A New Work Ethics, Term Paper Example

Describe how typical the attitudes that Sheehy reports appear to be in work environments you have experienced.

According to sheehy, most of the colleagues at the work place want to be employed as bosses in the offices.  The workers had strong feeling that most jobs were equally related to fast food areas. I worked with a designer company where the ages of all sales ladies and gentlemen were averagely 17 to 24 years. During our work period most of the employees believed that they were not in the perfect job market. In addition, they believed that when they complete their education, they could secure decent jobs (Cherrington, 1980).

After I completed my university education I worked as a clerk. Most of the time we used to issue refunds to customers. A close friend was actually sacked because he was involved in unnecessary refunds; these actions went on for a very long time before he was discovered.

A good example sheehy relates to the work environment is that most workers are lazy. They prefer to allocate someone else to perform certain duties so that they could rather attend to their own personal businesses. During my internship, some colleagues could take very long to accomplish a simple task. The job was only done when the supervisor was around to monitor and keep them on toes. In addition, most of the senior associates tend to re-assign the work allocated to them to junior associates. Work can not be done perfectly because some associates do not have enough knowledge (Sheehy 1990).

Explain the implications of the work ethic Sheehy describes for the future of American business.

Work ethics has seen a drastic change due to urbanization. Most people have come to appreciate work following the usefulness of working hard. There has been a warning by renowned economist about the rise of poverty level and the need to be innovative in order to produce results at work place (Rodgers, 1978). Most work is being dominated by technology and this in turn has improved production and created innovation. According to sheehy; in some industries, craftsmanship and excellent skills were not crucial. However the most important idea was discipline and anonymity. The advancement of technology has also had a great impact on the young people at work place. Apparently, young people who were employed after college education hoped for chances to advance (Sheehy, 1990). Their expectation was that hard work and talent resulted to success but not good luck.

Explain whether it is more reasonable to expect workers, especially in a capitalist society, to be more devoted to their jobs, more concerned with quality and customer service, than Sheehy’s coworkers were.

Changes that have been experienced in age and gender have had a positive result on the work pattern. Work ethic is likely to change because most women are empowered and the change in the ages of workers as well. When it comes to gender comparison, women and men working together tend to differ in attitudes towards work. Most men are interested in getting good salaries, freedom and leadership opportunities. On the other hand, women concentrated on helping others acquire such status, they are also creative and innovative (Cherrington, 1980).

Some trends likely to shape workers are the increasing number of older workers. For instance, most people are moving away from the older agricultural way of life to different occupation. This kind of occupation had many older workers. Most young workers understand and view job in a different manner than older workers. Very few young workers accept the virtue of work (Sheehy 1990).

Explain the reasoning behind employee theft.

Survey carried out in various organizations indicates that employees contribute about 50% of the revenue lost. According to sheehy, theft at the work place is so rampant that workers ensure they steal everything within their disposal. Most employees’ particularly young generation involve in such vice to please others and to fit in the same class. Further more, most employees use slogans at the work place that encouraged theft. Some of the slogans, ‘getting on with getting mine’ give more ideas to employees to think about their interests more than work. Most young employees with the age bracket of 19-24 will steal to march up to friends. Some admire flashy lifestyle leading to more temptations to steal. Others steal to buy sophisticated gadgets that style up their social life (Sheehy 1990).

Explain ways the culture of our capitalists society encourages attitudes like those Sheehy describes.

One of the major problems of a capitalist society is the magnitude of individualism of all people involved in a business. The reasons behind it is that success is not distributed between those involved, but it is utilized by one individual. However, one tends to act intentionally so as to prevent others from accessing benefits with the aim of enjoying them alone. Capitalisms base on the ideology of a winner and a loser in any given transaction. A perfect capitalist act in a manner that ensures that, he/she is a winner .Therefore, sometimes they go to an extent of involving in fraud and other questionable deals (Shaw, 2010).

Furthermore, capitalism advocates for success and rarely concerned with how that success can be fully acquired. In addition, when a capitalist becomes more successful, with a lot of assets he can easily protect his interests and evade the long arm of the law when on the wrong. Capitalist can bully growing markets because resources are at there disposal. Apparently, in a bid to maximize profits, the capitalist will cut corners hence leading to a very disastrous result like for the case of BP oil spills because the codes were violated (Sheehy 1990).

References

Cherrington, D. J. (1980). The work ethic: Working values and values that work. New York: AMACOM.

Shaw, W. H. (2010). Business ethics (7th ed.). Mason, OH: Cengage.

Sheehy, J. (1990). Case study: A New Work Ethics. Newtimes.