I saw a video today in which a person was complaining about their cashier job at a large clothing store because they are not allowed to sit down while running the register. It got me thinking again about the differences between larger corporations and smaller businesses and the gap in how they treat their employees. 

The person in the video and various people who commented detailed their frustration at not being allowed to sit down at the register while working. Understandably, they took many bathroom breaks throughout the day just for a chance to rest their aching feet. 

While I was watching this video, I was actually at work in a small, locally owned establishment, and I was sitting in a comfortable swivel chair at the register. I can’t stop thinking about the fact that so many starter jobs, which often take place in retail, have unfair working conditions for no good reason. There are so many reasons to let your employees be comfortable during their 8 hour work day: they will be happier if their feet and back don’t hurt; they will be more engaged with customers, which gains your store more loyalty, thus more money; your company won’t have an undesirably high turnover rate; and your employees would not find it so easy to hate you, unless you are lacking in other areas as well. 

I understand that it may look, from a management viewpoint, that standing all day isn’t all that hard. But how many times do you see the manager themselves out at the counter, also standing all day? How often do they get their fancy office chairs replaced because of ergonomic injury prevention? Equipment to make working accessible and easy for employees is widely, easily available, especially for larger corporations that are making more money. 

This brings me to my next point: why is it that the companies that make the most money often treat their workers so poorly that they quit, but people continue to use these companies over other options? I think that there is definitely a double standard in place in the business-to-consumer relationship. If you get bad service from a large corporation, that hardly stops you from using their services or buying their products. However, if a small business messes up your order, or if they are slightly more expensive than a competitor, they may as well not exist to you. I am not trying to make anyone feel guilty, but I am trying to get people to think. Of course large corporations who pay their employees minimum wage to stand all day and wreck their joints will cost less than a good quality small business. That is precisely their game. It’s how they all got so successful in the first place. If service sucks but the consumer can afford to buy more stuff, they win. 

Why are we letting these faceless, unwelcoming, harmful corporations control us? When did “quality over quantity” stop being a policy to live by? Why aren’t we making it possible for us to break away from large corporations by shopping and using services of smaller businesses? Of course people want change. The market has been dominated by huge, almost-monopoly businesses for decades now. Entrepreneurs who care about their customers and employees have no chance to succeed without consumer support. I personally don’t think that the answer to dominating corporations in industries is giving the government all the power. I think that solution isn’t really a solution at all, simply a shift of power from one evil to the next. If we actually want any kind of equality in the labour and business world, we need to break away from both huge corporations and the huge government. Control by one group of people who think they are better than everyone else is no better than control by a couple groups of people who think they are better than everyone else. This is especially true when we rely on just that one group for everything. Don’t put all your eggs in one shaky, old, broken, corrupt basket, but don’t put them in the same two baskets your whole life. One day, those baskets you rely on are going to break, and when they do we will all regret it. We have the power to change stuff, but extremes aren’t going to work. There is only so far left you can go until you become right again. 

Until next time, keep thinking outside the box, and keep reading in between!