Dissenion Down On The Cubicle Farm

How content and satisfied are American employees? Not very!

According to Corinne Maier, a psychotherapist and author of "Bonjour Laziness," corporate cubicle inhabitants are anything but tranquil and joyous. These natives are truly restless.

This French writer quotes a Gallup study of employed American professionals showing that:

1. Some 17% claim to be "actively disengaged" in their jobs, close possibly to acts of sabatoge, some rather subtle.

2. And 54% claim to be "not engaged" in their jobs.

3. The remaining 29% are "crazy about" their jobs.

These are the attitude findings of "professional" employees. How much worse would these findings be if employees of ALL kinds had been interviewed by Gallup?

And what leads to such overwhelmingly negative attitudes with only 29% job satisfaction, anyway?

Maier explains:

1. "Reverse Verbal Signals" and "The Idiocy Of Lies." Example: a company remarks that it "values jobs" but then has massive layoffs.

2. Add managerial jargon, gibberish, power struggles, excess emphasis on diplomas and degrees, and employers demanding a lot from employees--but promising and delivering next to nothing in return.

3. Also add blathering about the "corporate culture," an "oxymoron which is the crystalization of the stupidity of a group of people at a given moment," says Maier.

4. And she says don't forget employers talking about "ethics, a detergent word used time and time again to cleanse the conscience without scrubbing."

Well, what's an employer to do?

1. Remove malcontented employees better suited to be self-employed.

2. Refer dissatisfied employees to network marketing (MLM) self-employment opportunities. Some of the biggest "misfits" in the employee ranks become the best entrepreneurs.

3. Conduct in-house meetings to teach remaining employees the threat that

outsourcing of jobs to China, India and other countries poses to employers and to employees--motivating them to improve their attitudes, stop whining, and work as a team.

4. Define and remove organizational and procedural stumbling blocks to a job satisfaction. These can require some attitude adjustments in the upper management ranks in some cases.

5. Making sure the business has a Three Year Business Plan--and making sure everyone in the company know where the Plan is taking the company and them--and what their role and responsibility for company success.

Remember: cubicle farm folk are restless and negative. 71% are not happy with their jobs. The status quo just doesn't cut it. The unsettling effects of globalism and offshore outsourcing are permanent. So, act today. Do it now!

John is co-owner/co-operator of Alquist Enterprises, a firm which promotes self-employment by the operation of two network marketing distributorships, professional speaking, business meeting facilitation, and Internet strategy and website development.

John had 24 years of experience as a senior marketing executive in national and international financial services firms before starting his own business.

He started his professional career as a newspaper feature writer.

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