ABL’s post about a Time-Warner boss telling his employees to let another employee die touches on something that I think is vital to understanding contemporary society: the lure of acting like a sociopath and then chalking your actions up to “company policy” or some such. It’s seductive, I understand. No one likes dealing with complicated shit and if you can come up with rationale whereby you are only following orders when you choose to ignore shit, that’s a win, psychologically.
It’s the same with “no one could have predicted” and “it’s too late to do anything”. They’re all absolutions of sorts. So is “sure you think you should feel bad when you let someone starve to death in front of you, but once you get past the conventional wisdom of our hippie overlords you may be surprised to learn that blah blah blah“. And then you have the Bobo “neuroscience” about how it’s better not to feel guilty anyway: Burke and the latest “scientific findings” conclude that it’s better if you don’t dwell on it.
That’s what terrifies me most about corporatism, that it gives free rein to the inner sociopath.
David Fud
Or, for that matter, blaming it on “legal liability”, which is complete bull. Act like sociopaths and blame the outcomes on the society at large because of laws the society has put into place to protect all of us.
cathyx
I saw this last week and it fits perfectly in with this topic.
WARNING! Very Graphic and Disturbing
http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMzEzMzMyMDQw.html
beltane
This is one area where corporate totalitarianism is the same as all other totalitarianisms. We just get a “Thank You, have a nice day” thrown in on top of the sociopathy.
Linda Featheringill
The Time Warner thing is very disturbing. It’s also rather strange. I hope it gets lots of publicity.
“Company policy” is probably today’s version of “I was only following orders.”
The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik
Empathy and Sympathy have become the gravest curse words possible in our society now. Thank you libertarianism and Randianism.
WereBear (itouch)
This is what worshipping Mammin gets us.
As it is, people have a hard time realizing sociopathic behavior when it is victimizing them. Allowing it as corporate policy normalizes it even further.
Well, it tries to, anyway. I don’t think we’re that far gone yet.
arguingwithsignposts
I’ll volunteer to get this out of the way early: You know who else was ‘just following orders’?
Elie
Actually — I think that such behavior is actually worse than sociopathy. Sociopaths at least don’t feel any remorse or empathy — its just not there. What do you say about people, however, that Do feel something — but suppress it under some guise of “orders”.
We are mainly groomed to be pack followers. We learn early to “obey” and much of our education is spent with learning how not to stick out with either opinions and certainly no actions. Just for the sake of reinforcing these lessons, we get to see what happens to the “trouble makers” from time to time — frequently severe punishment or being shunned and cut off from the main herd. It takes a lot of courage to stand up when everyone else is sitting down or looking away…
If we want to build a society of people with strong character and independence — we would have to do a whole lot different than we do.
I am reassured however, that this story DID get out — someone saw what happened and told it — so someone or someones did something good with something horrible…
Odie Hugh Manatee
Today my wife told me that one of the workers at the store she works at was sick last week and told by her boss that she couldn’t go home because there wasn’t anyone to replace her on the floor. A bit later one of her supervisors saw her shaking from chills and saw that she was very pale. When she asked her if she was ok the lady told her that she was sick. Her supervisor told her to go home and call a doctor and the lady said “The boss said I can’t since there’s nobody to cover my position.”
Then she burst into tears. Her supervisor called the boss and jumped his ass, telling him that the worker was very ill and should not be at work. She was sent home and she went to the local clinic. She has pneumonia and will be out of work for a bit while she recovers.
I’m sure her boss is pissed that he has to rearrange the schedule to cover her absence.
Dougerhead
@arguingwithsignposts:
I know, I know.
West of the Cascades
Hate to go Full Godwin after only a few posts, but referring to “contemporary” society inevitably made me think of the provocative book “Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust.” http://www.amazon.com/Hitlers-Willing-Executioners-Ordinary-Holocaust/dp/0679772685?vm=r
Just sayin’
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@cathyx: OK, that was seriously disgusting. Thanks for completely ruining my faith in people. I guess I’ll just stick to complaining in the comments.
(Snark on the last one because it’s true.)
arguingwithsignposts
@Odie Hugh Manatee: That is sad, and just think if she’d had something communicable. Sick world we live in.
The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
“Fuck her pneumonia, we’re talking about money here, doesn’t she understand that? Fucking leech.”
Am I management material now?
Maude
@The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik:
Not yet. You have to tell her when she returns to work that she no longer has a job.
The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik
@Maude:
Damn, I knew I forgot something. Damn that sympathy thing.
Maude
@The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik:
I’ve been on job interviews lately. I’ve got the expertize on corporate mind set.
Sly
They don’t call it limited liability for nothing.
Violet
Nooners summed up that way of thinking very nicely:
Just keep walking….
PurpleGirl
I saw this story at Yahoo News: (Summary a man tried to help 3 adults with Down Syndrome during the tornadoes last spring. He was on the job at the time. He was badly injured himself and his workers’ compensation insurance carrier has denied his claim.)
http://news.yahoo.com/miracle-tornado-survivor-denied-workers-comp-170556418.html
The medical bills alone are over $2.5 million and he has no job now. The man worked for a little more than minimum wage in social services. I’d like to ask Herman Cain, Mitt Romney, Michele Bachmann and the rest of them: Where’s the charity or church(es) that will help this man not only pay for past medical bills but the care he will continue to need in the future?
Capri
I think folks here are rushing to judgement a little bit. It’s hard to imagine that Time Warner Company policy is: “Always man your station. If the person next to you drops dead, do not let it distract you in any way.”
Yes, companies are bad, blah, blah, blah. But it’s very possible many of those working at the Corp. are as appalled as anyone. If the responsible parties are not canned pronto, then I’ll be right there with my pitchfork and torch.
Bill Murray
@The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik: you need to throw in a “It’s just business”
Jennyjinx
OT: Someone didn’t close an em; tag on the front page.
different-church-lady
It’s a hallmark of emotional manipulators and sociopaths: they always cite a higher authority. It’s never the manipulator who thinks these things or wants these things: it’s the entire world.
The deeper question is why do emotional manipulators so often end up in positions of management?
G
http://www.stanleymilgram.com/milgram.php
I’m late to the party… but it pretty much fits stanley milgram’s famous experiment.
Jc
I’ve said this before – but really, there is something about current corporatism that encourages the “spreadsheet serial killer” mentality.
If you watch Puncture the movie, this is fully on display. (I mean preventing nurses from getting safe needles because it will hit your bottom line to do so? It’s horrifying).
You can see why it happens and why we are all vulnerable:
1. Personal incentive – ah hell I have to “make my numbers” perform what the job wants or I might lose job/promotion/bond
2. Bad effect of decision – secondary impact. No one is being HIT, you can’t see it, what’s the problem?
Taxes are the WORST form of this – you see immediately – “hey there goes my
money!”. While the benefit is so diffuse – 3rd or 4th removed.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@arguingwithsignposts:
Her boss was probably willing to take that risk.
@The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik:
That’s corporate board-level talk with the worry about money and the “leeches” part. If you had replaced “money” with “scheduling” and “leeches” with “my bonus depends on it”, then you would be at management level.
Corporate doesn’t tolerate threats to their jobs so tone it down a bit and apply for management again. ;)
rob!
I have a conservative “friend” who once referred to the small pack of feral cats we feed (who live in some woods behind a nearby 7-11) as “Welfare Kitties.” Welfare Kitties.
What kind of cold-hearted sociopath do you have to be not to understand that, you know, cats don’t actually benefit from the invisible hand of the marketplace?
different-church-lady
@Capri: If the last two years of wandering through liberal blogging has taught me nothing else, its that the need to feed the moment-to-moment outrage maw has become so overwhelming that there’s almost always left-out information that makes it appear worse than it is.
Which is not to say these things aren’t bad in truth. But I am mystified by the low-level mendacity that’s become fashionable. I frequently wonder if cable news style has taken over everyone’s heads.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Jc:
If an employee dies on the job from an illness that could have been treated then the business saves money by letting them die,
keeping medical expenses down for everyonesaving the company money and the insurance company profits!It’s win-win for
allthose who matter. Cogs in the machine are a dime a dozen and easily replaced, insurance that’s used costs money (and profits).Death by spreadsheet indeed.
Amir Khalid
@cathyx:
There’s quite a bit of soul-searching going on in China over that video, from what I’ve read. People are appalled and ashamed over what it suggests about them as a nation.
@Capri:
Hard to call it a rush to judgment, when Time Warner Cable itself issued a statement defending its response to the situation as “appropriate”. That response, remember, included telling her colleague to stop administering CPR before paramedics could arrive.
Dougerhead
@Capri:
I agree, that’s what I mean about it being a vehicle for people to channel their inner sociopath It almost doesn’t matter what the actual company policy is.
Southern Beale
It’s the Culture of Personal Responsibility. None of the people preaching it the loudest ever do it.
There’s a new excuse making its way through the culture: “Asperger’s!” Like the character on this season’s “Glee” who is very rude and uses Asperger’s as an excuse. Seen that crop up in a couple of places in the pop culture. Everyone wants to be an asshole but no one wants to suffer the consequences of being an asshole so they write it off to some disease.
Gretchen D
It started when we were kids and our excuse was, “Everyone else does it!”
wilfred
Well, if you’re ok with having a disastrous, illegal, unprovoked war that has killed or maimed upwards of a million people get a pass without recrimination or punishment then what’s the big deal here?
Life determines consciousness. Why, exactly, should this be a big deal when the war wasn’t?
Move on, I say.
Litlebritdifrnt2
When I was in the UK there was a show called “That’s Life” (I think) the host was Esther Ransen. They had a segment called the “Jobsworth” award where they would highlight a story sent in by a viewer of a particular person who had stuck so rigidly to the rules that it was absurd, always with the disclaimer that breaking the rules “would be more than my jobs worth” (for example a security guard refusing to let a handicapped person use a rear entrance to a place due to it being easier to navigate and therefore going through the kitchen of the restaurant) “can’t let you do that, it would be more than my jobs worth”. This sounds like one of those things.
Judas Escargot
@Southern Beale:
I’ve noticed this recent trend, too. It’s also unfair (and offensive) to actual Aspies.
There’s a big difference between “I hurt your feelings because I didn’t know any better” and “Ha! I have Asperger’s! Fuck you!”
Fulcanelli
The sociopath / psychopath “problem” is only getting worse because their ruthlessness and utter lack of conscience is rewarded in the corporate boardrooms of the world.
Snakes in suits…
There’s an excellent documentary about these twisted people you can watch online that was made by two Czech film makers over at:
http://fisheadmovie.com
I emailed them for a password to watch it online it’s: fhmovie .
Spooky shit.
srv
One must remember that middle and upper management are the front lines of capitalism and hard choices and sacrifices must sometimes be made.
Sure, maybe sometimes they get into the glory of the battle like Patton did, but would you rather be speaking German?
Shinobi
The MBA mentality is responsible for this as well. I’ve been in several high level meetings with managers where they would say things like “we’ll just have everyone put in an extra 10 hours.” or “I’ll just switch Joe to nights.” I actually told one of them once that they “couldn’t” do that, because it was sort of a ridiculous demand to place on another human for no actual benefit. Of course I was corrected, they can do whatever they want, they are in charge.
Profits over people is what gets us to a place where this would be a corporate policy. (Which is honestly pretty short sighted, happy employees work harder, and unhappy employees are hard to replace.)
Dougerhead
@Southern Beale:
It’s total bullshit, actual Asperberger’s a serious thing. Also too, it’s insulting to people who have it to say it just makes you an asshole. That’s not true. This whole trend is deeply offensive.
Xenos
Not to tie this issue needlessly into the whole anti-confederacy meme and Dangre and others here, but this discussion very much reflects the struggles that abolitionists had when formulating a response to slavery. Slavery was the sociopathic corporatism of that time, supported and financed by Wall Street and propogated through violent and vicious white supremacist ideology that was articulated by 19th century versions of RedState, Malkin, and Geller.
An effective response to this dehumanization and sociopathy needed to be able to undermine and discredit a large and crucial part of the American economy. Thus the breakthrough of ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’, which took the Christian sentimentalism of the day to mobilize the middle class culture to oppose slavery. Public opinion gelled in a way that enabled the war to be fought and supported.
Some similar cultural shift is needed today. Maybe the OWS will gel into something that powerful, maybe something else will. But something needs to, and if it comes around it could be incredibly powerful.
mclaren
It’s not just corporatism, it’s every part of America’s out-of-control ultra-bureaucratic society.
“At a middle school in Jonesboro, Tennessee, officials say police `had no choice’ but to taser an unruly 11-year-old student. The student had a verbal altercation with another student that became physical. When the child did not respond to verbal commands to stop, a police officer at the school shot him twice with a Taser gun.”
And when the police review board declared the cop’s behavior to be a “lawful use of force”?
The answer comes back…nothing can be done: “It’s policy.”
Everything is now “policy.” No one is responsible for anything.
When a school principal strip-searches a thirteen-year-old girl in Arizona to search for over-the-counter ibuprofen in accordance with their zero-tolerance no-drug policy, nothing can be done: “It’s policy.”
When a SWAT team deploys to arrest people charged with making cheese at home, nothing can be done: “It’s policy.”
When Topeka, Kansas contemplates legalizing wife-beating because of police budget cuts, nothing can be done. “It’s policy.”
“A Port St. Lucie first-grade student was handcuffed and committed to a mental health facility because of her classroom behavior: her parents are outraged.” But nothing can be done: “it’s policy.”
“A man who was driving his 83-year-old dying mother to the hospital was stopped by a Shelby County, Tennessee deputy less than a mile from the hospital because his truck had expired tags. The officer insisted on writing the ticket instead of letting the man get his mom to the hospital, and as a result, she died. The deputy had been with the sheriff’s department less than three years and faced no disciplinary action as a result of the incident.”
Repeat after me…
…Nothing can be done: “It’s policy.”
Isidor
@cathyx:
Sorry to post this on two threads (also on the ABL piece this one references) but I saw your comment and… Yes, I agree. I wrote about the case of the little girl in China who was run over and ignored by many passersby — possibly due to fear of negative consequences if they became involved. In many respects, it wasn’t a unique incident in China and there may be multiple factors at play.
joel hanes, sp4
El Cid
This is why we can’t have labor unions, because they’re all thugs and get in the way of efficient staffing with all their ‘OMG she’s having a heart attack she needs to go to the hospital’ or ‘OMG this worker needs more break time so he can lay around and administer CPR to dying people’.
Gimme a break. The US can’t compete in a global marketplace if we’re weighed down by a bunch of slothful parasite workers looking for the next opportunity to run away from their desks if it looks like they’ve got a good excuse such as keeping people from being dead.
William Hurley
The situation is actually worse that the giving of free reign to psychopaths. It is the psychopaths who are rewarded, promoted and who in turn make the “rules” thereby accelerating the “fail/pathology” up cycle.
Here’s some proof of what I say:
The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry
If only we, as a society, had better examples of leaders exacting the tolls of accountability from the ne’er-do-wells, loons and predators commonly referred to as “job-creators”.
El Cid
@mclaren: Leon Rosselson, ‘No-One Is Responsible,’ “I’m not responsible, I don’t decide.”
kdaug
Been playing DX:HR. Probably not a post I should be commenting on.
G
this company hired and promoted to management someone who would order under no further penalty, to stop rendering aid and watch som… err nothing to see here go back to work.
is it a one of, or is it the corporate culture? tort-wise does the family of the deceased have a wrongful death action? my guess is that depends on the facts, if she had something like what took out John Ritter there’s a good chance they don’t.
if the autopsy says high liklihood of survival with continued CPR? that company is going to be throwing that manager under the bus as an out of control crazy person and trying to put liability on the manager and not the corporation.
and isn’t there a civil case for seriously fucking with the person who tried to help? here, have a case of PTSD that you won’t get over because in a time of life or death, some asshole told you to take death, and you followed orders. THere’s gotta be a civil cause of action tort-wise for that kind of mind-fuck… intentional infliction of emotional distress?
Warren Terra
Speaking of sociopaths, Joe Lieberman managed to get a story in the Times about how he might regretfully have to endorse a Republican to take over his seat.
RadioOne
That’s pretty dark, man. But you’ve been frowning on people for a long time. And you could’ve just as easily commented on a story where someone did something good for someone else in this country today. So…I think you’re making the case for “the heart of the GOP is dark…and black” yet again today.
I’m sorta like you. In a lot of ways, I’m extremely skeptical about human behavior. But people also like to survive, and they will prefer survival over the “lure” of being sociopaths for corporate interests.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@Warren Terra: If you look up “sanctimony” in a visual dictionary, you’ll see a picture of Holy Joe.
Arclite
I read somewhere recently (on Sully’s blog?) that when given the choice to help people or not help (make the compassionate choice), when couched in humanistic terms, people chose to help 98% of the time. When couched in terms of a business decision, the compassionate choice was only 44%.
People are compassionate 98% of the time. Corporations are people that are compassionate only 44% of the time. ‘Nuf said.
drkrick
@Shinobi:
According to the MBAs, happy employees don’t work that much harder and in these conditions unhappy employees are easy to replace. Not to mention lots of turnover, so most of your staff are at the junior end of the pay structure.
Circuit City was hardly unique when they decided employees who knew what they were doing were more expensive than they were worth and fired them in favor of inexperienced, cheaper people. That decision was a pretty important reason the company was out of business within a few years. I wonder why so many other companies that officially or unofficially have the same policy haven’t suffered the same fate.
MattMinus
We can all rip on the manager who’s actions are clearly indefensible, but who the fuck says “Gotta let my co-worker die. Boss said so” ?
It’s like we’re finally a full blast 3rd world nation!
arguingwithsignposts
@MattMinus:
I’d bet people who are here illegally, or on a chain gang, or just hectored into desperation by crushing economic circumstances.
SiubhanDuinne
@Arclite:
And 98% minus 44% equals 54%, and half of 54% is … OMG, it’s 27% !!
RSA
@Amir Khalid:
This is a good point. Time Warner Cable could have made a statement that didn’t include that line. Sometimes you’ll hear advice that you shouldn’t say something when you’re involved in a car accident that suggests it’s your fault, as a sort of protection against self-incrimination. But TWC goes farther than that, saying, “Hey, we did the right thing.” If TWC were a real person this would be sociopathic.
It’s always bothered me that we have ways to deal with human sociopaths–we lock them up when they’ve done something wrong–but that we don’t do much about corporate sociopathy. If our legal system is meant to protect society, it’s not doing a great job when it comes to corporations.
lou
On the discussion board accompanying the story someone described how at Sprint, the same thing happened when an employee who was a former EMT went to work on someone.
Also, I can’t link to it right now but Mother Jones had a horrifying story about a company in Ohio that would automatically fire someone for the smallest infraction. Take more than the allotted two pee breaks? Fired. Find an excuse to go into the office from the floor because the floor is too hot? Fired. Ask a new employee where he’s from? Fired.
Waynski the Thread Killer
None of this surprises me when people are referred to as “resources” and throwing those people under the bus for short term profits is called “restructuring”. Problems are never problems, they’re either “challenges” or “opportunities”. We should have a contest for best corporate Newspeak terms and definitions. I took an extension program at the Wharton School and one of the professors was talking about how to manage the psychological impact of “restructuring” for the people who weren’t laid off. A particularly pernicious prick, clearly on the fast track to upper management, spoke up to say that he liked firing people and anyone who kept their job should work harder and STFU, essentially. Everyone in the room was a bit taken aback. But I’m not sure who’s worse, the honest prick, the professor attempting to teach him how to feign empathy where clearly none would ever exist, or the corporate sheep, including me, that realized that even if you felt the way the prick did, corporate decorum demands that you pretend you care. I guess it’s all equally revolting.
Ruckus
inner sociopath
I protest the use of the word inner. So many of the overlords are right out in front with their sociopathic selves. They don’t hide it, they don’t keep it pushed in the background, it’s right out in front where they can keep an eye on it, nurture it, and make sure it stays strong.
Mack Lyons
@Southern Beale:
BINGO.
A lot of the self-serving sociopathic behavior on display in society strikes me as people wanting to unleash their inner asshole, while throwing up a litany of excuses for their behavior.
In this society, being an asshole reaps rewards, and no one’s getting punched out or shat on behaving like one.