The Company

Most often, when we use this term, we  are referring to management. "The Company is not offering us this" or "The company wants to do that". This may seem an insignifcant misstep of semantics, but it actually demonstrates an inability to differentiate the two, and leads to actions that have undesirable consequences.
Example: Currently the "company" (management) we feel,  is dragging their heels in the negotiating process. We respond by operating at less than peak efficiency to demonstrate to the "company" (management) our displeasure and then (so the logic goes) bring them to heel. The other day I picked up an airplane that had been previously refused a day or two earlier because "Captain's map light inop". Now there are at least five ways to illuminate a captain's map in the Airbus cockpit, so A map light being inop, while inconvenient, is far from being a real safety issue. No, we all know this act was commited to prove a point. Makes said captain look tough. Gives a rise to his friends when he tells the story. He's a hero. Here's the problem: Management shrugs its shoulders and passes it on. It is not even a blip on the radar. The COMPANY potentially suffers. Was that flight cancelled? Delayed? Did we have to call contract maintenance out at some outstation and wait 45 minutes to find we didn't have the lightbulb in stock? Were the passengers inconvenienced? Were that captain's fellow workers screwed because an ID got decimated? We don't know.We DO know that this kind of petulance has a greater effect on the bottom line of the corporation, and on the quality of life of fellow workers, than it does on the attitude of management. Management simply has not, in the past monitored the minutiae of operating expenses (unless it served a political end. Remember the Flap 3 landing fiasco in the Airbus? We save 2cents of fuel/demonstrable, therefore makes one suit look good, but burn up brakes and incur those costs/not demonstrable and therefore doesn't exist. Sound like anybody is minding the store there? ). United's management has been, historically, extremely poor when it came to managing operations. (Compare their numbers, don't take my word for it) They excelled at structuring, restructuring, buying and selling assets, voodoo accounting etc. but never paid much attention to running an airline. Now the new cadre from Continental have proven otherwise, always turning in better operational results than we did (ref: last quarter's numbers e.g.), so things may be changing and we should welcome that change.  We should have an open mind and we don't. We assume they are more of the same. They are not. But we need to understand three things:
1. ANY management is peripatetic. They are Bedouins. They move on when the grass is greener.
2. You are tied to this lead balloon. You go down with the ship.
3. YOU are the company. Not management. So when you screw with the company, thinking you are "sending a message" to management, you are really screwing with me, yourself, and every other worker here.
Think of it this way: You are the guy in a small wooden boat, in the middle of a very deep, cold lake. You are angry at the boat renter because the oars he rented are too short. You have an axe and no repair kit. You decide to chop a hole in the bottom of the boat to demonstrate your dissatisfaction..
This is not a Pollyanna outlook of "we can save it guys, just give it the college try and we'll be OK", but pride in the quality of job that you do is healthy, mentally, and not learning from the past. repeating an action in the same manner only to expect different results is a clinical defintion of insanity.
This post  is merely an observation of ineffective behavior and its unintended consequences. I think it wise that we say what we mean and mean what we say.