Title says is all. My blood is boiling as I write this. I work as an event planner for a non-profit association in Washington DC. Our company does a lot of lobbying on Capitol Hill, sends letters to Congress to help get certain legislation passed, etc. Our member companies are some of the wealthiest to ever exist. I’m talking about a roughly $400 billion dollar market cap, just to name one.
My department does an all-hands meeting every Wednesday, and today it began with one of the C-Suite directors coming in to speak to us. I’ve never even met this lady.
She starts by gushing about how important the work we do is, how we’re helping to change the world, how tough she knows it is to complete (she has no earthly clue) how proud of us she is, and then….asked us to consider deducting money from our paychecks, to contribute to the company’s PAC. I couldn’t believe my ears. She literally said “you could deduct anywhere from 10 to 5000 dollars a paycheck if you want to really be a team player!”
A team player. She actually said that. I make 55K a year before taxes, living in one of the priciest cities in the country, and my management actually has the nerve to ask me to be paid less, so that we can bring more results to our member companies. Our member companies that make billions and billions of dollars every day. The companies that are bleeding the world dry of its resources, safety, freedom, and soul. Companies that are actively being sued every single day for lying about test results, selling products that have made thousands of people sick, injured, or worse. Companies that are bragging about replacing their workers with AI. Companies that fire and sue their whistleblowers and will gladly cut lawsuit settlement checks for millions, sometimes billions of dollars, without batting an eye.
I about walked out the door right then and there. The audacity of some fuck face executive asking me to help the rich get richer on MY dime. Corporate America is so detached from reality it makes me sick to my stomach.