The short answer is that “Yes”. The long answer, “Companies are out for profit. Why else would they even start up a company so that they can be bosses and manage anything at all?”
I have asked myself this question and ultimately, I tried to put myself in the shoes of an SME, or a startup entrepreneur. Besides trying to barge into the wild wild world of business, I would also want to make profits so that I can ultimately kick off my shoes and work from home on days when I don’t feel like going into the office.
Being a boss means that the company should make some profit so that as the boss, I can pay the bonus for the employees when the year end review comes. Employees look forward to such incentives and while it may not keep the employees for long, it does show that they are appreciated for the work done.
Without profits, how else can the company provide what some may call it as perks like free lunch every week, coffee machine, massage chair, free coffee, free fruits, free whatever the person can come up with?
From a consumer point of view, case in point, the MRT whereby it has the unfortunate series of breakdown events, we are unhappy that the MRT is not working. What makes it worse is that the breakdown happens during peak hours. Of all times, right?
The daily commute is disrupted and all we hear from the management team is that it’s due to bad luck. We have this idea of a bad management style in this case. Subsequently, we will see the transport fares being dropped by a few cents. After that, the end of some election or something will bring the price back up and even more than before. That is why we will say that companies are out for profit.
Why are we not happy when the company makes profits from the consumer point of view then? It’s because we don’t benefit from the profits. We feel that we are the ones paying for it. Hence, we are unhappy. The profits go to the company’s discretion of using the money.
So, yes, as long as the profits doesn’t benefit us, we will be unhappy that the company is profiting from us in one way or another.
