Winds of change have started blowing at work. It's too early to tell how they will actually affect my heading if they affect me at all. However, the conversations that have arisen have a common theme- that people will resist efforts that tell them they cannot reap what they sow or that they must reap what others have sown.
Some people are upset. The scuttlebutt in our meeting last week is that the state, in an effort designed around an effort [I think] to reduce the budget, intends to reevaluate our jobs and change our salaries "as appropriate". They may go up; according to one coworker that happened 10 years ago, but they are likely to go down. They ask us to do more with less and then cut our salaries while some other people get raises, and those of us who bear the lion's share of the work are a little upset.
By way of personal examples, consider the following. Our former department secretary told once of a problem with a supervisor in financial aid who was a known tyrant. She left for a year on leave of absence, returned for a year, and then and only then saw them chop him up. By contrast, for teachers, this is the part in the semester when students start to drop and class sizes shrink. Not so for me. I have picked up eight extra students net in the last two weeks. The other professor who teaches two sections of the same class for which I have a single section has, in his two sections, only four more students total than I have in my single one. He gets paid twice as much money at least per student, and I'm sure he laughs all the way to the bank.
This has happened to me before. While in graduate school, I took on extra work driving a forklift for a great hourly wage of $16.00/hour. Among other abuses and usurpations, after they passed me over for promotion twice, my father convinced me to quit. I gave them a week's notice. The Operating Manager called me into his office to change my mind, smooth things over, appease me, or what have you. Now, I didn't know him, but I'm sure he knew me, at least statistically, because I consistently did 130% of expectations every week. I told him that it was basically irreversible. I had packed up all my things, put them in storage, moved out into a hotel where I could pay by the week, and arranged for my father to take time off to help me move. I am very pleased with two things I told him. When asked what he could do to change my mind, I told him, "You should have been doing those things for the last six months". After he offered me a paltry $0.25/hour raise, I told him, "You need me more than I need you. I have $15,000 in the bank, and I can live on that for a year."
People believe in Karma except when bad karma returns to them. They seem to hope the other guy gets his due while they expect exigent mercy for themselves. Karma did round trip on this manager, and he reaped what he sowed. Unbeknownst to him, I had mailed an official letter of resignation to corporate headquarters. As a consequence of correspondance initiated by that letter, my boss was terminated. He and I had no personal beef, but a leader is responsible not only for the mission but for those who accomplish the mission. Not all leaders take care of the people who actually accomplish work; sometimes they uphold and hold up people whom they like and with whom they are friends while they lean on others. Eventually, they act surprised when the donkey's back breaks and he kicks them for their idiocy.
I anticipate a showdown at work fairly soon. For some reason, as was true at my last job, the GOBNet likes to prop up the weakest among us and burden the strong. I am not sure how it will arise, but I will probably not allow people in positions of authority above me to usurp power and exercise tyranny. It is, unfortunately, the sad disposition of almost all men as it were as soon as they get the least scintilla of power to immediately begin to exercise it unrighteously. For my own part, I am not sure I wouldn't be just as bad as the bosses I've had, but that's one reason why I don't aspire to those positions. Eventually, they get their due, and the wisest thing I can do is, if crap hits the fan, simply quit on the spot and leave them with the hand they decided they wanted to play. It's not an offense to them; it's a service to myself. When they decide to change the equation without my input or consent, it's my choice whether I choose to play the game by these rules.
My personal work dilemma is nothing new. Rather, it's part of a larger argument that people who sow nothing can reap what I sow, but that's exactly what happens sometimes, particularly in organizations that do not keep electronic track of achievements and demerits, where one person gets an undue portion of the load and other people get an undue portion of the reward. Eventually, they may not have me as a "human resource" anymore, because, unlike the chemicals in my cabinets, I am a a free agent and can go react somewhere else. They need me more than I need them. I wonder if they will realize that before it's too late.
You will reap what you sow. The only way to escape that is to repent, in which case the Savior has already reaped for you, and you can escape the fruits of foolishness and savor those of wisdom and love instead.
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