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    American Socialism? It Is What It Is
    American Socialism? It Is What It Is
    American Socialism? It Is What It Is
    Ebook98 pages1 hour

    American Socialism? It Is What It Is

    By Terry L. Ursini

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    About this ebook

    Ever wondered how we got where we are? How did the workplace change, why was it not noticed before? Should you have seen these changes before it all happened? The jobs went away, bonuses went up, there was more work do to, and yet the worker was appreciated less, not more.
    Legacy is gone. Loyalty to employees is gone. A fair days wage for a fair days pay has been replaced by the part time job. The rules all changed.
    The America we grew up with is not the America in which we find ourselves retiring into.
    Some will say it is Washington DC, some say in is big business, some say it was union demands, and yet like everything else in this high tech world it some and all of these and more.
    And so it begins... the Era where the Individual needs to take back control of their lives, their communities and their government.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisheriUniverse
    Release dateAug 27, 2010
    ISBN9781450251488
    American Socialism? It Is What It Is
    Author

    Terry L. Ursini

    Why me. After watching the systems change slowly over the years, after almost forty years with one company, it became very apparant that these new changes were dramatically different from previous changes. Everywhere I went, everyone I talked to, company after company, the changes were similar and thorough. We were all going through this centralization, or creation of an American socilaism together. Yet, no one seemed to know that we were all in the same boat. Seeing this all happening over such a broad spectrum of the infrastructure system it became obvious there was more to business systems that what we were being told. It was time for someone to put it all together, who better than I, who had lived and breathed the changes, and from my position, saw it all happen. Being a baby boomer, the thought of how we would be dealt with, the numbers were so great, the technology so expansive, the mission became very personal. Upon deciding to retire, it was disconcerting to go on line, fill out a few lines, and submitt for retirement. As the process continued towards my last day at work, no one called, was there anyone out there? Who knew, did my boss even know? Finally, a message sent to the district office stating to insure that I was no longer on the payroll as of November 1, 2009, meant two things. One ,my boss now knew, and second, how cold to dismiss an employee of 40 years, through basically a text message. This was not my father's world. Living in small town America, seeing how people were being treated, here where change was one time slower that the big cities, and yet now the changes were quick. Wall Street was sucking cash out of Main Street. My savings and stocks were losing interest and value. Investment on Main Street dried up, with friends and relatives beginning to lose jobs, businesses and life styles. With great speed companies protected the bottom line at the expense of the individual employee. No one here knew how this happened, most were still in shock asking what happened. It was time to write the book.

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      Book preview

      American Socialism? It Is What It Is - Terry L. Ursini

      American Socialism?

      It Is What It is

      Terry L Ursini

      iUniverse, Inc.

      New York Bloomington

      American Socialism? It Is What It is

      Copyright © 2010 by Terry L Ursini

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

      iUniverse books may be ordered through booksellers or by contacting:

      iUniverse

      1663 Liberty Drive

      Bloomington, IN 47403

      www.iuniverse.com

      1-800-Authors (1-800-288-4677)

      Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any Web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

      ISBN: 978-1-4502-5237-9 (sc)

      ISBN: 978-1-4502-5148-8 (ebook)

      Printed in the United States of America

      iUniverse rev. date: 08/04/2010

      For the American Individual,

      may you live free, with minimal government interference, with justice for all, with honesty, with integrity of person, and with the ability to work hard for a fair days pay without being subjected to selfish efforts of Madison Avenue.

      Contents

      Introduction

      Where Did This Come From ?

      Sarbanes-Oxley

      The Patterns

      Pay for Performance

      Resulting In

      Fear

      Death of the Individual

      What we need to do

      In Conclusion

      Introduction

      Is this a book really talking about the United States of America? Shocking as it may seem the answer is, yes. It seems the advent of the computer age, the impending retirement of the baby boomers and the recession all came together to create a scenario where institutional socialism is being forced on a generation of workers. People became expendable and computer systems became the new work horse. It would be great to say this was just a natural outgrowth of the ability to operate, process and execute at very high levels. Yet, the question must also be asked, are we our brother’s keeper, or is our brother the problem and not the solution?

      How do you grow a community under the process management style of management without the leveling forces of organized labor, and in the face of globalization, the new world economy? Can an individual actually work for some company and expect a fair wage for a day’s work, or has management/shareholder greed created and maintain the new working poor, the hourly worker? What is the role of government in insuring the rights of the individual or are we repeating the robber baron era of the early 1900’s, where it is the President who could talk loudly and carry a big stick? Where were you when you lost it all, or where were you when the subtle shifts by management made you less important, almost obsolete. Fascinating questions. This book sets out to explain what has happened to the American lifestyle, the American worker and what the we all need to think about.

      As time went by, talking about writing this book became very interesting. Many of the people that were introduced to this concept, stared in total shock, then stated how they knew things were different, had seen the changes, and just never put the parts together to see the total impact on their lives. They all seemed to express the same sentiment, that the parts do not seem harmful, yet as a whole, this is just wrong. The next thought was, now that the total impact is known, what do we need to do to change this? It was amazing how the solution was not even considered, yet there is a situation that needs a solution. When some of the suggested solutions were offered, you could see the wheels turning and the potential impact of this book grew larger.

      This book is not written to change history, the impact of this book will hopefully be the awakening of people to the need to remain and maintain the status as an American individual. We are not sheep-people, we have no need to be in compliance with every system in order to obtain customer service, and surely we do not need to over pay management to obtain a better product.

      Special thanks to Joyce Pipkin, a great friend.

      So it begins............

      Where Did This Come From ?

      Where did the title of this book come from? American socialism, how crazy an idea; most people will say it cannot happen here. As sick as it may be, the process has slowly and effectively been taking over company after company, government after government. The process is not finished. Whether it continues or not, is up to us.

      First though, let us explore the roots of this process. Process management became a management tool and training method in the late 1990’s. By itself, the process management axiom of manage the process, not the people seems innocent. Having a management style in which the process is the main focus seemed like just another theme of the year in which many companies would push, only to abandon it later for something new. What changed this time was a small item that was beginning to be so effective and widespread no one knew the impact it would have on the business and government systems. The computer was taking over and getting more and more powerful each and every month. It was the merger of the idea and the technology that took a simple process to such extreme levels.

      The computer possessed something that management systems never had before, large memory and instant duplication. In other systems, after the management meeting and implementation of the new process, people gradually tweaked the new process, with the end result a blend of the system and the real world response from people. This time the computer had the ability to stop the tweaking of the process. Suddenly, management found that a new system could be started, with the end result being very close to the startup version. No longer could people change, modify, accept or reject the system in bits and pieces. Suddenly, the computer version was the version. Now the new threat came into play as management started pushing back at the employees stating, what part of what is on the screen do you not understand and even more sinister than that was the new, read the screen, follow the instructions or you will be charged with failure to follow instructions. Now, workers no longer had a choice in the style and version of the work to be performed. As it is written, so it must be followed. The marching orders were sent and total acquiescence was required and expected.

      WOW, does this really work? Upper management quickly saw that this works perfectly in customer service operations. Long an area of concern, many managers felt the gains from sales were always given away by the customer service side of the business. Management could reduce the size of customer service operations, and insure their words were followed explicitly, simply by creating written operations instructions. These instructions could easily be made available on all computers,

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