R.E.S.P.E.C.T

For the first time in a long time I'm actually 3 or 4 postings behind what I wanted to talk about. Coincidentally I also finished Uni for good (I hope) and have entered the enjoyable phase of my education where I start paying for it. Did you know 2 out of 5 women will never repay their HECS? Wow. But that's not what I'm talking aboutah I'm just saying in a fragmented way expect more posts.
My work has a fair few young people in the organisation and overall is a good employer compared to the average. In fact I'm lucky to be a full time permanent (as it ironically decreases my required loyalty) but with the casualisation and endemic underemployment out there I can really rest easy at the end of the day, dreading ennui more than rising petrol costs and IR reforms.
But I overheard a conversation between one of the 3 logistics staff (Porter who wrote the book on business strategy and competive advantage [2 books!] says logistics is the most critical value activity for wholesaler business) in our entire organisation (sales has double the staff and we twiddle our thumbs and shoot the shit most of the time) was talking about her job prospects and how she was looking at switching to recruitment. She'd been offered more money by a company to work in a field of which she had no experience, now I didn't say this girl was a genius and young people are more likely to equate job satisfaction with reimbursement than older people and reality. But the Managing Director apparently had turned around and said 'What can I do to keep you here?' now person in question I would have ditched a while ago to give the opportunity to someone more deserving. But it is because I was possibly ignorant of the labour market out there. Apparantly my company is desperate to keep young people in the organisation. And when I think about the fact that the business structure is based around a seniour middle management band.
A. I don't think said managers are as productive as they might think they are.
B. Our generation have been raised on a healthy fear of unemployment I thought there were six people lined up for my job behind me.
C. If I was asked that same question by the MD I would produce a list as long as my collective blog posts, I've given my needs and aspirations extensive thought and second guessed them all.
Maybe this might shed some light though?
The three blogs linked to my right represent 3 close friends all of whom have left Australia to pursue opportunities in other countries. In two months time they will be joined by my housemate who will leave Australia permenantly because he chose to do philosophy which has approaching 0 employment prospects in Australia. My other housemate is studying International Studies so I presume he will leave our* shores in the next couple of years as well.
My plan was to live and work in Japan which I went cold on because I felt my many and varied ambitions were easier to pursue here, but now I'm not sure of that. Could it be that most of the talent in Australian corporations is going overseas?
Or maybe it has something to do with the fact that it took me a whole year for my director (whom I respect as smart and progressive) to admit that maybe I didn't have to follow the standard ten year career path his generation had followed. My old manager who's relatively young went out into the field as a stepping stone not because he wanted to do the job.
Maybe it's because as a young person more educated than my managers my opinion is seldom asked. I'm lucky because I have the balls to offer it and because I look different they assume it's natural for me to think differently whereas noone else does. In fact I have one of the brightest prospective career paths at Honda and I feel stifled. I'd hate to see what happens to the other 'young people' if I left.
Yet yesterday I went to FLN's strategic planning process and was blown away (well not quite blown away I got blown away two weeks ago at their strategic planning process session 1 they just maintained the standard).
In the first 5 minutes of session 1 I was invited to join the marketing committee and work with someone as senior as my boss at work - the same thing was initiated by me at my job and took 8 months to implement.
In terms of the organisational structure I am a stake holder as a volunteer but about as low a rung on the ladder as you get (infact I considered myself more a customer as volunteering helps my esteem needs more than I help my student - I don't mean to say I do shit work, he just can't profit as much as I do). There where eight other people there my age. 2 people from my parents generation and about 8 more from the generation above it. There would be about 6 genxer's as well. No baby boomers(?)
and here I was participating in an organisations strategic plan.
So what are volunteers? you gotta understand I have come from a conservative mindset (ballarat - the whitest town in Australia!) so I assumed volunteers were full of pig ignorant good-will unproductive esteem seekers (which is why I volunteered in the first place) but it's not. They are young professionals. More likely to be tertiary educated** some trade unionist backgrounds in the middle generations and the older generation predominantly teaching backgrounds.
So immeadiately you lose all he cocksuckers who's ambition exceeds their ability and have a prefessional approach thaat gravitates around the pivotal axis of self interest. I agree with Nietzsche in saying without ego there is no motivation but profit maximising behaviour requires long term focus and efficiency achieved by thinking of others, the strongest case for most liberal mindsets are the same arguements for conservative just with a longer time frame and more stakeholders.
So could this have something to do with it. My volunteer work gives me opportunities my work does not, like trying my hand at marketing strategies, writing strategic plans. Setting business goals and objectives. Interaction with diverse backgrounds. Is it something to do with the fact that as a member who's main form of correspondance is over the internet I am actually better informed of the activities of an organisation I work for for an hour a week than one I work for for 37.5 hours (though I'm always trying to shave time off that. Not because I hate what I do but in the pursuit of efficiency).
What an isolated example though. Let's maybe take an organisation like SYN FM. I worked on their strategic plan for a school assignment expecting to find a shithouse, idealistic and sloppy vision full of youth cliches like the environment and skate parks. These did get mentioned to be sure. But structurally the plan was as sound as anything big business has developed over the years. Terminology was different (like using Mad's Sad's and Glad's instead of Strengths and Weaknesses) but in the end an organisation who's members age range is between 16-22, and I'm probably wrong about that ie younger, had produced a sound plan, workable nd if anything erred on the side of being too comprehensive and as such unlikely to be read by members and staff and reflected on. But either Bryce blows smoke up his own arse (which is entirely possible) or Syn has outperformed every KPI you or I can set for it and grown in almost every direction, ratings, revenues, membership, public events, other events, sponsorship, diversity etc. No input from older or wiser heads whatsoever. Now I've also herd stories out of bryce of people doing dumb things and causing frustration and it's same for the voluntary orgs I belong to as well. In the strategic meetings I've seen some real dumb pie in the sky suggestions that are excellent for brainstorming but not when there is no question of refining the idea. But I see such stupidity at my million dollar company as well.
Now Bryce is on a greased pole in terms of he get's paid roughly the same as me except he's top of the heap in his current organisation and I am bottom, and as I said I have a good employer with a range of employee development programs and other benifits but Bryce doesn't have to iron a shirt in the morning. Doesn't have to listen to ignorant opinions from an under educated elder generation who qualify homophobic statements with '...not that there's anything wrong with that.' which is the entire opposite of my preferred qualifier of 'fuck them faggots' the difference being neither of us mean what we say (think about it).
So maybe that's why it's the opportunities and shit that an employer offers. In many ways my good employer is hamstrung because it has to nurse the fragile ego's of the older management who already feel like a retard around technology and put more effort into achieving the same outcomes as us.
I don't know a single person my age who plans to stick with their current employer and their not really lamenting the loss of lifetime employers and pre-determined career paths.
Why can some old people really value my difference and input and others can't. Why because some just are vision impaired.