Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

“‘Do not steal. “‘Do not lie. “‘Do not deceive one another.

• Leviticus 19:11

When morning came, there was Leah! So Jacob said to Laban, “What is this you have done to me? I served you for Rachel, didn’t I? Why have you deceived me?”

• Genesis 20:25

For the love of moneyis a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.

• 1 Timothy 6:10

Hold on to instruction, do not let it go;
    guard it well, for it is your life.

• Proverbs 4:13

I have heard many stories of 40-somethings or 30-somethings in the workplace that are disturbing.  What is also disturbing is how the family boasts of how they got what they presently have.

The company gets the idea that this one particular software is the game changer in their particular industry, but they have no idea how to use the software.  What is their solution?  Hire someone who knows how to use that software.

But in a few cases, the person they hired insisted on working from home, not even in the same state as the company headquarters.  They insisted on a six-digit salary with bonuses and other perks.  And because the company was desperate, they got what they asked for.

The key to the entire thing was the working from home option.  These people knew that the software was easy to use.  Of course, if you know how to use it, it should not be difficult.  They would work for a couple of hours, and their day was complete.  Yet, their timesheet showed they had worked hard for eight hours each day.

I grew up in a different world.  If you worked ten hours, but you said you worked forty hours, you cheated the company.  There are a lot of thieves who do not steal that much in a day, but the companies that hire these people give them bonuses because they have no problem with the software and the company is making millions anyway.

Our little engineering company had a controls engineer who figured out how to program a medium sized metals melter.  Depending on the alloy, everything had to be changed in the control system.  When the company had a lean period, they were going to lay this guy off, but he explained that his software was complicated.  The company had no one that knew how he had done it.  The engineer demanded a monster pay raise at a time everyone else was taking a pay cut or getting laid off.  He got what he demanded, but the company assigned a young engineer to shadow the controls engineer.  His shadow learned what had to be done to shift the programming from one product line to another, and the one who had gotten all his demands was fired.

But, what made it possible was that information transfer took place.

I was a training manager for about thirty years of my forty years in industry.  I probably sent my resume to the companies that these various software specialists work for, unless the company did not exist twenty years ago.  I weep that management does not know they are being cheated.  Or they do know, and they cannot see how to fix the problem.  But it was my job to learn how people did their job and document it in such a way that others could learn how to do the job.  I was very good at it, but in one year, I had more than 2000 rejections from all the top companies in the country and for many, many more that were making a good profit and growing.

I am not in the market now to look for a job.  I am not financially well-healed.  I may lose my present domicile within a year or so, but I know God will point me to my next place to live.

But these companies need to learn how people are deceiving them.  If I was working for them, I would be working on no one having that kind of hold on the company.

But deceit has been with us since the Garden of Eden.  Eve used the excuse for eating the forbidden fruit that the serpent had deceived her.  No, the serpent deceived her, but the greatest deceit was that she would become like God.  Jacob whined that Laban deceived him by having him marry Leah instead and then had to work another seven years to pay for the right to marry Rachel.  But in those seven years, both Laban and Jacob worked mightily to deceive each other.

While Jacob worked to be allowed to marry Rachel, he gained great wealth in his deceit.

I have always said that to find out why something was happening, you followed the money.  That works most of the time.

But let’s take a small organization.  I am the present secretary for the prayer warriors in the church.  We have a new church secretary.  Does she know MSWord?  Yes, but does she know the software well enough to take over for me until the prayer warriors can find another volunteer?

Or, will I have to write a training program on how to edit a prayer list, so that I can replace myself?  I think the Bible speaks of the fact that we are not guaranteed tomorrow.  I think it is a good idea to start working on that.

I said earlier that I grew up in a different world.  We loved one another.  We would not think of taking advantage of one another.  We would not cheat the company, not even a company that had cheated us.

For those that love Jesus, these little rules seemed the only just thing to do.  I could find Scripture that would back that up, but we each must find our own way.

As for me, I would not be able to sleep if I knew I had cheated someone.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.