The Positivity of Absolute Value

We have all recieved information that has shocked us to the point of apathy. We have all been put under such a great amount of pressure that we almost appear immune to it and simply make decisions because that is what we are ingrained to do, whether they are beneficial or not. I was faced with such a situation today and I feel as though the empire that I co-built has become extremely vulnerable to obsoletion. I helped to build a crew, I helped to build a facility, I helped to build nothing less than an attitude, that defied what corporate America is gradually forcing everyone and everything to become. I help to run a Starbuck's retail location, and I arrived on the scene one week after my current manager and long time friend assumed responsibility. Now this particular location necessitates a second assistant manager, because of the volume it generates. I was, chronologically the first assistant, and remain so to this day, a year and a half later. My manager and I have gone through four second assistant managers and countless amounts of baristas and shift supervisors. We are a couple of the very few that not only survived the turn-over, but dictated the voice of the store. We hired, fired and watched retire the best and the worst of them, but we were always there the next morning to talk about how we were going to prepare for the next rash of inadequacy. It was always us. We built an empire, and today I watched that empire fall to it's knees. My manager put in her two weeks today and the effect was astounding. I understand the concept that no one is indespensible. Everyone can be replaced. This is the philosophy ascending the heirarchy, but what they don't see, are the tears that I saw today. They don't see the pain and the fear. they don't see the hate. This happened because of the corporations need for conformity and consistency. This happened because we are all, everyone one of us, supposed to look and act like little-bo-peep. No one is allowed to have an opinion because opinion equals revolution. There are very few of us left with the knowledge that at one point we were encouraged to have individuality and personality. We were encouraged to speak as though we were human beings.
Now we are expected to learn this universal rhetoric that will take away any form of innovation that may have been able to occur in the daily work environment. We are Starbuck's artificial intelligence. Ask me any question you want and I will have only a limited amount of answers that I can give you because they have taken away my ability to improvise. They have taken away my ability to serve you in the best way that I know how. And believe me, you all will suffer from this. Today I watched one of the few remaining truthful and opinionated empires fall to it's knees in the face of this "powerful conglomerate" seeking to control the minds and humanity of individuals, and I am not okay with it. I am not okay with watching someone else come in and ruin all that we have built. I am not okay.