Organizations killing natural trust

"She's good.", said my wife. The "She" was our domestic help. Having noticed that we are running out of stock of vegetables, she stocked it up without waiting for our order or confirmation.

As I was about leave for work, I saw the helper entering the house. "You had bought vegetables yesterday. How much did you pay?", I reached out to my wallet. "I'll get it later from Madam. You must be getting late." Without waiting for my acknowledgement, she got on to the work.

Happens to us all the time. The flower vendor usually delivers flowers for the advance we had paid. Someone remembers the account - either us or the vendor. Even if both forget, the transactions go on month on month.

I'm digressing. Yes, it was getting late for me. Got a meeting to discuss the compensatory time-off for engineers who come over the weekends for conducting interviews.

"There is a small issue here. The extra time they log is against interviews and the compensatory off we give may be used against the actual work time - affecting the engineering tasks that are assigned to them.", said the engineering team manager.

"So?" I asked.

"We can't give compensatory off for the time spent on interviews." said the manager.

"And so, we have no one to do the interviews", said the recruitment manager.

"Has anyone of your engineers used the compensatory off during critical project schedule?" I asked.

"No"

"Do you think any of your engineers would do so in future?"

"No"

"Then what is the problem. Why don't you trust your people and give them what they want?"

"Boss, you have a habit of simplifying every issue. It is not as simple as that..." started another executive.

I agree. I think it is very simple, People can simply trust each other. That's why life goes on. Small vendors could give credit without a security, People with less income could trust others irrespective of their income. When we think that we are part of an organization - an organization creates an "us-vs-them" attitude that simply discards this trust factor. Wouldn't it be great if organizations - big or small - government or otherwise trust individuals?