A Boss Who Tells It Like It Is

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Wicked Ice

Wicked Ice

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Nov 11, 2007
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I got this in my mailbox. Thought I should share it with you wicked guys...

Subject: Tell it like it is! ... thought provoking


A Boss Who Tells It Like It Is

Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2009



To All My Valued Employees,


There have been some rumblings around the office about the future
of this company, and more specifically, your job. As you know,
the economy has changed for the worse and presents many challenges.
However, the good news is this: The economy doesn't pose a threat to
your job. What does threaten your job; however, is the changing political
landscape in this country.

However, let me tell you some little tidbits of fact
which might help you decide what is in your best interests.

First, while it is easy to spew rhetoric that casts employers against
employees, you have to understand that for every business
owner there is a back story. This back story is often neglected and
overshadowed by what you see and hear. Sure, you see me park my
Subaru outback outside. You've seen my big home at last year's
Christmas party. I'm sure all these flashy icons of luxury conjure up
some idealised thoughts about my life.

However, what you don't see is the back story.

I started this company 28 years ago. At that time, I lived in a 2
bedroom flat for 3 years. My entire living area was converted
into an office so I could put forth 100% effort into building a
company, which by the way, would eventually employ you.

My diet consisted of baked beans, stew and soup because every dollar
I spent went back into this company. I drove a rusty Toyota Corolla with
a wonky transmission. I didn't have time to go out with women. Often
times, I stayed home on weekends, while my friends went out drinking
and partying. In fact, I was married to my business -- hard work,
discipline, and sacrifice.

Meanwhile, my friends got jobs. They worked 38 hours aweek and
made a modest $45,000 a year and spent every dime they earned.
They drove flashy cars and lived in expensive homes and wore fancy
designer clothes. Instead of hitting David Jones for the latest hot fashion
item, I was trolling through the discount stores extracting any clothing
item that didn't look like it was birthed in the 70's. My friends refinanced
their mortgages and lived a life of luxury. I, however, did not. I put my
time, my money, and my life into a business with a vision that eventually,
some day, I too, will be able to afford these luxuries my friend supposedly
had.

So, while you physically arrive at the office at 9am, mentally check in at
about noon, and then leave at 5pm, I don't. There is no "off" button for

me.
When you leave the office, you are done and you have a weekend all to
yourself. I unfortunately do not have the freedom. I eat, and breathe this
company every minute of the day. There is no rest. There is no weekend.
There is no happy hour. Every day this business is attached to my hip like
a 1 year old special-needs child. You,of course, only see the fruits of that
garden -- the nice house, the Subaru, the vacations... you never realise
the back story and the sacrifices I've made.

Now, the economy is falling apart and I, the guy who made all the right
decisions and saved his money, have to bail-out all thepeople who didn't.
The people that overspent their pay suddenly feel entitled to the same
luxuries that I earned and sacrificed a decadeof my life for.

Yes, business ownership has its benefits but the priceI've paid is steep
and not without wounds.

Unfortunately, the cost of running this business, and employing you, is
starting to eclipse the threshold of marginal benefit and let me tell you why:

I am being taxed to death and the government thinks I don't pay enough.
I have state taxes. Federal taxes. Property taxes. Sales and use taxes.
Payroll taxes. Workers compensation. Unemployment taxes.Taxes on
taxes. I have to hire an accountant to manage all the state taxes and then
guess what? I have to pay taxes for employing him. Government mandates
and regulations and all the accounting that goes with it, now occupy

most
of my time. On Oct 15th, I wrote a cheque to the Australian tax Office for
$288,000 for quarterly taxes. You know what my "stimulus" cheque was?
Zero. Zip. Zilch.

The question I have is this: Who is stimulating the economy? Me, the guy
who has provided 14 people good paying jobs and serves over 2,200,000
people per year with a flourishing business? Or, the single mother sitting
at home pregnant with her fourth child waiting for her next welfare cheque?
Obviously, government feels the latter is the economic stimulus of this country.

The fact is, if I deducted (Read: Stole) 50% of your pay you'd quit and
you wouldn't work here. I mean, why should you That's nuts. Who wants
to get rewarded only 50% of their hard work? Well, I agree which
is why your job is in jeopardy.

Here is what many of you don't understand ... to stimulate the economy
you need to stimulate what runs the economy. Had the government
suddenly mandated to me that I didn't need to pay taxes, guess what?
Instead of depositing that $288,000 into the Canberra black-hole, I would
have spent it, hired more employees, and generated substantial economic
growth. My employees would have enjoyed the wealth of that tax cut in the
form of promotions and better salaries. But you can forget it now.

When you have a comatose man on the verge of death, you don't
defibrillate and shock his thumb thinking that will bring him back to life,
do you? Or, do you defibrillate his heart? Business is at the heart of Australia
and always has been. To restart it, you must stimulate it, not kill it.
But the
power brokers in Canberra believe the poor of Australia are the essential
drivers of the Australian economic engine. Nothing could be further from
the truth and this is the type of change you can keep.

So where am I going with all this?

It's quite simple.

If any new taxes are levied on me, or my company, my reaction will be swift
and simple. I fire you. I fire your co-workers. You can then plead with the
government to pay for your mortgage, your 4WD and your child's future.
Frankly, it isn't my problem any more.

Then, I will close this company down, move to another country, and retire.
You see, I'm done. I'm done with a country that penalises the productive
and gives to the unproductive. My motivation to work and to provide jobs
will be destroyed, and with it, will be my citizenship.

So, if you lose your job, it won't be at the hands of the economy; it will be
at the hands of politicians who swept through this country and changed its
financial landscape forever. If that happens, you can find me sitting on a
beach, retired, and with no employees to worry about....



Signed,



Your boss
Click to expand...
 


Blahblah.. yes, all the bosses are angels who are just being victimised.

Sure, this guy sounds alright (In this mail, in which he paints himself in the best of all colors) but I could write a mail like that for anyone, employee or biz owner.

Yawn.

::emp::
 
I might be. So.. LotsofZeroes enlighten me, what is the point? I mean, OTHER than the guy painting himself as the victimized hero?

::emp::
 
The point being you can't spend your way out of economic demise.
Team Obama will learn this fact when the tax revolts come.
Quit focusing on the boss and read between the lines for the real message.
 
emp said:
I might be. So.. LotsofZeroes enlighten me, what is the point? I mean, OTHER than the guy painting himself as the victimized hero?

::emp::
Click to expand...

I think the point is that government sometimes has it backwards. The economy scares everyone but probably scares business owners more. Especially those who make over a certain amount as those are the people who are being forced to further pay for the irresponsibility of others.

I can relate to the story, as a business owner i am afraid to grow knowing i am going to be further taxed and any growth i achieve will be be outweighed by the extra taxes the government is going to impose on me in 2010. Why continue to hire people if its going to cost even more to do so?

The letter was written by an Austrailian but it does apply for the US too. We all have friends who live beyond their means and have no idea how they will pay their credit cards and dont care if they ever pay off their debt. Instead they waste money on items they cant afford, get fired, and feed off the government nipple which is funded by those who lived in their means and worked their ass off to build a savings only to watch their savings get taken away from them in the form of higher taxes to pay for the irresponsibility of others.

I dont think things are going to get better for this country, i think we are headed for an all out depression that could last up to 4 years. A lot of people are going to get hurt, crime is going to spike and innovation will be stiffled, luckily the word has the same issues as us if not worse so we shouldnt lose what little edge we have in the global economy.

The letter is spot on. I would like to see Obama give up his $400K salary and the staff he has, it would probably save the country 10-15Mil a year. Does he really need a personal chef? let alone a team of them?
 
The guy is definitely right when it comes to the fundamental economy-related aspect of his letter, but he's being a bit hypocritical when painting the picture.

So he spends 24/7 working...did anyone force him?

So his friends spent all day doing whatever while he was building his business...that was their choice, he could have chosen to have a similar attitude.

So a lot of people took out loans to pay for all sorts of stupid stuff and can't pay teh monies back...shit happens.

The thing is, he wants to make it seem as though he's a hero of mankind just because he has built a business by working hard, gimme a break!

1) He didn't create jobs out of the goodness of his heart, he created jobs in order to expand his business and make more monies.

2) He doesn't offer a quality product/service because he's soooo generous, he's offering quality shit because that's what it takes in order to keep making monies.

He made choices, the people who are now in debt made choices: judging other people like that is pretty lame. I work like 15 hours/day writing for some of you guys and am using the extra monies (things are starting to look better financially so I can finally talk about extra monies again lol) to fund some long-term projects (and working on those obviously takes time as well).

Should I expect worldwide recognition? Or should I blame the fact that "the sleep" = 2-3 hours/day in my case sometimes on other people? Fuck no! I'm making my own decisions and that's that.

If taxes are too high, stop bitching and move somewhere else. If an employee is lazy, hire someone else. If you're a smart businessman, do whatever you think is best for you, but seriously: thinking that you're "good peoples" just because you work hard is pretty retarded ;)
 
LotsOfZeros said:
The point being you can't spend your way out of economic demise.
Team Obama will learn this fact when the tax revolts come.
Quit focusing on the boss and read between the lines for the real message.
Click to expand...


I wish we had a Republican in power then we'd would be in this mess.

Edit:
Oh wait a minute, we had one! In fact we had a surplus and thriving economy....

So much for the logic of electing "team" Obama....


That said, I can understand *some* of the frustration of the business owner. As the child of entrepreneurs and one myself, I've seen my parents pay themselves LAST often making us go without to take care of their employees. Alot of people don't understand that agood business owner, one who is fair, wants to take care of his or her employees. Nonetheless, we have systemic problems in this country that have to be taken care of. If we have sick people on the street and schools that can't produce future workers who know how to add 1+1, we won't have to worry about what's going to happen to the economy (get my point....).

All the nay-sayers of the current administration need to ask themselves how vocal they were when we were spending BILLIONS in Iraq instead of taking care of things at home - Pat Buchanan has it right on this point.

Also, it's a bit simplistic to set up a dicotomy of a business owner vs. a lazy welfare queen. Anyone actually intellectually motivated enough to LOOK AT THE ANNUAL BUDGET, will see that we spend more money servicing the debt, paying for misiles we don't use and the like than the 12% or so we spend on social programs. If we wiped out all the social programs targetting the welfare types we'd still have major problems....
 
Isostar13 said:
I'm at work and don't really have time to write a lengthy reply. Your post makes it seems like you're anti-capitalistic and missing the point of the OP's quote from his boss.
Click to expand...

Dude, seriously, read my post again. I have nothing against capitalism/doing your thing and, as I've mentioned, what the guy who sent the email said makes perfect sense: it's the way he says it that bothers me. The only thing I have a problem with is his hypocritical attitude. He's acting like the poor victim who constantly gets raped anally instead of just shutting the fuck up and making more monies.
 
Thanks for that.

There is two sides to every story. Ask one of his employees, who works 12 hour shifts, cause his boss asked him to support him in "these tough times" or maybe even without him asking.

Ask the employees families who have not seen them properly in years, cause this guy drives them for all they are worth for little pay.

Yeah right, but he is just the victim of an overtaxing government and employees who arrive at 9 and mentally clock in at 12:00.

I seriously think that we need to get our act together IN CAPITALISM, and try to work together, not as one against the other.

The sad truth is: The employee is nothing without his employer, but he is nothing without people there to work for him.

And all the business owners would not be where they are if not for the "dumb masses" spending money on their stuff.

So your business grew 200% in the last years and you never wondered how all these people could afford all this shit? Well, where did they spend all their credit?

Us vs. them won't get us anywhere.

We are all in this shit together.

Yeah, so you might be the one giving jobs which you would not be able to finance if not for us paying for your goods or services.

::emp::
 
I don't give a shit about Republicans or Democrats. What I do give a shit about, coming from the mortgage business, is that I've never had a late payment once in my entire life.

Now, these clowns who provided 100% financing with interest-only payments to people with a 500 credit score are sipping martinis somewhere while the government tried to 'bail out' the people that were put into a bad loan.

You know what? Just because your mortgage guy says that you COULD get a $1.2 million mortgage, doesn't mean that you should.

Likewise, instead of trying to print up enough money to get us out of this mess, go find the shady mortgage brokers and make them cash in their yachts, their limos, and their immigrant nannies.

Bailout = fail
 
mkrongel said:
I think the point is that government sometimes has it backwards. The economy scares everyone but probably scares business owners more. Especially those who make over a certain amount as those are the people who are being forced to further pay for the irresponsibility of others.

and so on...
Click to expand...

Mike, I think I'm right to say that lots of these guys who are now billionaires got rich because some people were spending too much and buying stuff they couldn't afford. designer clothing, cars, other luxury stuff nobody really "needed". I'm sure the guy who "wrote" this letter (I dont think it's a legit letter) had a few clients that were buying stuff without having the ability to afford it. It's just the law of nature. The smarter and stronger dude ends up at the top.

the middle class is now fucked because most of the middle class relies on cheap money, unproductive jobs and loans to live a life without problems. Problem is, the cheap cash belongs now to the banks (1.5% base rate in europe, omg) and even then they dont really want to give it out (since so many people's credit score fucked up).

I think this downturn may even benefit us guys. Most marketing-dept's would've never thought about taking a look into affiliate marketing 2 years ago. Now it looks like a cheap and effective way to sell stuff (nope, not only talking about rebills here).

Im very curious to hear what you are experiencing as owner of copeac.. are big corporations knocking on your door or is everyone fleeing?
 
everyone is overlooking the fact that this 'business owner' thinks a Subaru Outback is a luxury car.
 
medicalhumor said:
everyone is overlooking the fact that this 'business owner' thinks a Subaru Outback is a luxury car.
Click to expand...

I caught it and actually think it's part of his point. That's not a terrible car .. but it's not a benz either. He's just talking about living a normal life & getting his hard earned money stolen from him. If he mentioned driving an $120k moon buggy then his entire letter would have been laughable.

He comes off as an ass the way he closes the letter though, leave that part unsaid and it would have been perfect.

The even funnier part of this is that people started talking about Obama and the previous administration. In total, there might be 4 good people in Washington. Something as trivial as a new republocrat president isn't going to change things.

Vote 3rd party or you're a blind retard in denail.
 
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