Sadly, when I was an employee I too noted that there was a lot of backbiting and complaining, this was true in both the small business and in the Corporate America situation. In the case of the latter the grumbling was usually in the lower ranks – the ambitious were busy climbing the ladder and were looking to the rewards of higher pay, prestige and power. The lower ranks, the ones who seemed to stay there year after year were the ones that bellowed the most.

Generally speaking Corporate America has incredible options for those who want to improve, yet few take the option. With the small business owner that is really tough, there are times when the owner goes without pay in order to meet payroll and then having toughed it out with long hours and meager take home eventually strikes the mother lode – the employees often are not aware of the earlier sacrifices and then dump on the new good fortune of this small business owner.

Not everything is rosy in the land of business but you know what, without business the employees would be whistling dixie. They really do need to pick up their socks. Entitlement is running rife and its going to cripple our countries (Canada and US) if left unbridled.

The thing I usually miss in these kinds of arguments are this: both business and workers should appreciate the POV of the other side, both should also be aware of the responsibilities they have toward each other and, especially, the rest of society. This is were the current corporate culture goes wrong, IMHO.

I an pro-worker where I am now since they spend millions on advertising but we’ve been on a salary freeze for 2 years. We also weren’t making comparable salaries to others in our field even before that. They still make profits but are using the economy as a no-raise excuse. They also will literally tell us we’d be easy to replace, so yeah, I’m pro-worker here.

Then I grew up, figured out how the world worked and gravitated to the opposite end of the spectrum.

However, it it is also true that our corporate culture is majorly screwed up. Managers, Salespeople, Bean-counters and Personnel Jockeys have way too much clout, while engineers and designers – who actually build and make widgets – have too little. And CxOs are Horribly overpaid. And publicly-owned corporations are way too shortsighted.

Nevertheless, as Dave Ramsey puts it: “Your raise is effective when you are.”

Personally, I have worked for both companies that cared about their workers and others that viewed their employees almost as advisories. I was much more willing to go the extra mile for the former.