I Hope This Summary Of My 50 Years Of Work Experience Will Open The Eyes Of Others With Less, Who May Go Down The Tubes With The Country If They Don't

I Hope This Summary Of My 50 Years Of Work Experience Will Open The Eyes Of Others With Less, Who May Go Down The Tubes With The Country If They Don't

Hey All:

When I was young, the U.S, had a Top 5 Quality of Life in the world. Today we are 20-something on that same list - and plummeting quickly. One country that filed Bankruptcy in 2008, is now in the Top 5 on that list - and based on the standard information in their financial statements that led to their Bankruptcy - Debt to Revenue statements, we are more Bankrupt today than they were then. And a few countries that we used to consider "Third World" when I was young, are now ahead of us on that same list. And who do we have to thank for all that. Our Political "Leaders" from BOTH wrong sides, that at best failed in the real world, and then created phony and fraudulent qualifications to scam us into voting for them. And sadly, WE fell for it.

That mindset, being phony and too lazy to do things the way that we once did, and living by and supporting that mindset, has trickled down into every aspect of society today, here in the U.S,

Here are a few examples just in my lifetime:

The GED was invented in 1942 to make it possible for our young soldiers to go to war for us, and then get their high school diploma upon return, to be able to support themselves and their families without a lengthy delay. And it was also there for the occasional private citizen that was forced to leave school and enter the workplace due to some sort of family tragedy. It was never meant to be used primarily by the lazy and shortsighted - as it is today. And things have gotten worse since. When I was young, you never saw, "High School Diploma or GED Required" in a job listing - because employers did not want those that took shortcuts, or that wanted to do things the easy way, over the smart way. Ads would read, "College Degree or Professional School training, or Military Service & GED required." If you have that today, or more, you are frowned upon because having you on their staff will make those with less, especially management, feel uncomfortable. Today we reward those that chose to get nothing but a GED - for no other reason than wanting a lazy shortcut into the American workplace - where they will then be promoted to senior management simply based on how long they have been with the company in many cases. Perhaps even worse, those with GEDs can go straight into college, and on to postgrad study - most frighteningly of all, if you ask me, including Med School. I don't know about you, but I would not want a CPA that chose to take lazy shortcuts in life. The thought of Doctors and Nurses doing this is horrifying - and I have run into a few. How is this possible? Universities, Grad, Law and Medical Schools have to dumb-down to meet this new, lazy norm to fill their seats and pay their bills. So it is a vicious circle.

Serving our country. Right out of college, I volunteered for the Navy as a Pilot, and scored the highest score ever recorded on the Navy Pilots Entrance Exam. When employers saw that on my resume in our interviews, you could tell that some saw it as a negative. I guess anti-military mindsets, and possibly the memories of Viet Nam were still bothering people.

Businesses Blaming Their Employees For Their Business Failures, Shortsightedness & Crimes Against Their Employees That Cost Them In Court, and Blacklisting them across all industries nationwide. I have run into each of these many times over the years. I studied for, and earned some of the toughest financial service licenses there are. I then went to work for one of the largest financial service companies in the world. In our first staff meetings, they essentially told us to forget about all the laws that we learned why studying for those licenses because it would make our work much more difficult. Sticking to the laws that I had studied for two years by that point, I landed the largest account that they ever had, within the first few weeks of my being there, an old friend and business associate, one of many that I planned on bringing in as a client. The next day, the local and corporate management changed the corporate policies. New employees that brought-in large accounts would be paid a one-time $100 "Bonus" - rather than commissions on those accounts, and the account would be turned over to their manager - to manage locally, and to corporate management to handle for their previously standard commission structure. I left within a few days after that, and that new client that I brought in did too. They blacklisted ME for leaving in response to "commission payment irregularities". I went to another huge financial service company, literally across the hall in the same building. They initially hired me, and told me that what the first firm did was horrible. The next step was a "corporate training meeting: in Dallas. We walked in the door to the auditorium, and they handed us a "Restrictive Covenant" - stating that we would never work for another financial service company within 500-Miles of any of their branch locations, for a minimum of 5-years, nationwide. LOL, they had branch locations ever few miles across the country, meaning that we could not work in the industry again if we ever left their firm. We sat down, and their Corporate Executive VP said, "If you do not sign that form by the end of the day today, then you will be asked to leave, and we will not pay for your flights home." So, at lunch I called an old friend, one of the top Business Attorneys in DC. She laughed, agreed that it was illegal at all sorts of levels - including restraint of trade, and extortion to name two, and said, "Tell those there to sign it, stay for the meetings, get home, and resign immediately... And to call me if they give anyone a hard time when they go to their next employer." She added that an agreement signed under duress is not binding anyway. We signed it, and from what I heard, the vast majority of the hundreds of people there did just that. LOL, While I was there in Dallas, I tried to participate... It soon became clear that no one else wanted to participate. I kept trying, and the guy leading that meeting shouted at me, "Richard, Shut-up! Give someone else a chance to participate." Everyone in the group gasped at that, and no one participated after that. The guy leading the meeting then asked me, a few minutes later - no one else participating, what I though about the last topic of discussion. I responded, "You told me to shut-up for participating, so I am not going to give you the chance to scream at me again for participating." Everyone laughed at him, and came to me later to say what a horrible company it was. They Blacklisted me, like the first firm, for "Failure To Sign Required Employment Paperwork" - LOL, the illegal Restrictive Covenant...

Jumping ahead decades into semi-retirement, I love to work, so I went to work for Market Street in Texas, part-time around my twice monthly cancer surgeries. As they were being acquired by Albertsons, they began laying people off illegally. Texas is a fire-at-will state, but, there are still federal laws that prohibit certain actions. An employer is not allowed to violate the laws regarding "Constructive Termination" - putting the employee in a situation where they have to resign, rather than being laid-off, so that the company can avoid paying them unemployment, and so that their unemployment insurance rates do not increase. They asked me to sign that I was resigning of my own free choice when they told me that I would have to change my schedule to one that they knew would conflict with my cancer surgery schedule. I refused, and they Blacklisted me nationwide for the same reason - "Refused to sign required employment paperwork". They never mention in their Blacklist statement, that they knew what they were doing violated my rights under the ADA as well...

Oh well, So I went to work for Cabela's - a year or so before they were purchased by Bass Pro. Initially it was great. I got to share my canoeing, camping, fishing, sailing and optics life and work experience with the customers. In spite of only working part-time, based on our daily sales meetings before the store opened, I quickly became their top sales person - part-time or full-time. Often selling, dollar-wise, five times what anyone else sold the previous day, or on the same day the previous year. Sometimes as much as 20-times those previous records. That soon became a problem - the other employees felt threatened and complained to management that they were not getting the praise that they should. I did not care about "the praise" at all, so I suggested that they praise whoever was second each day as the top sales person in meetings going forward. They told me that they could not do that, they kept praising me, and the situation became worse. I was one of the last employees to flee the sinking ship as they say... The store normally had about 100 sales on the schedule. As they fled, the few of us that remained had to do more - which was fine. I was getting paid. The last day that I was there, I walked in, and my manager told me that only 5 sales people showed up the day before, and that I was the only one there that day. She told me that I should start by cleaning my department, which had been unmanned for several days, "and looked like a bomb hit it." I started to clean, but dozens of customers were screaming for help too. I did what I could, and at the end of my shift, I handed my keys and Store ID to my Manager, and told her that, as a cancer patient, I was not up to doing that again, and that I was leaving for health reasons. She asked me to sign paperwork stating that I refused to do what management had asked me to do, and I refused to sign that. They Blacklisted me nationwide again, again for standing up to my rights, by not agreeing to go along with their unfair an often illegal treatment of their employees.

Folks, all of you in the midst of your careers, I shared all this to help you. The majority of U.S. Employers today will Blacklist you for not accepting their illegal acts against you, or for simple mistreatment, rather than admitting, accepting, and learning from their mistakes and poor management - because it is easier for them to blame others, when they do not have the ability, need, or urge to do better.

And that is sad! And it explains why the country is going down the tubes, top to bottom. LOL, I bet some will blame me for sharing my first-hand experience with all this. Fortunately, I THINK, this country will outlive me - whether I am still here or not, because I hate to see these societal failures in our great country that have become the norm, and I would hate to see its last days. But, I strongly believe, on the nonsensical, common-senseless path that we are on - Politically, in the workplace as discussed here, that the generations that follow me may witness the failure of this country just when then need it most, in the not too distant future.

To view or add a comment, sign in

More articles by Richard Webster

Insights from the community

Others also viewed

Explore topics