Profit-Sharing: An Employee's True Worth!

The customer is king! But first at bat, is the employee, without whose loyal contribution within the company, there would be no company. His dedication, talent, experience, and smile help to keep the doors open, 6-7 days a week. Measuring a company's true success must include its employees, the lifeblood of any business.

Within the confines of this physical 'working' space, specialized 'human robots', called employees, enable a company to grow. Profit, this tangible bounty, is the barometer of the company's growth and success, an indicator that the 'human' element is performing and thriving while meeting its daily, weekly and monthly sales targets. Profit-sharing should be as commonplace today, as any employee's wage/benefits package has been, previously. ...

Many years ago, as my husband began his small company, a family friend wanted to leave his banking middle management position. My husband hired him at the same pay-scale that had been his salary while he worked at the bank. Who does that today? It is foolhardy. 'Mike's' move to our company cost him nothing. It did, however, cost my husband, a lot. ... He paid himself less so Mike would not experience any hardship in this lateral career move. My husband had taken profit-sharing to an absurd scale, unheard of today, – twenty five years ago! ...

In today's modern fast paced world, job security does not exist. Enter unions, organizations which protect their members, like a mother lion protects her cubs. But now because of this 'tightly wrapped security blanket' (union) in place, no one leaves a company, until retirement. This job benefits package, including the hourly wage it provides, is too lucrative to risk leaving, for other opportunities. Young people, new to the job market, have nowhere to go. There are few entry level positions open to them. ... And so they wait and toil in many of the low paying food service/retail industry jobs. Membership in this exclusive club, called a union, in all levels of government or in the auto sector is now the gold standard for a select few. This inequitable share of the 'pie' discriminates against those of us not protected by lucrative contracts or unions. What remains is part-time work without benefits, a scheme that helps create a world of haves and have-nots. Life is a full-time job, however! We begin with the minimum wage, a formula that is, sometimes, an unfair and perhaps antiquated assessment of a person's worth. Enter profit-sharing the greatest equalizer of all, within the work-place environment. ... A job is worth what it is worth. There can be no debate here. To truly reflect an employee's contribution within a company, the only fair wage is one based upon profit-sharing. After an employee has effectively met the criteria for this added income benefit, the sky should be the limit for financial gain for one and all.  Members of middle and upper management, should not be the only 'employees' entitled to a share of the company's 'excesses'. The true measure of the success of any company has to be its steady growth, over time, as measured by the profit generated by its employee/customer link. Profit is also a measure, in a moment in time. Should the shareholders of the company be the only other group earmarked for a division of the this bountiful 'financial pie'?

We are all connected. We need each other to truly reflect the success of any business. We are deluding ourselves if we think only certain groups are entitled to a share of the business world's bounty, time after time. The hourly wage is what the position is worth! Profit-sharing is what the employee is worth!! It is that simple. The employee is the company- on and off the job! Next, in line, we have the consumer, a member of the ruling class. They are found everywhere, in all walks of life. They shop where they shop because of convenience, price or quality of the products/service being sold. They are drawn to a particular company for many reasons. But the greatest lure for any consumer has to be the personal interaction, the employee who brings him to the front door of the company where he shops, dines or is entertained. ... After everything is considered, the company's human assets remain, leaving an indelible mark on the consumer with every interaction in the store, restaurant, hotel or at the cash register.

We are one. ...In the retail sector, with part-time shifts the new reality and the multi-billion dollar on-line shopping entity, its biggest threat, 'bricks and mortar' companies must truly focus on its people, the front-line workers and lifeblood of any business enterprise. Employees are the company's real bottom line. ... While watching a documentary about an executive chef whose rise to the top in the hospitality industry placed him at the helm of a five-star Canadian hotel, I was surprised by something he said about his exalted position. He remarked his job was not just about overseeing the execution of the food for his high-end clientele in this luxury hotel. ... It was also about the social aspects of meeting and greeting people. And in the final analysis, that is what living, working and life are all about.

A Flood. Borscht. And Homemade Apple Pie?

It didn't seem fair. A pot of homemade borscht was simmering on the stove while the apple pie baked in the oven. My day seemed to be going pretty well, until it happened. ... Next to the kitchen, water-world, a flood of unknown origin and dimension, began to unleash its awesome power, a trail of destruction, into the adjacent room, making its way towards our Mr. Wiggles and Miss S, his sister. Would the fireplace be hit? My quick action helped to slow the river, in its track. Only then did I realize what a lousy day I was about to have.

There were lessons here, amongst the watery mess of that Sunday afternoon. I wasn't sure what this 'current event' was going to teach me. I would have to wait and see. We'd had a Mr. Wiggles medical emergency last week. Its resolution was still preying on my mind more than this newest twist on an old time favourite: a flooded room. One emergency at a time, please. At least our dinner time meal had been prepared, ahead of time. We waited for the help that was supposed to arrive, in a timely fashion or soon, whatever that meant. Ten hours later at 10:00 p.m. came the quick response to our earlier flood emergency. (We'd been playing phone tag with many companies whose 'return policies' were dismal.) ... Throughout the day, I removed as much water from the carpets as I could, then sat down to think, soon realizing, the carpet would have to go. ...


As hunger bore down on us, we began to eat the borscht with caraway rye bread/butter and its dinner-time companion, homemade apple pie. By the next day, I had lost two pounds, simply eating homemade nutrient dense soup and apple pie, festooned with lemon juice and organic sugar. (Not bad for a sluggish thyroid, I thought.) With osteoporosis and an underactive thyroid gland, I must keep active and watch what I eat to assuage these two chronic medical conditions. There was no sitting around, that day, with a flood in our midst! Since the water emergency was uppermost in my mind, it was gratifying that food had been prepared beforehand. I shudder to think what shortcuts I might have taken had the emergency arrived first. This latest event taught me two things. It is possible to lose weight when you least expect it and when you eat homemade food, weight loss can happen. ...


We ate when we were hungry and stopped when our bodies told us to stop. What a revolutionary thought!  Wholesome food made the difference. Minimally processed /mother nature's foods, in any combination that fits, in the correct carbohydrate concentration, will help us maintain good health and a healthy weight. Diets can be crazy and a waste of time, I learned again on that soggy warm Sunday. ... Eat good stuff and the other stuff will eventually go away. ...(And fat does not make you fat!) ... Diets are stark reminders of what we are not doing or ignoring. We must keep in mind that a flood of any sort can be just around the corner. So be prepared with homemade soup, wholesome bread with butter and any pie you want, as long as it is made in the kitchen. ... 


We have a world-wide obesity epidemic. We are becoming addicted to processed foods, in all guises, whose 'recipes' have been modified, many times, to cause us to eat, mindlessly, in untold quantities. We can't seem to shut off our hunger hormone. Our body is talking to us. We should be listening and acting accordingly. The type of calories we eat matter most, not the number of calories we eat. (When momsey eats low salt chips with only 3 ingredients, she eats a handful. That is all her body wants and it tells her so.) The lesson? Do not eat the wrong things in the first place and if we do, eat a salad and drink lots of water to remove the evidence of our wrongdoing! Eating at home, even during an unplanned flood event, forces us to stop and re-examine what we are doing, on all levels. While waiting for the plumber, we were reminded of what we had not done to put us in this unsettling predicament. We would have to examine the pipes, the septic tank and anything else to make sure this did not happen again.


Eating the wrong things is a choice. Emergencies are not. They happen without warning. Thank goodness, the soup and pie were ready. They made for a delicious and unbeatable 'comfort' duo, an answer to a period of great stress. The borscht was made from both a 'homemade' chicken and beef stock with water, tomato juice, beet juice,(iodized) sea salt and pepper added next. Then came the grated cooked beets, with its finely diced tops and carrots, onions, bay leaf - all simmering on the stove. (Use spinach or kale if tops are unavailable) We lose our appetite when bad things happen. When the desire returns, let the soup and pie be waiting to help keep us healthy and strong, ready to do battle with life's next unplanned event. ...

Another School Year Into The Future

Today's child has been exposed to a vast array of technological gadgetry and, many times, a myriad of early school programs, even before his formal entry into kindergarten. ... Has the time arrived to modify, re-sculpt and re-structure the public school system to reflect the diverse nature and early experiences of its newest clientele? Has the hierarchy within this complicated public school system lost its touch with the new 'learning' reality? (Whose idea was it to cancel recess - a few years back?) How many symposiums are necessary and when should thinking 'outside the box' become de rigueur?...


We have home-schooling, un-schooling and public education, in addition to private and religious education.  In some jurisdictions in Ontario, Canada, non-Catholic students are being admitted into some Catholic schools. This school system is an appealing choice for many as it seems to incorporate the qualities of compassion, morality, caring and high standards. Getting back to basics is such a cute catch-all phrase intended to bring us all back to a place where good things used to happen. Maybe they did. Can the best of a former period of educational history co-exist with today's modern day approaches? (Making modern-day pies still makes use of old time recipes from the past. We revel in finding grandma's recipes, it seems.)


Some fundamentals never change, such as counting to ten, to 100, to 1,000. The multiplication tables set the stage for 'higher' mathematics beginning with the two times, the three times and four times tables. ....Then there is percent, fractions and other forms of fun. Nothing has changed, there, except, the method of instruction. Why complicate protocols? If simple methods are the norm, then let it be.  (Working with calculators is fine when in the express lane at the grocery store.) ... What happens when the 'cute little assistant' is not working or is lost in the snow? Our minds can become crippled by its absence. Reading sets the stage for all learning. It is a simple act, done repeatedly, without complications. But what happens if our reading plans do not seem to be helping the child in this critical learning journey? Then what? Perhaps, we take a 'leave of absence', removing the child from the structured world of words ( language, reading) to immerse him in the simple world of music. (songs, singing, dance.)

Music and dance form an incredible duo in the art of teaching language, reading and math., too. The child listens to the words imbedded in the carefully scripted musical notes called songs. Reading is the art of moving words on a page. But in a song, reading becomes the action set to music, that helps create the story. ... Language exists in music. ... What is wrong with Karaoke? We do it all the time, one way or another, during the course of our day. In the song- 'When the Love Runs Out” by One Republic, we hear incredible music and lyrics to a story. In “Colourblind”, by Glen Morrison and Andrew Cole, another story is told about the human condition, how alike we all are. Music is much like the teacher in that it sparks creativity and can instill a love of language, while sending its message or telling its story, in a melody. ...

Today, movement for learning for at-risk children is more important than ever. We seem to be moving much less than in the past. Once upon a time, some  educational jurisdictions thought it prudent to cancel recess for young children. The time saved would help these young students academically. Wrong! It was misdirection on a grand scale! (Who was steering the boat, anyway?)Inertia is counter-productive for children mentally, physically and  for their learning health. ... All children require interactive play for learning to occur.  It must be standard operating procedure. ... It is a critical first step towards a healthy, happy, successful life!

In Ontario, Canada, the implementation of full-time kindergarten and the introduction of junior kindergarten have produced a hardier, intellectually superior child, sometimes surpassing the grade 1 curriculum towards which all are working. Our modern day child is advancing the elementary school curriculum. Change is in the air. It cannot be stopped. ...Will primary grades even exist in their present format, years from now? The internet, pre-school learning centres and all-day kindergarten have changed the rules of the game of education. It is simply not just another day, another school year, anymore. ...

Back in the day, there was the one room school house, a rustic, simple almost primitive form of housing, with one teacher dispensing 'learning' to all children, in her care. Times have changed, of course. It would seem to make sense to re-visit our past, in light of our present day educational system, and perhaps re-think today's educational structure and goals. It certainly would not hurt, and maybe, just might enlighten us to a new way of educating all children, equally. ...