Memes

How old is this? Gotta be at least boomer humor, but I’ve seen this since I was a kid.

Hey I'm a wagon consultant and I'll show you what you're doing wrong for a small fee

Not accurate.

The corporate solution is to add more carts to whip the whipping boy, lest he not whip the horse enough.

Eh, sometimes the corporate solution is to add more horses, just not horses that are immediately (or sometimes ever) useful. Horses that have maybe never pulled a cart before or have only ever pulled carts solo. Horses that need a month of training to be able to contribute meaningfully, often through no fault of their own, but are told that this cart needs to be pulled out of the mud in two weeks. And then when the original horses tell the cart driver that it's going to take a month to get everyone up to speed, they completely miss the point and ask how many more horses we need.

Now the corporate solution is to try and replace the horse with AI and sink further

Job security FTW!

To clarify, that means "For The Whips". 🤪

Corporates: well yeah, enough whipping should make the horse move, and more whips should make it move faster than one whip, so what’s the problem? Also, make sure the bottled water in the chariot is Essentia because I own stock in Nestle.

Alternate corporate solution: they add carts, equipped with driver and horses. They all share the mud equally, and the managers wonder why they’re still not progressing.

The mythical man-month.

You could also get out of the wagon and help pull, maybe unload the wagon too

The new solution has a chatbot delving into whipping strategy and toadying the whippers.

Devil's advocacy here:

Employees are the biggest expense of about any business. Won't line it all out, but having worked in a payroll firm, the business' actual cost is nearly double your hourly wage, especially for lower skilled/paid employees. You make $15, they're paying $25. (worker's comp, unemployment insurance, taxes, payroll overhead, on and on)

If you hire to meet demanding times, what do you do with those people when business slows? Yes, the monster companies have no issue laying off thousands, but very few of us actually work for such outfits. Small business is loathe to have to layoff. During COVID our CEO was more than a little emotional when he pulled us all into Zoom to explain. Predictably, HR was totally cold blooded.

Speaking of, from a purely cold-blooded perspective, layoffs can (almost always?) crank up state unemployment insurance rates. In any case, here in Florida they have to pay $7,200 out during an employee's first year. (7-yo info, probably higher now.)

Worker's comp insurance companies don't like to see turnover, bad sign you're a safety minded employer when you constantly have new people. And whoever is handling your payroll is going to factor turnover into your rates.

And I haven't even touched on the loss of tribal knowledge, moral and future turnover when you enact layoffs. Training and any required certifications are another factor. Hell, even Lowe's put me through 2 weeks of computer classes before I hit the floor to sling mulch.

Yes, many dipshit companies hire and fire with no regard to what all I just said. They don't often do well, especially in the long run. Our local Lowe's vs. Home Depot is a great example. The Lowe's is well run, employees are fairly happy, many have been there for years and years, managers from the top down worked their way up. They do loads of business. Local Home Depot employees seem miserable and as if they're brand new. Their parking lot is empty compared to Lowe's.

tl;dr: Don't hire more than you absolutely have to. Initial costs are high and there's no good path to layoff or fire people.

(This is an American perspective. European companies operate under even higher costs and tighter restrictions.)