Un-re-lent-ing – Not giving way to kindness or compassion.
Hi, I’m an employee of AT&T and today’s blog is of course, my opinion.
That disclaimer came from an intracompany post concerning social
media. The company requested it be understood by all that anything
placed by an employee online should be considered “just an opinion”. I
post it, because they asked…
I’ve been drawn to the story of Pharoah for the last couple of days.
A short outline of the whole story is from Exodus 7: 1-5, The Lord
said: I am going to let your brother Aaron speak for you. He will tell
your message to the king, just as a prophet speaks my message to the
people. 2 Tell Aaron everything I say to you, and he will order the king to let my people leave his country. 3-4 But
I will make the king so stubborn that he won’t listen to you. He won’t
listen even when I do many terrible things to him and his nation. Then I
will bring a final punishment on Egypt, and the king will let Israel’s
families and tribes go. 5 When this happens, the Egyptians will know that I am the Lord.
Moses found things just as God had said, especially the hard-hearted
leader, who held in his hands the power to allow the Israelites to be
free. I’ve noticed that power and authority, in the hands of men, is
always abused! Pharoah is no different when it comes to a good thing.
He has cheap labor and for higher production, a rod to beat them with!
In the movie, the Ten Commandments,
each scene, where a plague was about to take place, was so clean and
sanitized. I will give them credit for not adding too much to the
Biblical narrative. But you know, at first, there had to be some
serious reasoning by Moses. I can just imagine him telling the story of
how the Israelites were faithful neighbors living in the land of
Goshen, honored by the memory of Joseph, and the work he did to save
Egypt during the famine. In that historical narrative, we know from
Exodus 1:8 that “a new king came to power. He did not know what
Joseph had done for Egypt, and he told the Egyptians, There are too many
of those Israelites in our country… “ God still blessed the Israelites, even as slaves, and “because
of this, the Egyptians hated them worse than before and made them work
so hard that their lives were miserable. The Egyptians were cruel to
the people of Israel…“ It even reached the point where the King decreed that all male, slave babies were to be thrown into the Nile River.
I’m sure that Moses reminded the King about the good work the
Israelites had done for him, and pointed out the marvelous monuments
which dotted the landscape. Being a man in authority, the King weighed
the reasonings put forth by Moses and Aaron, and sadly chose a course of
action which would ruin his life and seriously harm his own country.
The Bible says that God “hardened his heart”. We don’t know exactly
when that took place. It may have been while reading his daily reports
or “the numbers” produced by the slaves. Much like the MSOC numbers
that AT&T employees receive at work each day. The numbers that are
constantly changed and modified like a carrot moved further and further
from an animal’s hungry mouth. I believe the Israelite slaves were
beaten and killed to achieve the goal of raising monuments to a short
sighted, greedy, King. Moses found his “let my people go” plea falling
on deaf ears.
Today, a lot of cosmetics have been applied, but the goal is still
the same. Work hard and raise money for the corporate world leaders and
the minions, who live off the crumbs from their table! The 1% rule and
the 99% drool. CEO salaries
have skyrocketed, even during the hard times that we’ve experienced
lately. Add to that the layer upon layer of management salaries,
bonuses, retirement payouts, and stockholder dividends, and it is no
wonder that everything we buy, costs so much. Just like today, I
imagine all of Pharoah’s minions shouting NO, NO, No, don’t let them
go! They probably imagined the hard times ahead if Pharoah relented and
showed some compassion. They might actually have to work for a
living… Of course, we know the story don’t we. It cost Egypt dearly
for their greed and stubbornness.
Compassion doesn’t cost much! Not showing compassion, can cost
everthing! Hopefully, God wasn’t the one who hardened your heart… that
would mean He is going to get your attention! He definitely got
Pharoah’s attention! It might be better to show Him some attention
first, in the form of worship and showing a little compassion to your
fellow-man.
Changing the topic, but not really changing the topic… our MSOC
numbers did change in January, or early February. I am now alloted .83
of an hour for most troubles and .61 for others. Put your surgeon on
that plan and see how it works out for you. Sorry, doc, you’ve only got
30 minutes to figure out what’s wrong and fix it! In January, the
company placed the first, ever, entry in my file, for not doing my job
correctly. The entry is still there, and I mention it daily to
someone! To me, it is character assassination and an attack on my work
ethic. It has brought unnecessary stress and even fitful sleep at
times. They don’t understand that you should not beat
an older employee with a rod to work harder and faster… I am relentless
in wanting that entry out and this should never have gotten this far in
the public arena! In my opinion, management is entirely to blame for
this debacle. I was told this week that I’m the only one in the crew
getting a new truck… I never asked for a new truck. I have asked over
and over, to have the entry, which was unnecessary, taken out!
Mr. Stephenson, could you “let that piece of paper go”? Your guys around here are unrelenting!
Originally published on May 4, 2012 at Thechestnutburr.com
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