much reason to object.
The really galling part was that the director had no idea what program he was canceling. He didn't even know where I worked until the week before it ended, nor did he ever set foot in the classroom. He actually sought me out after he canceled the program specifically to get me to explain to him how to re-create the program. He didn't even know the basic outline of the program; he was reduced to asking a teaching assistant how to do his own job.
I didn't help him clean up his mess. The homeless population is a very vulnerable group, and the last thing you need is an incompetent man running a program for them. You don't throw people a deflated life raft; it'll just distract them from the ones that actually float.
Let me reiterate on what @semiticgod said about what happened at the homeless shelter. This situation where the people who are at the top of the food chain have no idea what they are doing seems to be the rule rather than the exception. At a previous job, the person in charge was in his position because his daddy owned the company. His assistant manager (who, like my most recent job, I liked alot and had respect for) did EVERYTHING and when he had finally taken enough of this guy's shit and struck out for a better opportunity (with a rival no less) the whole operation started to fall apart. My firing in that case was nothing but one of many scapegoats. There was literally one time where he blamed me for screwing up an order he had pulled himself. I knew he was lying, HE knew I knew he was lying, but I had to sit there and take it, because that was the power dynamic.
At my most recent job of two years, everytime I saw the actual boss, I felt uncomfortable. Since he didn't understand what my job was, he was constantly asking what I was doing. It got to the point where anytime I ran into him when I was walking anywhere, I automatically assumed he would go to middle management and try to account for my activities, even though if he had taken 10 minutes with me on even ONE occasion I could have explained to him what my daily routine was. The fact is he just didn't like me, and my direct boss I dealt with on a daily basis was my shield right up until the point he couldn't be anymore. I was (outside of management) one of only two people left from when we were just getting the plant off the ground.
And this is the same scenario that happened to a favorite member of a podcast of mine. He describes losing his job often during the financial crisis the exact same way as @semiticgod does. A successful person axed because of office politics, and then they had the audacity to call him for advice when things fell apart in his immediate absence. I myself told my manager and the quality control guy what series of events would take place once I left, and I am 99% certain it went down exactly that way. They just knew better than to call me, because they at least understood I was getting screwed over. In that talk, my manager said he wanted my perspective to prevent what was happening to me from happening in the future, and I went on at length simply because I needed to vent in that moment. Anyway, moral of the story is, your boss is likely incompetent, and if they need a fall guy, well, as they say, shit rolls downhill. Or something.
The Supreme Court said so.
So corporation people can be Christ-ian.
The Natural disaster killed 64 people. The man made disaster killed a thousand more.
There might be some truth to Trump’s word, but the death toll is higher than 67 and he let American citizens down.
The next hurricane is crossing red states so expect billions doled out for compensation. The contrast between PR and the Carolinas will be staggering IMO.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/09/11/femas-budget-cut-10-million-support-ice-documents-show/1274723002/
"Money was also taken from other agencies, including millions from theTransportation Security Administration and the U.S. Coast Guard, to help ICE, the document states.
The document lists the additional money was taken to help ICE detain immigrants along the southern border, fund beds in detention centers and remove undocumented immigrants from the country."
And then I wake up this morning and find that the President of the United States is just flat-out trying to erase the existence of 3000 dead American citizens. The economy isn't everything people. What kind of monster have we put in charge??