Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, April 5, 2004.

Well it turns out that big corporations are just like people: prone to making promises of convenience without the slightest intention of keeping them or, in fact, remembering them. Perhaps that's generalizing a bit. To be fair, I should be more specific: big corporations are just like men....

Remember the halcyon days of the late 1990s? American corporations (large and small) were having a dickens of a time retaining qualified workers. Because of the booming economy and low unemployment (remember when "booming" economies came with low unemployment?), workers tended to job hop with impunity to gain an extra few bucks or benefits. Companies lamented, "What happened to loyalty? What happened to being part of a team? Yada Yada" in hopes of at least making the Catholics feel guilty.

And there were promises. Promises of valuable stock options, of professional growth, of secure employment. But that was then. This is now, and West Michigan has experienced a stunning loss of both white and blue collar jobs recently. I'm sure quite a percentage of those losses involved the breaking of those promises.

Is this wrong? Well, sure, in a moral way it's always wrong to bait and switch. Is it unexpected? No. This is the way this country works, and anybody who thinks otherwise is looking at the wrong brochure. Is there a better way? Probably not. It's all part of the harsh efficiency of semi-free capitalism that provides us with low costs, new opportunities, and a Waffle House on every highway exit south of the Mason-Dixon line. Seriously. Stick to I-75 from Kentucky on down, and you're never more than 10 minutes away from a hot stack of buttery waffles.

So, in mentioning this fried-cake phenomena of the American South, am I now free to expense my family's spring break vacation to Florida as research for my cartooning business? Morally, no. But that's the way business works, right? It'd be a disservice to the shareholders if I didn't at least look into it.... Sigh. Can't do it. Catholic guilt....