As an unusual but interesting part of my internship at Deutsche Post, i went visiting an L-sized Mail Hub close by Bonn. In less than one shift of work, which is around 4 hours, there are
35 000 mails sorted, categorized and packed neatly to be delivered to the smaller sized next units for distribution. While walking through the big hall and feeling reminded to the old times, when i had my very first working experiences in factories to earn big money in fairly short time, i was not only viewing the processes but also contemplating about the people working at the place. In the beginning i was still trying to observe and to connect the faced scenery and environment to my work around Diversity and thus was trying to come up with relevant questions.
My thoughts drifted away though and I gave up on insisting seeing all relevant connection between Diversity Management and the Hub. While again dwelling upon the people, who work at the hub stations and trying to look beyond the working scenes into various life stories, I was thinking that still a considerable number of the nowadays managers or CEOs started as a small “figure” in the big picture, like starting at a company with 15 right after school and then ultimately becoming the Executive Board Member of the same company. Stories like that are known to most of us – not only from DPWN but also from relatives and people we are close to or have heard of.
I was wondering how much lesser chances those young workers would have nowadays? Would it be still possible for any of them to become executive board member or CEO, how much would they be limited and not be able to advance in their careers because they would be reaching a final invisible boarder which they are not able to surpass?
Comparing the current view on career chances and development to the romantic views - which in the US is also known as the American Dream -I have serious doubts whether there are equal chances given to all ambitioned, hard working and talented young people nowadays. Of course there never has been a equal world of opportunities existing to all human beings, but it's not about the aboslutes but rather about the relative differences and changes of the last decades. Thinking about the workers class of factories and the well off, and better educated young mid or upper class – it seems very clear that in our increasingly competitive environment only those people, fulfilling the high entrance criteria, enter already at a very much higher level and are also the potential ones to take over management posts later on.
Making a long thought simple, i was getting into the negative conclusion that the chances of advancing from the bottom level to the most upper level is much more reduced or hardly existing anymore, even though our society and living environment subjectively seems to be more just.
Moving away from the example today – the recent news in Europe, especially coming from some the the supposedly strongest social secure countries like Germany or France are v
ery worrying.
In France, there are continuous riots lately taking place in the margins of Paris. Riots and protests, which reflected the frustration and helplessness of those young adults, knowing that their origin or district they live in, already determines their fortunes in future possibilities in life. Since they feel like there is no chance given to them and they have nothing to loose anymore they radically pointed out their felt injustice.
The Harold Tribune wrote:
Walid was born in France and went to a French high school. He will show you his French driving license and even his French identity card. But ask him what his identity is and he will say "93." -
Read onEven though i was mainly looking at Europe in the first place, i also do see the situation of the developing countries worsening in a similar way. Most of the regions in the world - with the exception of big parts of Asia - are changing for the worse.
The Human Devleopment Report 2005 is giving a good overview.
