Here is what others have to say about us
Taken over from: javno.hr gradani novinari (from the site where citizens act as journalists)Published on: 07.07.2008, at 11.10 p.m.
Our everyday capitalism
Wedding the Firm
Big firms search after more and more attractive ways to buy your free time. And what happens when the love is gone?
Croatia gets closer to the world. Recently, Večernji List disclosed that the firms like Vipnet and Hypo Alpe-Adria-Bank please their employees in all possible ways – they open day nurseries within the firm complex; they offer wellness and fitness programs… A real fairy-tale and dream for the thousands of unemployed Croats who would be satisfied even with a job in a shoe shop. Only a satisfied worker is a productive one; that is their slogan. They take their well-paid employees to golfing and yachting; they organise companionships with the purpose of strengthening collective spirit and interpersonal relations (team building)...
In a word, everything would be well if there were not a small catch in the whole story – they will do everything to take your free time, to separate you from your families, and join your private life with the business. They have capital to offer you more than your spouse or family, unless you have married a rich or inherited a wealth from your family. They will not offer you working hours that would enable you to get home before sunset. Working weekends are quite a normal and “natural” phenomenon. Your costs of business dinners will be covered if you bring them new clients or please the existing ones. They will organise even your baby-sitting till 6.30 p.m. (if you are forced to do something like that) so you would not have excuse to leave the working post at 4 or 5 p.m. and take your child from nursery or a day care centre, as all other parents do. They will do everything to make your job so attractive, to make your return home repulsive – there, you will be confronted with problems, with no time even for bath, not to mention wellness; the partner reproaches your late coming, has no understanding for your “needs” and your wish for promotion, unlike your employers. They are the ones to care for you, you are important for them and they give you so the best. Slow and sure, you become conscious of having more and more “needs” till you become aware that for you, there is no real life outside of the firm. There, you have challenges, journeys, action, fun, companionship; there you spend your time from morning till night and not only five, but six, seven days a week.
There is a domestic firm called Tim Kabel working in the shadow of the great names. Every employee, who has got the first child, receives a single aid of HRK 10,000. The more children you have the larger stimulation your receive. Maternity leave is understood in itself and everything will be done for you so to spend as much time as possible with your child. At them, women do not feel stomach crumps when they get pregnant. No, they have no children day care centre; they give you your right to a private life. They have separated a part of their income for humanitarian purposes even at the time when it was difficult to do, with no publicity or media pomp. The owners of the company are simple; religious people who do not impose anyone their convictions and who do not show off with glamour. They need not the employees who would burn out like moths in their greediness, but try “only” to make people happy and pay them honestly for their invested work efforts.
I do not work with any of the mentioned firms, but I was happy enough to do once business with Tim Kabel. Although, the owners would not recognise me as I had but a minor role with all the business, they persuaded me that in capitalism, there is still a hope that humanity and honesty have not been dead. Human ambition and short-sightedness, however, does not recognise any borders. That is, unfortunately, why many will live to meet the old age alone, divorced, unhappy and disappointed when the love with a firm, to which they sold the best years of their life, is broken.
Croatia gets closer to the world. Recently, Večernji List disclosed that the firms like Vipnet and Hypo Alpe-Adria-Bank please their employees in all possible ways – they open day nurseries within the firm complex; they offer wellness and fitness programs… A real fairy-tale and dream for the thousands of unemployed Croats who would be satisfied even with a job in a shoe shop. Only a satisfied worker is a productive one; that is their slogan. They take their well-paid employees to golfing and yachting; they organise companionships with the purpose of strengthening collective spirit and interpersonal relations (team building)...
In a word, everything would be well if there were not a small catch in the whole story – they will do everything to take your free time, to separate you from your families, and join your private life with the business. They have capital to offer you more than your spouse or family, unless you have married a rich or inherited a wealth from your family. They will not offer you working hours that would enable you to get home before sunset. Working weekends are quite a normal and “natural” phenomenon. Your costs of business dinners will be covered if you bring them new clients or please the existing ones. They will organise even your baby-sitting till 6.30 p.m. (if you are forced to do something like that) so you would not have excuse to leave the working post at 4 or 5 p.m. and take your child from nursery or a day care centre, as all other parents do. They will do everything to make your job so attractive, to make your return home repulsive – there, you will be confronted with problems, with no time even for bath, not to mention wellness; the partner reproaches your late coming, has no understanding for your “needs” and your wish for promotion, unlike your employers. They are the ones to care for you, you are important for them and they give you so the best. Slow and sure, you become conscious of having more and more “needs” till you become aware that for you, there is no real life outside of the firm. There, you have challenges, journeys, action, fun, companionship; there you spend your time from morning till night and not only five, but six, seven days a week.
There is a domestic firm called Tim Kabel working in the shadow of the great names. Every employee, who has got the first child, receives a single aid of HRK 10,000. The more children you have the larger stimulation your receive. Maternity leave is understood in itself and everything will be done for you so to spend as much time as possible with your child. At them, women do not feel stomach crumps when they get pregnant. No, they have no children day care centre; they give you your right to a private life. They have separated a part of their income for humanitarian purposes even at the time when it was difficult to do, with no publicity or media pomp. The owners of the company are simple; religious people who do not impose anyone their convictions and who do not show off with glamour. They need not the employees who would burn out like moths in their greediness, but try “only” to make people happy and pay them honestly for their invested work efforts.
I do not work with any of the mentioned firms, but I was happy enough to do once business with Tim Kabel. Although, the owners would not recognise me as I had but a minor role with all the business, they persuaded me that in capitalism, there is still a hope that humanity and honesty have not been dead. Human ambition and short-sightedness, however, does not recognise any borders. That is, unfortunately, why many will live to meet the old age alone, divorced, unhappy and disappointed when the love with a firm, to which they sold the best years of their life, is broken.
