We certainly live in interesting times, don’t we…. Lately, we’ve recently seen a number of complaints about how a percentage of those living in the US are only interested in “free stuff.” The main complaint is that those people will vote for Democrats for political office rather than for Republicans, who want to make sure that no one receives “free stuff.” According to some, we have become a culture of “cheaters.” The original impetus for this blog entry was a comment a friend made about the concern companies have about people who “telecommute” and work from home rather than driving however long it may take for them to get to the office. The fear is that those working from home would be likely to “cheat.”
Whether working at home or in an office, not everyone cheats, of course. My sense is that most of those who do cheat while working at home (or cheat while working in an office) do so out of a sense of resentment and “get even” mentality. Many of the problems leading to employee cheating are caused by the new corporate structures that have been attempting to squeeze more profits out of their organizations. Wages for most workers have stagnated since the late 1970s. This is a complex issue because many of the problems are caused by “globalization” and changing technologies. Other problems are caused by corporate systems that reward upper management based on quarterly profits.
As for work experience itself, most of us know someone who has been saddled with increasing amounts of work and responsibility without receiving any increase in compensation. Even those with good jobs and good salaries aren’t provided much opportunity to enjoy their work experience. European workers, for example, are guaranteed more vacation time than anyone in the States. The reduction in vacation time has also been increasingly happening in academic communities along the way, although given the nature of academic work, the process has been slower.
“Vacation” for college faculty is usually spent conducting research and publishing the results. The principal rule in higher education remains “publish or perish,” so most vacations for college professors include work. In my opinion, the main problems in higher education are, first, that administration (where the big salaries are) has been expanding (schools have increased their numbers of vice-presidents and directors); and, second, “regular” faculty are being replaced by adjuncts on short-term, part-time contracts. At the primary and secondary levels of education, vacation for teachers typically consists of part-time summer employment. One of the high school teachers I knew spent his summers painting houses to help make ends meet. Others do what they can to supplement their income.
Those in leadership positions establish the standards, and those below copy what they see more than they do what they are told. I think if we had better “corporate ethics,” better “workplace ethics” would naturally follow. People tend to emulate the behavior of those who “out rank” them in one way or another. In general, the military does a good job of making that clear. The higher the rank, the more exemplary the individual is expected to be. Soldiers emulate their NCOs (noncommissioned officers); NCOs emulate the officers. Lieutenants emulate captains who emulate majors and colonels. Everyone emulates the generals. When you look at corporate—I was going to say “America,” but it is really a worldwide problem, what do you see? A lot of cheating….
The 2008 “housing bubble” in the States was caused by corporations taking advantage of poor or no regulation on financial practices (people got into houses cheaply but couldn’t make payments when the rates ballooned). The lack of regulation of the financial industry resulted in too many risky investments as lenders’ confidence was spurred by “credit-default swaps,” which theoretically spread the risk to provide lenders with protection against default. In the automotive industry, Ford’s failure to fix the problem of the gas tanks in the Pinto, Chevrolet’s failure to make sure the Corvair could go around corners on wet pavement safely, and GM’s failure to replace faulty engine switches because the fix would have cost $1.50 a switch. GM seems to have assumed that it would be less expensive to pay for a few accidents than to replace all the faulty switches. And, more recently, VW’s software cheating on their diesel engines…. And all that is without saying anything about the pharmaceutical industry that has been caught fabricating results of testing on drugs it promotes. (On this, I suspect that we have seen only the beginning of what will be an expanding story.)
Think about these cases from the average employee’s point of view. If I’m an engineer working for GM, for example, and I say, “Gee, Boss, this switch slips into the ‘off’ position too easily while a person is driving,” and the boss says, “Yeah, but … it would cost $1.50 to fix it, so let it go….” what does that do to my sense of needing to put in an honest day’s work for GM?
My old friend Vilfredo Pareto used to say that everyone is on a bell curve: 20 percent of the people are less than fully honest most of the time, 20 percent of the people are always honest all the time, and 60 percent of the people make decisions about honesty based on the current situation.
Which brings me back to the academic community: what motivates an adjunct professor on a part-time, temporary contract earning about $12 an hour to do a good job teaching 40 students in a writing skills class meeting 3 times a week for 50 minutes? Do you think the institution would increase the salaries of the adjunct faculty to help ensure that all their adjunct faculty were in the best 20 percent, or do you think it more likely that the institution would be too busy ensuring that all the students had paid their tuition to worry about the quality of instruction?
Yes, we have problems, but they tend to be systemic rather than individual or “local.” Do I have an answer or an easy fix? No, not by a long shot. I would, however, start by looking at corporate behavior and the behavior of those in government, where laws and regulations governing behavior are written. If lobbyists representing corporate interests write the bills that become law, whose interests will be supported and whose will be neglected?
Ultimately, governments set the standards for the behavior of their citizens. If people in government cheat by essentially accepting money and gifts for legislation, corporations will cheat on tests, and most people will also cheat in one way or another. And, of course, governmental cheaters make the news on a regular basis by accepting bribes, by using tax dollars to hire prostitutes, and by lying about a variety of things. The old saying is that “Shit runs downhill.” The flip side is that integrity runs downhill as well—not in the sense of “gets worse,” but in the sense that those at the top set the standard for others to follow. It is up to us to make sure that what’s at the top of the “hill” is setting a good example for the rest of us to follow.
