How To Get Fired: Do The Right Thing

Photo by Dmitry Vechorko on Unsplash

One of my housemates got fired. He told me the story over tea yesterday. His story initially astounded me. But then I realized a couple things that changed my thoughts about what happened to him.

One: my housemate found a better job in a different industry. So, in hindsight, he appreciated getting fired, he said. I’m glad he felt that way. Then I realized his story offered a perfect example of why people struggle today with doing the right thing. It would make a perfect Copiosis blog post, I thought.

Maybe you’ll agree. Here’s what happened.

Workplace harassment

“John” worked at a tea shop, he told me. One day, a young woman came on board. Not long after joining the team, John noticed the store manager treating her differently than other team members.

“He stood in her personal space while training her,” John said. “And he often made inappropriate statements about her, or inappropriate suggestions about what they did during her training insinuating inappropriate things.”

John said after a while, he started inserting himself in their interactions. He would ask the manager a question, for example, or put himself between the manager and the trainee, to get an item off the shelf.

As the manager’s behaviors increased, John, started asking the trainee for help, which pulled her away from the manager in the midst of his inappropriate behavior.

Admittedly, I’m getting only one side of the story. Still what happened next illustrates a powerful point.

“You don’t fit in here”

John said after this happened several times, the store manager asked him to join him in the tea shop basement. There, John said, the manager unleashed his fury. John speculates the manager felt shame and embarrassment, because he knew John knew what he did.

“We all know you don’t fit in here,” John said his manager hissed. “Why don’t you find someplace else to work. You’re fired.”

John said his manager mentioned nothing about John’s performance. He thinks his manager’s actions directly stemmed from his embarrassment. He knew his behavior was wrong. Still, John didn’t feel good about losing his job, his only income Source. But he did feel good about doing the right thing.

“Before I left,” John said. “The trainee thanked me for getting involved. But it sucked that I lost a job for doing the right thing.”

A job shouldn’t be something you depend on for income. That’s a recipe for insecurity. And insecurity always makes people go along. (Photo by Matt Seymour on Unsplash)

Why hardly anyone will do what’s right

All of us own responsibility for this situation. The same thing happens all around the world, and not just in workplaces. From conducting “enhanced interrogation”, to refusing to “snitch”, from refusing to reveal when a government violates the governed’s civil rights, to manufacturing products known to kill people, people in every country do things they know harm others. They know they shouldn’t do such things, but they do them anyway.

Why? Are these people bad? Are they evil?

I think you know. All these people must feed themselves and their families. Rents and mortgages must get paid. They like Netflix subscriptions and their iPhones, the latest muscle car. They enjoy going out for a beer.

And none of those things happen today without income. Because, in every case where a person draws an income from work, someone controls whether that person keeps drawing that income. That person enjoys great leverage over everyone who’s income they control. And every person who depends on that income feels powerless to do anything about the power their employer enjoys.

Which is why so many people fail to do what’s right.

That makes John’s story extraordinary. It doesn’t matter that it happened at a relatively obscure tea shop. It’s not like John worked at the National Security Agency and blew the whistle. He just protected a girl from a creep.

But John did the right thing. The doing of which cost him. How many people in the world, right now, witness similar things happening and say or do nothing? Or worse, they go along with the bad behavior because they need the paycheck?

Could such a thing happen in Copiosis?

It needn’t be this way

First, everyone in Copiosis enjoys necessities at no cost. That includes tea because tea is food and food is a necessity. People working at this tea shop don’t need to work there because everything they need they get at no cost.

So why do they work there? Maybe they like tea. Perhaps they enjoy serving people something they enjoy. Many people like “nerding out” on things. Tea might be one of those things and, a passion for tea feels more enjoyable when shared.

But since people working at the tea shop don’t need the job, they enjoy far more leverage than today. And, it’s likely those working at the tea shop, being passionate about it, will not tolerate someone working there who creates a toxic workplace.

This scenario could go a number of ways. Ways that completely eliminates what happened to John. Let’s just look at one.

In Copiosis, everything people need they get at no cost. Meanwhile, those providing such things get Net Benefit Rewards for providing them. In this way, no one is forced to give anything away for free, but everyone’s needs get met.

A better tea shop

The tea shop owner posts notice about a tea shop opening and needs help. Since no one needs a job, the only people who respond to the post are people interested in supporting the tea shop’s mission. Presumably that’s offering delightful tea experiences to customers.

So the owner gets qualified people and they all agree working there sounds great. Turns out one of the hires stands a little too close to his women co-workers. He also makes sexually suggestive innuendos which obviously cause discomfort among the women staff.

Let’s say John took a position at this tea shop too. What might happen in this tea shop scenario? Even if the harasser is the manager, the other people working there enjoy tremendous leverage. None of these people need this job. And, if all the women leave, they can tell the owner as well as make a declaration in the manager’s reputation account about his behavior, which would follow him wherever he goes.

Such behavior usually represents a pattern. So it’s likely that already happened where this guy came from. If so, the tea shop owner likely would have reviewed each person’s reputation and caught this anomaly. But if he didn’t, and John or the women, or both John and the women spoke up about it, the owner would have no choice. He’d need to do something, or risk losing most of the people working there.

If the manager did tell John he could no longer work there, it wouldn’t result in John losing his only income source. First, he doesn’t need an income. Second, he could do virtually anything to get an income, including starting his own tea shop because capital goods also come at no cost.

So many more incentives exist in Copiosis that create different workplaces. Workplaces where workers and managers are on equal footings and no one has income leverage over anyone else. That’s a great thing in my opinion.

Tea shops should be about giving customers delightful beverage experiences and people working there enjoying doing that, free of harassment. Many workplaces struggle with harassment because people, unlike John, are afraid to do the right thing. (Photo by Dan Burton on Unsplash)

Think it won’t work?

COVID offers a glorious example of this dynamic at work. The dynamic where employees have more leverage and what that leverage can do. Many employers today face loss of income (and profit) because wages, or work conditions tip income decisions so heavily people refuse to work at such places.

What changed the equation? Government stimulus checks. In other words, people didn’t need their jobs as much as before. The government gave them money. So they quit their shitty jobs.

The same happens across the economy in Copiosis. No longer needing to earn a living, workers enjoy newfound leverage.

So today’s pandemic-ridden economy proves Copiosis can work in the way described here.

Now, should tea shop workers turn this guy in, they change the tea shop culture for the better. That’s a good thing for the tea shop owner. With a changed culture, he enjoys people staying on longer. They enjoy being there and they feel empowered. And it’s likely that creates a better customer experience. So there’s no good reason the owner won’t go along with employees asking for a better workplace.

But let’s say “bad behavior guy” is related to the owner and the owner doesn’t want to let him go. What then? Well, not only bad behavior guy gets a reputation account declaration, so might the owner and, likely the tea shop, which could put the kibosh on the owner’s ability to enjoy NBR streams from offering tea.

Unlike today where people feel they must take shitty jobs just to pay the bills, in Copiosis people don’t need to do that. So this tea shop, run by the owner and his lecher brother, wouldn’t last long.

It’s all good

No one need work someplace they don’t like in Copiosis. One need not work at all. When a person follows their passion, “work” becomes something else. That something else transforms not only how people feel about what they’re doing, it transforms how people feel about themselves.

And that increases and promotes better outcomes. Including workplaces appropriate for people who believe they’re worthy of decent treatment.

Copiosis creates the New World Order. It’s a place where business owners and workers are aligned in every aspect of the business, which makes business stronger. Devoid of the profit motive and with everything everyone needs provided at no cost, workplaces, like the world at large, get better and better.

And that happens because people can do good and not have to worry about getting fired. Instead, everyone gets rich.

Then doing the right thing becomes what it is: the right thing.

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