This kind of cluelessness and cynicism is almost impossible to fathom

When I started my new job at the end of last September, one of the first things I had to do was to get ready for a big divisional meeting in a fabulous European city. I remember thinking at the time, "How can a company afford to do something like this right now?" So when the trip was cancelled, I not only wasn't surprised, I wasn't disappointed either. I would much rather be employed by a company that doesn't lay people off and is willing to make small, sensible cost cuts than one that continues to run expensive get-togethers after accepting piles of taxpayer cash. I've come to realize that when you work with congenial people, team-building exercises can be fun, not the kind of trauma that such things were when I was in college in my provincial little college in eastern Pennsylvania where half the kids had never met a Jew before.

But our European meeting was cancelled, and no one pitched a fit. For we all know that we're fortunate to have jobs and to work for a company that doesn't seem to succumb to the kind of short-term thinking that far too many American companies do these days.

But at Wells Fargo, they don't have the confidence that their employees will do a good job without being treated to the dog biscuit of free trips. This is from their full-page ad in the New York Times yesterday, in which the company blames the media for everything from disgruntled employees to putting the jobs of hotel housekeepers in jeopardy:

The proglem is many media stories on this subject have been deliberately misleading. These one-sided stories lead you to believe every employee recognition event is a junket, a boondoggle, a waste, or that it's for highly-paid executives. Because of the misperceptions these stories have created, Wells Fargo has decided to cancel all its major annual recognition events for its team members for the rest of this year.

So who gets hurt when this happens? The Wells Fargo team members across America who are most deserving of recognition and our gratitude. Tellers. Personal bankers. Phone bankers. financial advisors. Mortgage sales people and processors. Operations clerks. Technology specialists. Credit analysts....

Do you believe that the tellers at your local Wells Fargo branch get to go to these things? I don't.

It goes on:

Annualy, for the past 20 years, we'verecognized our top team members from various businesses at several special four-day events, like the one we had planned for our terrific mortgage team wh helped us originate $230 billion in mortgages in the last year. For many, it's the only time in their lives that they're publicly recognized and thanked for a job well done. This recognition energizes them. It inspires them and their team members to want to create an even better experience for our customers. Another annual event -- which our top performers in community banking had all looked forward to -- was to have been held in May. But not this year. Who loses besides our team members? The workers who depend on our business. The hospitality industry. Hotel housekeepers. Restaurant servers. The airlines.

Yes, really,. We're supposed to believe that Wells Fargo employees won't do their jobs unless they're rewarded with a fancy trip. What does it say about how they're treated on a daily basis? I can tell you from personal experience where I work now that when you treat employees with respect, pay them well, and recognize exceptional achievement on an ongoing basis, you don't have to send them on expensive trips to resorts to make them want to do their jobs.

If Wells Fargo doesn't want this kind of scrutiny of their practices, perhaps they shouldn't take the government money.