LW1: If you follow the ladies' advice, you're going to find yourself out of a job, along with anyone else who falls in behind you. What do they think that confronting the bosses is going to accomplish? "Oh, we're sorry we bought those houses. You're right. We should have given you guys all the money instead or bought insurance for you." Uhm, no. Besides, it's as likely as not that the owners will get wind of this "organization" before the meeting even takes place, and might even strike pre-emptively by firing anyone seen as a troublemaker. They as much as admitted that jobs are hard to come by right now, which means you can be replaced fairly easily by someone who isn't apt to complain. Most owner-employers don't appreciate being told to run their business, especially unsolicited advice from employees. That goes double for what happens with the profits. The columnists were dead-on when they said that the owners have the right to enjoy the fruits of their labors; they should have stopped there. On top of it being the owners' prerogative to do as they wish with the profits, there could be more going on that the LW doesn't even know about. Maybe it was their first vacation in 20 years; a lot of business-owners don't get away much. If you don't like the way you're being treated, either look for another job or tough it out. I know it's tough to get by without health insurance, but nobody has a right to benefits or anything else, unless explicitly guaranteed by state and federal labor laws. As long as those are being followed, one's only recourse is to vote with his feet. The long and short of it is that an employee in this economy is in no position to make demands.

Canada wrote, "I have no regrets. I spent my [bad dad] father's final months getting to know him and expressing my feelings."
When I learned that my 85-year-old father was dying of cancer, I breathed a huge sigh of relief and felt inexpressible joy. He will never molest another child! I had been happily free of him for 40 years.
I still feel cheerful on each anniversary of his death, near Thanksgiving of 2000. To visit him would have been to confront him, which would have been a terrible thing to do to a dying person--and to myself. (I had chosen not to confront him earlier, since I wanted NO connection between us for the sake of my children and grandchildern.)

This is in response to "Want to Do What's Right" who is friends with an older gentleman who wears hearing aids and yet cannot hear unless things are still very loud. I have worn hearing aids nearly all my life and have two children who wear them. It sounds as if this gentleman needs to visit his audiologist. He may need his hearing aids reprogrammed or he may need new ones altogether. Perhaps "Want" could offer to take him during their next visit together.

LW1 - I was going to say what Matt said, but he already did, so... LW1, start looking for a new job. Tough economy or not, if you sit on your pratt, no job is coming to find you, that's for sure. If you find a new position and get hired, then you can voice your reasons for leaving (diplomatically!) to your current boss. In the meantime, unless your bosses are Mr. and Mrs. Santa Claus, they are not legally obligated to curb their profits. It may be morally wrong to splurge on new luxuries and vacations while cutting employee benefits, but there is no law against it.

If the older gentleman's hearing aids are doing all they can do, perhaps they could learn sign language. It'd be a fun class they could take together, and if his hearing continues to deteriorate, it'd only be a benefit. It'd probably depend on how aware of his hearing issues are and whether he's in denial - he might be insulted, or he might find it entertaining.

Regarding "Unappreciated", this employee may want to think of a different stratagy to get the employer to raise moral. Do some research about how happy employees make more money for the company. If you make your employees happy, productivity increases, fewer sick days are recorded, and many fewer errors are made.

Dear Unappreciated:

I appreciate the politeness and professionalism with which you addressed your feelings of being unappreciated. I also appreciated the answer that was given by Kathy & Marcy. As the owner of a small business (25 employees) for the last 17 years, I can tell you that owning a business comes with a great amount of "unappreciation" for the sacrifices that most owners make in order to start, run and maintain their venture. For the first 12 years that I was in business, I made less money than most of my friends who worked for someone else, made the same or less money than my top employees, and during a few bad years, didn't make any money at all because I had to personally absorb company losses. Furthermore, many of my employees owned a home nicer than mine, vacationed more than me and worked substantially less hours. During this time, I plowed everything (both time and money) back into the business so that the company would succeed and my customers and employees would be happy. Keep in mind that in this competitive world, employees and customers alike are always shopping for a better company with which to do business. I felt this pressure every day of the year and was mentally "on-duty" 24/7. If my company failed, personal bankruptcy was not far behind because I had personally signed for most of the company debt. During this time, I set up a retirement plan for me and my employees through a Simple IRA. I diligently maxed my contributions to this account, bought life insurance to protect the family and business and managed to save a few bucks for the future.

Not much has changed. I still work long hours and have great risk for which I am ultimately responsible. I live in the same house that I bought when I started the company and just recently remodeled using equity that I had in the home as well as a loan against my life insurance cash value. I also bought a new car for my wife because hers was 9 years old and we were able to get a good deal due to the hard times. I can assure you that many of my employees were upset that during these tough times, I would lay off, cut expenses at the business, remodel my home and buy a new car. While I understand their feelings, I can tell you that all of this was able to happen because of the sacrifice that has been made over the last 17 years. I am sure that there is more sacrifice to come, and when my ship finally does come in, be it next year or in 10 years, good times or bad, I plan to reward myself and my family. When this happens, I am sure that I will be judged by people who do not know or understand what it took to get to that point.

My story cannot be unique. I figure that there are hundreds of thousands of business owners who have experienced the same thing that I have. Some will have greater success and others less.

While I don't know all of the details of your situation, I hope that I have given you a glimpse into the life of the person/family that owns the business that you work for.

Sean Smith
President
Efficient Systems, Inc.

Matt is spot on. THis country was built on capitalism, not socialism. I have been in at least two similar situations that the LW1 described but that's the way it is. You can always vote with your feet but to speak of excessive spending to the owners will get you NO WHERE and it will be resented. Repeat: RESENTED. Now, I did not say approaching the Owners is not warranted but there are ways to be somewhat political and work "from the inside" as opposed to the baseball bat the Ladies propose. I've been in business for over 30 years and have had some great jobs I did very well and some not so great. But at the end of the day, its not Socialism.

I realize this column is over a year old but I really appreciate Matt's and Sean's posts. We, too, started our own business and employees and subcontractors grew with us. We always paid over the norm and always knew that it was not appreciated. We expected our employees to work steady but not kill themselves (we had a construction business) and we also observed that as our business grew and we started investing in nicer trucks, equipment and home office/shop, the resentment grew from employees...not so much the subcontractors.

What they didn't seem to appreciate was that we took all the risk. Customer didn't pay us? Oh well, the employee's still got paid on Friday and we had to absorb the loss (fortunately that was rare). Material prices shot up between our firm bid and the actual job (also rare as our prices were guaranteed for a certain amount of time)? Oh well, the building supply company still expected their money, the employee's still got paid and we had to absorb the loss. We were considered an 'assigned-risk' company so even if we had no work, we still had huge insurance bills every month. Oh well, still had the write the checks and look for ways to keep the employees busy. Scheduling snafus that result in angry homeowner, builder or architect? Oh well, it's us that takes the butt-chewing.

So while I feel for Unappreciated, and understand that your bosses' judgment may be a little impaired on how their expenditures may be lowering morale while you and your co-workers are getting benefits cut, at the end of the day your bosses are the ones responsible for the success or failure of the business. You could vote with your feet as the others have mentioned or you could approach your boss with how you can help to improve morale, but please don't begrudge your bosses their right to spend their profits as they please. It's likely they've made way more sacrifices than you and your co-workers could dream of to get to where they are not matter how it 'seems' to you.