collateral damage of capitalism

Yesterday, Engadget posted a letter from a disgruntled employee of a failing department in a huge technology company (Motorola) to its executive board: Motorola insider tells all about the fall of a technology icon.

I dunno...call me cold but I think the author of the letter is just a whiney crybaby who's mad because he's too weak to make his dreams into reality. It's not that his points aren't valid, it's just that they don't matter. Does he really think Motorola's board of directors cares what he thinks? Maybe a few do, but I can't help thinking that for the men (the board has 1 woman) being addressed in the letter, Motorola Inc is nothing more than a machine to make them money. Everything is secondary to HOW MUCH MONEY ARE WE MAKING? So the company's going down because the CEO would rather play golf? Who fucking cares? Right after the Primary Question comes their next one: HOW MUCH MONEY DO I HAVE? I have $100,000,000 will continue to rake in millions even if I lose my job, sink a company, and lay off thousands of workers. Fuck it. I'm a rich CEO who has worked really hard to do what I want to do with my life. It's not my fault you got ground up in the gears of one of my money-making machines. Collateral damage of capitalism. You bought into the system with all that you had. It's sweet that you grew so attached to a material object whose destiny you had no real control over. It's sweet that you wanted the whole world to walk around with a mobile digital communicator which you helped shape and design. Go do it. Quit whining to us and praying to Motorola the deity.

I can relate to all parties in this little capitalist soap opera. I feel the pain of the disgruntled employee, but I can't help thinking that it should be plainly obvious to him that he's a mere tool, little more than a slave. It's pathetic. He's practically groveling.

If you're an employee (as opposed to boss/owner) then your own concerns for the business (if you even have any) are hardly of any concern to those above you AS LONG AS YOU COME TO WORK AND DO YOUR JOB like the good little slave you are. Yes, there are enlightened bosses out there, but not many. The vast majority do not care about you when it comes down to it. You're just a small piece in the money game.

Engadget does well in referring to Motorola as an energy icon. Motorola is more than just a company, it's an idea...an idea which the author of the letter grew entirely too attached to.

I am the Lord thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.

In other words, If you don't want to be a slave, do what God is about to say. (Which, of course, is utterly ironic yet totally true.)

Thou shalt have no other gods before Me. Thou shalt not make unto thee a graven image, nor any manner of likeness, of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; thou shalt not bow down unto them, nor serve them...

A man bases his efforts and ideas on other men who do not care about him and gets mad when it all comes crashing down on him. He made an easily avoidable common mistake: he bowed to an idol and got burned for it. It's a story as old as humanity.