I just finished recounting an event I just had at WalMart. It got me thinking about how many people voted for change in this country just over a year ago and many have complained nothing has been done.

I was all ready to writing about responsibility and becoming more proactive. Even in the reference I sent to my friends on Facebook, I talked about how getting real change is like making sausage, and even after the process is done there will be some that don’t want freedom. I used sausage specifically because I was thinking of vegan friends of mine who will never taste meat. It was, I thought at the time, a clumsy but apt metaphor.

I just posted the Facebook message and when I scrolled down to see the goings on, I noticed something on the side and had it confirmed it was something recommended by a vegan friend of mine. It was a link to an organization that is going to give 5 million dollars to pet adoption funds. The company working on this is Chase Banking.

Yes, Chase was one of the banks that absorbed a lot of banks this past year; my old bank being one of them. Since the process became finalized last month I have had nothing but trouble. Just two weeks ago I was hit with a total of $150 in fines because of the bad way the process was handled. I’ve had trouble with WalMart, which is what I just got finished with but they do work in communities to help people.

When you think about it, we get hit everyday with conflict of interest issues that hit us with wanting to fight the corporate giants who bleed us dry, yet we will gladly give money to them if they say they will help a cause. In a sense they bribe us.

I thought about my old job when thinking about this. For those of you who might be new to me, I have diabetes and it was caught because of a health fair given at my old job. Because the company was big, it was no big deal to get a few dollars taken out every month for health care. It helped when I went to the hospital and helped in the early stages of finding out about this. Luckily I’m able to control things with diet and I don’t have to take insulin. The old job had a completely voluntary program you could get into if you had a serious disease. I called it a sick safety net because it would, to a degree, protect you if you got sick and had to lose a lot of time at work. It could make sure you kept your job, to a degree, by tapping into your vacation time and not sick time.

Now, I’m a stubborn bastard and I saw how people abused the system. This is kind of how brain shifting works for companies. People who were on the program were branded, kind of like special needs kids on a yellow bus. The supervisors hated people on the program because they couldn’t rely on them being at work all the time. Yes, you had people who were sick abuse the system, but if taking off a day when you felt kind of bad allowed you to be healthy for days at a time, you would want to take advantage of that. Health becomes an overriding issue but people who look at you as a cog in a corporate machine only see the loss wages and productivity loss.

They see people as a replaceable unit and not people.

I thought the way the bosses did. I was brainwashed. I got mad when the same guy who suggested I had diabetes would take time off from work because he was sick. People had wanted to fire him for years but he played the system so he couldn’t get fired. Finally he got sick enough to where all of his accrued time was gone, his sales slipped enough that they were able to let him go. People were happy that he left because it meant more money in their pocket.

I didn’t sign up for the program because I didn’t want to be like him, at least that what I told myself and anyone who listened. I could tell how the job was going, with the changes and pressure to make quotas that things for me were getting a little rough. I figured with a little bit of adjustment I would be fine. Just like people working the system, if a corporation wants you out, there are ways to get someone out.

When I made the suggestion, not the excuse and that was my stupidity, that my health concerns were causing issues, I was told that wasn’t the case. It didn’t matter I knew someone with the same condition or that the doctors had mentioned that the first day in the hospital. Because I didn’t declare myself needing help, even though my supervisor and others new of my condition, it didn’t matter. I, of course, made the mistake of thinking ahead. While I was at the job, I knew if I got tagged with the program I had more to worry about. With that tag, if I left the company and had to find health care, it could be tough and possibly more expensive if I could find someone to carry me. While it shouldn’t happen, if I had to get a new job, my thinking went, if they knew about the diabetes I would be a cost analysis. Why would you hire someone with diabetes, with the possibility of him going on the company health care and actually using it, when you could hire someone younger, in good health that will not use the plan?

The guy who left played the system for 2 years before getting let go. Another woman I heard about, and this was confirmed, played the system for a year because she claimed to have been injured on the job but no one saw it. What’s funny is the nice system that was suppose to protect people from losing their jobs actually put bulls eyes on people for termination. While it might take time, legally it protects the company from lawsuit, both in showing the care and compassion needed for those who went to court and draining out the money to get a lawyer to fight.

What brings all this full circle is seeing there is a sponsored event to help in finding a cure and helping those with diabetes which is sponsored fully by my old company. They can do that but will remove those people on their staff, at least in two instances, with diabetes so as not to be a drain on the system (my words not theirs). They do lots of community work, making them a favorite but there are behind the scenes work, probably drawn up by lawyers, to cover their asses. Good people or bad people, it doesn’t matter. People for them are cogs and easily replaced.

I guess the question I have is how willing are we to fight the system? Many of us have to be part of the system to survive. We need money to pay rent, to get places. Nothing comes free in the world. It’s like the old conundrum with WalMart, which fueled what happened with the banking industry and other large companies. WalMart might have practices people hate, but a WalMart is going to hire people in the short term to build the stores and in the long term to staff the stores. They put money in the pocket of people, politicians and common folk alike, who at some point will go to WalMart to buy stuff. Forget the fact they may put smaller shops out of business because the small shops die not just because of WalMart but because they are small. They can’t compete globally with a WalMart. Now with WalMart making so much money, they can allow a few crumbs to be given to the local community. Just like when we give $4 to some emaciated child on TV so they ‘can have a better life’ companies donate to charities to feel good about themselves.

It’s also a nasty spider thread. Chase can give money to the pet adoption charities because they have made a lot of money in the last year by nickel and diming people. If we get made and move or money from them, all of a sudden profits are down and they help animals like they used to. Forget the fact their top execs will make millions if not billions in share profiting and the like, but those execs, in the interest of good will, won’t use a small part of their business money to help pet adoption. They’re too busy using their money to sustain their lifestyle. While that mentality, in some twisted way, might make sense for execs, it filters down to the fish who actually do the work. We get scraps and crumbs like everyone else and Managers ride Supervisors who ride Employees to work harder, faster to make more profit for the company. Little things are given out and like the kids from those commercials we feel good just to get something.

I was surprised last year to see I made over $35000 and I thought I did great. I didn’t see where the money went but it was the most I ever made and I was happy. I pulled out that information and looked at it closer than I when I wrote the article. It turns out, in reality, I made just about $27000. The rest of the money was calculated from contests, prizes and bonuses I got. Health insurance was also considered money I made because I used it when I got sick. So I made money by being sick but the money never reached my hands because it went directly to insurance.

Yes, this is the system we have set up and believe me it should be modified, but we all are tied in so tight to make changes could hurt us more. The deck is stacked against up, the house has all the advantages. We have to ask ourselves if we are willing to get our hands messy, if we are willing to make a real effort for change or if we just want to mouth off slogans and do nothing.