Friday, September 05, 2003

Woe is me
I am fighting a fit of depression due to being in small business management. The main source of depression is the lack of a positive cash flow. Adding to this is a recent award increase, which psychologically is a huge pay decrease for the business owner. ( in reality it is a lot more complicated than that - Economists I trust in "The Economist" magazine tell me that it is the whole economy which suffers due to the reduced wage flexibility in the lower end of the spectrum, increasing the inflation required to keep the same growth - therefore *you* suffer just as much as I do, economically speaking - but it sure doesn't *feel* that way). On top of this, a union "friend" from down South decided to pay us an uninvited visit. Nobody in our factory is a member of that union; everybody in the factory seemed to ignore him, including me, but he took it upon himself to tell us everybody's been underpaid since x date and need to be back-paid etc. etc. It all seems to have been done from up high, some kind of deal without anybody really taking any interest from our factory. Union reps give me a completely fatalistic view on life. I would rather go bankrupt than to even be forced to talk to such reps; let alone do as he says we're supposed to. I'm not sure if unions give employees protection anymore, but sure as anything, the only protection a small business has is called bankruptcy protection from creditors, and only when their bankrupt.