Zach LarkinsWHINING
Well the stats are in and are rather startling in the view of some people. Not to be confused with wining and dining, Canada is a country of whiners. Big time whiners apparently. We live in one of the richest, safest countries and the economy is booming, yet we are among the whiniest people on the planet. How can this ever be?
According to a survey of work attitudes in 23 countries, overall employee morale was found to be highest in the Netherlands, followed by Ireland and Thailand in second place and Switzerland in third while Canada placed 18th on the morale index, sharing that spot with Portugal. The only countries where employee morale was found to be worse are Poland, Korea, Australia, Germany and, at the very bottom, Japan.
The study, carried out by market research firm FDS International, found that Canadians are also big complainers when it comes to job satisfaction, the quality of employer-employee relations and work-life balance. Canada scored lower on the job satisfaction scale than even Russia, China and Romania. Only the Germans and the Japanese complain more about employer-worker relations than Canadians. Only the Portuguese, the Poles, the Australians and the Japanese are in more of a snit than Canucks over work-life balance.
More than one-third of Canadian workers are dissatisfied with their pay, 29% gripe that they don't get enough holiday time and one-quarter are upset at the number of hours of work. And this has people getting their knickers twisted in an attempt to explain these figures. What's Canada's excuse? Why is our worker morale in the toilet when we're among the luckiest people on the planet? Would you want to trade places with an ordinary worker in Russia or China? No, me either.
Perhaps it is only an outlet. We are saddled with a government that investigates oil companies on a regular basis, looking for collusion in price fixing, and somehow can't find any. We pay exorbitant taxes that get nowhere near to solving the problem they were implemented to fix. Most often, our taxes don't even get set aside to solve that particular problem, but end up in some other category that the government has screwed up and desperately needs to remedy. We are saddled with draconian laws that tell us we can't smoke and what dogs we're allowed to own. We see our crime rate rising and the government answer is to make criminals of those who do actually, legally own weapons while the criminal element goes its own merry way, getting soft sentences for horrendous crimes. We have outsiders coming to our shores telling us whether or not we should have a seal hunt or telling us we're not doing enough to meet the Kyoto Accords requirements.
Misplaced anger, perhaps. But what can the man on the street do to change any of it? Very little, if anything. So he rails against the things closest to his heart. His paycheck vs hours of work. His boss who is interested not in him as human being, but the bottom line for the company. Being promised 3 weeks of paid vacation after so many years of service, only to find that the companies idea of 3 weeks is 100 hours, not 120. The fact that in a country as rich as ours, we still have poverty, despite all the safety nets in place and the fact that he is asked to contribute to the general welfare of the population after the various governments have already robbed him of 40% of his paycheck in taxes. He detests idiots talking on the phone, putting on make-up, reading the paper or texting a message via Blackberry while driving. He gets angry at people who phone at dinner time asking him for a few minutes to complete a survey.
No survey can ask enough detailed questions to really get at the heart of what we are whining about. Given a limited choice of questions, people will lump their gripes into one category and hope someone will be able to interpret them correctly. Fat chance.
Maybe we do whine. But I would say not without good reason. These survey results just give us one more thing to whine about.
Sources: Mindelle Jacobs A Country of Complainers CanWest News
According to a survey of work attitudes in 23 countries, overall employee morale was found to be highest in the Netherlands, followed by Ireland and Thailand in second place and Switzerland in third while Canada placed 18th on the morale index, sharing that spot with Portugal. The only countries where employee morale was found to be worse are Poland, Korea, Australia, Germany and, at the very bottom, Japan.
The study, carried out by market research firm FDS International, found that Canadians are also big complainers when it comes to job satisfaction, the quality of employer-employee relations and work-life balance. Canada scored lower on the job satisfaction scale than even Russia, China and Romania. Only the Germans and the Japanese complain more about employer-worker relations than Canadians. Only the Portuguese, the Poles, the Australians and the Japanese are in more of a snit than Canucks over work-life balance.
More than one-third of Canadian workers are dissatisfied with their pay, 29% gripe that they don't get enough holiday time and one-quarter are upset at the number of hours of work. And this has people getting their knickers twisted in an attempt to explain these figures. What's Canada's excuse? Why is our worker morale in the toilet when we're among the luckiest people on the planet? Would you want to trade places with an ordinary worker in Russia or China? No, me either.
Perhaps it is only an outlet. We are saddled with a government that investigates oil companies on a regular basis, looking for collusion in price fixing, and somehow can't find any. We pay exorbitant taxes that get nowhere near to solving the problem they were implemented to fix. Most often, our taxes don't even get set aside to solve that particular problem, but end up in some other category that the government has screwed up and desperately needs to remedy. We are saddled with draconian laws that tell us we can't smoke and what dogs we're allowed to own. We see our crime rate rising and the government answer is to make criminals of those who do actually, legally own weapons while the criminal element goes its own merry way, getting soft sentences for horrendous crimes. We have outsiders coming to our shores telling us whether or not we should have a seal hunt or telling us we're not doing enough to meet the Kyoto Accords requirements.
Misplaced anger, perhaps. But what can the man on the street do to change any of it? Very little, if anything. So he rails against the things closest to his heart. His paycheck vs hours of work. His boss who is interested not in him as human being, but the bottom line for the company. Being promised 3 weeks of paid vacation after so many years of service, only to find that the companies idea of 3 weeks is 100 hours, not 120. The fact that in a country as rich as ours, we still have poverty, despite all the safety nets in place and the fact that he is asked to contribute to the general welfare of the population after the various governments have already robbed him of 40% of his paycheck in taxes. He detests idiots talking on the phone, putting on make-up, reading the paper or texting a message via Blackberry while driving. He gets angry at people who phone at dinner time asking him for a few minutes to complete a survey.
No survey can ask enough detailed questions to really get at the heart of what we are whining about. Given a limited choice of questions, people will lump their gripes into one category and hope someone will be able to interpret them correctly. Fat chance.
Maybe we do whine. But I would say not without good reason. These survey results just give us one more thing to whine about.
Sources: Mindelle Jacobs A Country of Complainers CanWest News
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