From Max Barry's Company, A Good Comical Read
A couple of weeks ago I picked up Company by Max Barry (New York: Doubleday, 2006) It was good comic relief, frequently leaving me in tears of laughter. Here are a few excerpts:
On the changing relationship between employer and employees:
“There are stories—legends, really—of the “steady job.” Old-timers gather graduates around the flickering light of a computer monitor and tell stories of how the company used to be, back when a job was for life, not just the business cycle. In those days, there were dinners for employees who racked up twenty-five years—don’t laugh, you, yes, twenty-five years!—of service. In those days, a man didn’t change jobs every five minutes. When you walked down the corridors, you recognized everyone you met; hell, you the names of their kids.
The graduates snicker. A steady job! They’ve never heard of such a thing. What they know is the flexible job. It’s what they were raised on in business school; it’s what they experienced, too, as they drove a cash register or stacked shelves between classes. Flexibility is where it’s at, not dull, rigid, monotonous steadiness. Flexible jobs allow employees to share in the company’s ups and downs; well, not so much the ups. But when times get tough, it’s the flexible company that thrives. By comparison, a company with steady jobs hobbles along with a ball and chain. The graduates have read the management textbooks and they know the truth: long-term employees are so last century.
The problem with employees, you see, is everything. You have to pay to hire them and pay to fire them, and, in between, you have to pay them. They need business cards. They need computers. They need ID tags and security clearances and phones and air-conditioning and somewhere to sit. You have to ferry them to off-site team meetings. You have to ferry them back home again. They get pregnant. They injure themselves. They steal. They join religions with firm views on when it’s permissible to work. When they read their e-mail they open every attachment they get, and when they write it they expose the company to enormous legal liabilities. They arrive with no useful skills, and once you’ve trained them, they leave. And don’t expect gratitude! If they’re not taking sick days, they’re requesting compassionate leave. If they’re not gossiping with co-workers, they’re complaining about them. They consider it is their inalienable right to wear body ornamentation that scars customers. They talk about (dear God) unionizing. They want raises. They want management to notice when they are doing a good job. They want to know what’s going to happen in the next corporate reorganization. And lawsuits! The lawsuits! They sue for sexual harassment, for an unsafe workplace, for discrimination in thirty-two different flavors. For—get this—wrongful termination. Wrongful termination! These people are only here because you brought them into the corporate world! Suddenly you’re responsible for them for life?
The truly flexible company—and the textbooks don’t come right and say it, but the graduates can tell that they want to—doesn’t employ people at all. This is the siren song of outsourcing. The seductiveness of the sub-contract. Just try out the words: no employees. Feels good, doesn’t it? Strong. Healthy. Supple. Oh yes, a company without employees would be a wondrous thing. Let the workers suck up a little competitive pressure. Let them get a taste of the free market.
The old-timers’ stories are fairy tales, dreams of a world that no longer exists. They rest on the bizarre assumption that people somehow deserve a job. The graduates know better; they’ve been taught that they don’t.” (pp. 41-3)
On Senior Management:
“You can say this for Senior Management: it knows how to articulate a goal. The strategy may be fuzzy, the execution nonexistent, but Senior Management knows what it wants.” (p. 54)
On Customers:
“Customers are vermin, Mr. Jones. They infect companies with disease.” He says this with complete solemnity. “A company is a system. It is built to perform a relatively small set of actions over and over, as efficiently as possible. The enemy of systems is variation, and customers produce variation. They want special products. They have unique circumstances. They try to place orders with after-sales support and they direct complaints to sales.” (p. 105)
Machiavellian business ethics:
“Do you want the ethics speech? Because we have one. It’s on video, this whole spiel about how we’re improving business efficiency, creating jobs, and building a stronger America. By the time it’s over, you’ll think anyone who doesn’t like what we’re doing is a Communist. We hand them over to our more religious investors. You’re not religious, are you?
“Well, not really—”
“It’s kind of a joke. When someone asks for the ethics tape, we know they’ve already decided to invest. They just want some reassurance so they can feel good about it, too. That’s the thing you learn about values, Jones: they’re what people make up to justify what they did. Did you take business ethics in college?”
“Yes.”
“They teach you people’s behavior is guided by their values, right? That’s a load of crap. When you watch people like we do, you find out it’s the other way around. Look, I believe in what Alpha does, I really do. But do I worry about whether every little thing we do is ethical? NO, because you can rationalize anything as ethical. You talk to a criminal—a tax dodger, a serial killer, a child abuser—and every one of them will justify their actions. They’ll explain to you, totally seriuosly, why they had to do what they did. Why they’re still good people. That’s the thing: when people talk about the importance of ethics, they never include themselves. The day that anyone, anywhere, admits that they personally are unethical, I’ll start taking the whole issue seriously.” (pp. 111-2)
On potential corporate consolidation:
"Throughout the building, work stalls. The wheels of industry crash to a halt and the rumor mill starts turning. Within minutes Zephyr is manufacturing rumors at world-class levels. If rumors could be sold, this kind of productivity would be cause for special announcements and award ceremonies—but they can’t, and even Senior Management knows this. When it realizes what is going on, Senior Management places a conference call to the department heads. All staff are forbidden to speculate about the consolidations, it instructs. They should know better; here Senior management is trying to save everyone’s job, and all they care about is whether they still have a job. Get back to work!
"The department managers could not agree more. Their heads bob up and down, even though this is a phone call. Their voices drip of earnestness. They are behind Senior Management 110 percent. Or more! The bids rise quickly.
"But once they’re off the phone their level of support drops, first to realistic levels, then lower. “Senior management hasn’t decided which departments will be consolidated,” the managers say in response to their staff’s nervous, sweaty questions. “Or maybe they have but they’re not telling. Your guess is as good as mine. I don’t know what the hell they’re doing.” Frightened employees huddle around coffee machines. Rumor production heads underground and flourishes there. The out-trays of laser printers grow thick with updated resumes." (pp. 159-160)
On the changing relationship between employer and employees:
“There are stories—legends, really—of the “steady job.” Old-timers gather graduates around the flickering light of a computer monitor and tell stories of how the company used to be, back when a job was for life, not just the business cycle. In those days, there were dinners for employees who racked up twenty-five years—don’t laugh, you, yes, twenty-five years!—of service. In those days, a man didn’t change jobs every five minutes. When you walked down the corridors, you recognized everyone you met; hell, you the names of their kids.
The graduates snicker. A steady job! They’ve never heard of such a thing. What they know is the flexible job. It’s what they were raised on in business school; it’s what they experienced, too, as they drove a cash register or stacked shelves between classes. Flexibility is where it’s at, not dull, rigid, monotonous steadiness. Flexible jobs allow employees to share in the company’s ups and downs; well, not so much the ups. But when times get tough, it’s the flexible company that thrives. By comparison, a company with steady jobs hobbles along with a ball and chain. The graduates have read the management textbooks and they know the truth: long-term employees are so last century.
The problem with employees, you see, is everything. You have to pay to hire them and pay to fire them, and, in between, you have to pay them. They need business cards. They need computers. They need ID tags and security clearances and phones and air-conditioning and somewhere to sit. You have to ferry them to off-site team meetings. You have to ferry them back home again. They get pregnant. They injure themselves. They steal. They join religions with firm views on when it’s permissible to work. When they read their e-mail they open every attachment they get, and when they write it they expose the company to enormous legal liabilities. They arrive with no useful skills, and once you’ve trained them, they leave. And don’t expect gratitude! If they’re not taking sick days, they’re requesting compassionate leave. If they’re not gossiping with co-workers, they’re complaining about them. They consider it is their inalienable right to wear body ornamentation that scars customers. They talk about (dear God) unionizing. They want raises. They want management to notice when they are doing a good job. They want to know what’s going to happen in the next corporate reorganization. And lawsuits! The lawsuits! They sue for sexual harassment, for an unsafe workplace, for discrimination in thirty-two different flavors. For—get this—wrongful termination. Wrongful termination! These people are only here because you brought them into the corporate world! Suddenly you’re responsible for them for life?
The truly flexible company—and the textbooks don’t come right and say it, but the graduates can tell that they want to—doesn’t employ people at all. This is the siren song of outsourcing. The seductiveness of the sub-contract. Just try out the words: no employees. Feels good, doesn’t it? Strong. Healthy. Supple. Oh yes, a company without employees would be a wondrous thing. Let the workers suck up a little competitive pressure. Let them get a taste of the free market.
The old-timers’ stories are fairy tales, dreams of a world that no longer exists. They rest on the bizarre assumption that people somehow deserve a job. The graduates know better; they’ve been taught that they don’t.” (pp. 41-3)
On Senior Management:
“You can say this for Senior Management: it knows how to articulate a goal. The strategy may be fuzzy, the execution nonexistent, but Senior Management knows what it wants.” (p. 54)
On Customers:
“Customers are vermin, Mr. Jones. They infect companies with disease.” He says this with complete solemnity. “A company is a system. It is built to perform a relatively small set of actions over and over, as efficiently as possible. The enemy of systems is variation, and customers produce variation. They want special products. They have unique circumstances. They try to place orders with after-sales support and they direct complaints to sales.” (p. 105)
Machiavellian business ethics:
“Do you want the ethics speech? Because we have one. It’s on video, this whole spiel about how we’re improving business efficiency, creating jobs, and building a stronger America. By the time it’s over, you’ll think anyone who doesn’t like what we’re doing is a Communist. We hand them over to our more religious investors. You’re not religious, are you?
“Well, not really—”
“It’s kind of a joke. When someone asks for the ethics tape, we know they’ve already decided to invest. They just want some reassurance so they can feel good about it, too. That’s the thing you learn about values, Jones: they’re what people make up to justify what they did. Did you take business ethics in college?”
“Yes.”
“They teach you people’s behavior is guided by their values, right? That’s a load of crap. When you watch people like we do, you find out it’s the other way around. Look, I believe in what Alpha does, I really do. But do I worry about whether every little thing we do is ethical? NO, because you can rationalize anything as ethical. You talk to a criminal—a tax dodger, a serial killer, a child abuser—and every one of them will justify their actions. They’ll explain to you, totally seriuosly, why they had to do what they did. Why they’re still good people. That’s the thing: when people talk about the importance of ethics, they never include themselves. The day that anyone, anywhere, admits that they personally are unethical, I’ll start taking the whole issue seriously.” (pp. 111-2)
On potential corporate consolidation:
"Throughout the building, work stalls. The wheels of industry crash to a halt and the rumor mill starts turning. Within minutes Zephyr is manufacturing rumors at world-class levels. If rumors could be sold, this kind of productivity would be cause for special announcements and award ceremonies—but they can’t, and even Senior Management knows this. When it realizes what is going on, Senior Management places a conference call to the department heads. All staff are forbidden to speculate about the consolidations, it instructs. They should know better; here Senior management is trying to save everyone’s job, and all they care about is whether they still have a job. Get back to work!
"The department managers could not agree more. Their heads bob up and down, even though this is a phone call. Their voices drip of earnestness. They are behind Senior Management 110 percent. Or more! The bids rise quickly.
"But once they’re off the phone their level of support drops, first to realistic levels, then lower. “Senior management hasn’t decided which departments will be consolidated,” the managers say in response to their staff’s nervous, sweaty questions. “Or maybe they have but they’re not telling. Your guess is as good as mine. I don’t know what the hell they’re doing.” Frightened employees huddle around coffee machines. Rumor production heads underground and flourishes there. The out-trays of laser printers grow thick with updated resumes." (pp. 159-160)
posted by Elliott at Sunday, August 20, 2006
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