Who Can You Run To?

©2022 Cerise Graham

by Gray Graham

​A few years ago I heard a speaker tell a story about giving a speech to a major corporation. In their speech they told the audience how their spouse absolutely loved the company and was their biggest fan. They cherished the company and thought the world of them. Now I can tell you that this company is one of the most hated companies in the world. While you are reading this I am sure you have a long list of companies it could be.

There are a lot of companies in the world that a large group of people hate. Thanks to social media you can hear about it everyday. I am sure right now there is an organized protest against a lot of major corporations trying to put them out of business. People love telling others about companies and businesses they do not like.

Let’s take a moment and think about a company you do like. You like their products and you like their service. I can almost guarantee you that there is a large group of people that absolutely hate that company and you are probably one bad experience from joining them. It doesn’t take much for a company we have dealt with our entire life to betray our trust.

So what do you do when you get to the point that you hate a company and no longer wish to do business with them. Most of us will look to their competitors as an alternative. Chances are you already do business with them. After all who shops at only one store?

So you start doing business with another company. Their services meet your needs and then as stated above one bad experience and you are back to square one looking for a company to do business, meet your needs, and not make you hate them.

The truth is that organizations today do not value their clients and customers. We are just a resource to be harvested for profit. The moment there is no profit in it for them, we will be discarded and forgotten. They don’t care if we will never do business with them again and will tell all our friends how awful they are. Companies are willing to go to court and ligate for years instead of provide service to their customers.  They know that while you may not do business with them again someone else will. Major corporations know that there are a lot of people that love their brand and will continue to do business with them.

Major corporations have something that you and I do not have and that is money and resources. They can buy anything that they want and many only buy what they need. Service to clients cost money and makes nothing extra. A corporation would rather spend money to get new clients instead of spending a dime to keep an existing one. From their prospective there is nothing to be gained from doing the right thing and making you happy. 

And let’s not forget that a corporation is just an entity created to make money. What we think of as a company is really the products and services they provide and their employees. I am going to guess that you probably work for a corporation or organization so you know exactly what they think about their employees. 

Most organizations severely limit what their employees are actually able to do in service of customers. After all employees are humans with a heart and most want to do right by people. The golden rule is the golden rule. This is why corporations make sure to put people in charge with no heart and only focused on meeting corporate and personal financial goals instead of people that care about people.

It would be nice if we lived in a world where we didn’t have to deal with people that we didn’t like who try to take advantage of us but unfortunately we don’t. Most of us don’t have a choice in the organizations we have to associate with to live. If there is only one grocery store in your neighborhood that is where you have to buy food. If only one company makes a drug that you need to live then you have to buy it from them. If a company owns the mortgage on your home then you have to pay it. If there is only one hospital in your town and you have a medical emergency then you have to go there for treatment.

It’s nice that some of us get to pretend that we have plenty of choices when it comes to life but most people know and understand that they don’t. This is why most people just hold their nose and bare it and just go about their lives. But you better believe that the first chance they get to cut that company loose they are going to take it. Until then they are just going to bite their upper lip and drink the poison that tastes the best to them.