Employment Under A Microscope

A certain amount of oversight is involved in almost any job. The more important, the more highly skilled, the more successful the position, the lower the degree of oversight. At the bottom rung of the economic and social ladder - the laborers, the maids, the easily replaceable positions - the more watchful are the powers that be, the less secure are the workers, the more personally vulnerable are they to any mistakes made.

When money or similar valuables are intermixed with poorly paid employees, the level of oversight reaches outsized and intrusive proportions. Diamond workers in South Africa submit to body cavity searches after every shift, a humiliation society normally limits to convicted felons or known drug traffickers.

In the United States, low-level workers in finance and banking are closely observed for cash or figure discrepancies. Too many errors lead inevitably to termination. The larger the amounts of money involved, the more significant the mistakes become. A fast food register a few cents out of balance differs markedly from a bank cashier imbalance of several hundred dollars.

The more pure cash is involved, the more difficulty there is in tracing a paper trail of transactions to establish where a discrepancy occurred. I just returned from three days in Las Vegas, the American capital of cash. Surely nowhere else in the country handles the thousands of hundred dollar bills that change hands in that town, to the tune of several billion dollars annually.

For years, in the counting rooms it was one pile for the house, one pile for the government, and one pile for "the boys." Untold millions were siphoned off for the East Coast crime czars. The government hated being cheated of their fair share. The gamblers could care less where the money went as long as they had a fair chance of winning and their play rendered them free rooms, free shows, and free food. It was symbiotic - a mutually advantageous relationship. Any worker foolish enough to try to cheat the uniquely expert cheaters at the top, found their final reward in the unforgiving desert where flesh melts quickly and bone fragments blow quickly away in the beds of long-dry rivers.

Then the corporations moved in and "the boys" faded away into their old street rackets and the burgeoning drug trade. The corporate-owned casinos are no longer in the business of skimming: they can make legitimate returns for their shareholders through the huge returns guaranteed by the house advantage in every transaction. To add to the gaming cash, they moved to ensure a profit in related areas: rooms, food, and shows.

Even the owners and managers, with their accounting-oriented perspective on the world, recognize their vulnerability to greed, cheating, and theft in the huge cash side of their business.

Casino worker oversight, while not yet approaching the body-cavity-search level, is perhaps the most organized and intrusive in the western world. It ranges from dealers clapping and showing open, empty hands, to two or more floor walkers (depending on the size of the jackpot) co-signing on every hand-pay slot win. It involves floor men watching every table bet, box men watching every roll of the dice and its payoff stacks of chips. It requires supervisors to watch the floor men, managers to watch the supervisors, undercover security men to watch both workers and guests, and eye-in-the-sky overhead cameras that can observe and detect every one of a million transactions per day.

Does all this monitoring and second-guessing have an effect on employees? Personal trust is something we rate highly. Talk with someone whose spouse has cheated on them and you will find that the emotional pain has little to do with sex but everything to do with the loss of trust and the doubt that a relationship can ever really survive such a loss. Although secondary to intimate relationships, we would like our coworkers and supervisors to trust us also, as a mark of respect if nothing else.

On the other hand, we are aware that the world is full of cheaters, those who would break any moral, legal, or ethical code if it gave them an advantage in the race for success and financial independence. We want to be trusted to act responsibly and do the right thing but we are just a little reluctant to trust others to quite the same degree.

Close oversight of everyone gives us a certain sense of security - it levels the playing field for us all by rooting out those who would bend the rules to get what they want. We tell ourselves that we have nothing to fear because we are innocent and that will protect us.

Then we read about long-convicted prisoners whose innocence has been belatedly proved by newly developed scientific forensics. We miss a familiar face at our favorite casino and finally learn that the individual left town after an error-inspired accusation of misconduct resulted in termination and blacklisting from the industry.

Where there is cash floating around in generous amounts, there will always be temptations, overzealous suspiciousness, justice and injustice on all sides because the truth is not amenable to scientific analysis and every event has multiple explanations and perspectives.

So we keep on watching ourselves and each other. Those of us who loathe the concept of big brother and snitching on friends, draw back in disgust as we see the need for security invade our lives. We can stay out of the gaming world with its cameras and minutely regulated transactions but how do we avoid the monitoring threatened with every call for customer service or the cookies embedded in our computers to track our wanderings through the Internet?

The cheaters, the scam artists, the swindlers and the frauds have won. It is we, the innocent, who must dwell in prison cells of continuous third degree scrutiny.

Virginia Bola operated a rehabilitation company for 20 years, developing innovative job search techniques for disabled workers, while serving as a Vocational Expert in Administrative, Civil and Workers' Compensation Courts. Author of an interactive and supportive workbook, The Wolf at the Door: An Unemployment Survival Manual, and a monthly ezine, The Worker's Edge, she can be reached at http://www.unemploymentblues.com

---

20 Questions That Helped Me Take A Leap Of Faith And Change Careers

When I was working more than 45 hours a week... Read More

Tips for Handling On the Job Setbacks

If you've chosen a business career, you will inevitably experience... Read More

Career Change Success Is Yours If you Follow The Formula

Recent surveys suggest that, given the chance, about four out... Read More

Students Discover Your Niche By Using Career Assessment

In our ever changing world where job competition is rampant... Read More

Resume 101

Whether you've been downsized, are looking for a career change... Read More

Should You Lie On Your Resume?

Warning: Lying on your resume could cost you your job... Read More

Interview Skills That Attract Offers

An interviewer's mission is to assess your qualifications compared to... Read More

CV Writing ? How to Write a CV

A winning CV has 2 objectives: To illustrate... Read More

Four Simple Steps To Better Results With Your Resume

Is every job description you read the same? No.Is every... Read More

Are You Busy Living or Dying?

If you are not busy living, then you must be... Read More

10 Tips to Help You Ace the Interview and Get the Job

The interview is the "beauty contest" part of the job... Read More

Building Performance Trust

You can have outstanding ideas, yet never leverage them into... Read More

The Executive Resume - Moving Beyond Accomplishments

There is a major difference between conventional resumes and executive... Read More

Start Working Before You Get Hired

What if there were a way to *prove* to any... Read More

Stand Out From the Crowd with Simple Marketing Methods

Although today's job market can be very competitive, many job... Read More

Kill the Hype

She was waiting for me when I returned from a... Read More

How to Track Your Right Career

Are you lost in the wilderness when it comes to... Read More

Tips for Getting Your Movie Career Launched

Hollywood helps those who help themselves! In you want to... Read More

Sample Resume Objectives: What They All Tend To Miss

Sample resume objectives. When a harried and possibly panicked job... Read More

Where Did All The Farmers Go?

Several times a year, I hear someone complain about the... Read More

Identity Theft and Your Online Job Search

While identity theft is nothing new, the Web has opened... Read More

Self Describing Skills - Key Strengths

You need to be the best you can at describing... Read More

Using Journal to Support Your Job Search

Are you searching for a job? Here are some tips... Read More

Career Discovery - Pinpoint Your Ideal Career

Determine your ideal career--one that's in alignment with your values,... Read More

How to Receive Multiple Job Offers After You?re Fired

Ask survivors of the most popular reality television shows and... Read More

10 Tips For Writing A Professional Résumé

1. Start with an attractive layout. Use bold and italics... Read More

Reading the Want Ads--Not for Jobs--For Information

What? Want ads are where job announcements are, not information!Wait!... Read More

Women Who Quit Work Abrubtly After Childbirth - Are You the Type?

According to statistics one out of every five pregnant women... Read More

Is Your Career Your Calling or Just a 9 to 5?

Do you remember your parents asking you what you want... Read More

Creating a Feng Shui Power Office: 6 Easy Tips to More Successful Surroundings

More and more people are looking to gain an edge... Read More

Job Interviews: Use the Personal Touch to Get a Job

A study conducted by the Journal of Consumer Research in... Read More

How To Deal With A Difficult Boss

Most people at some point in their lives have to... Read More

Has ADHD Put Your Career in Danger? 3 Steps to Get You Back on Track

"Roger, you must get those contracts completed for this month's... Read More