Every day, I play a special game. I call it Corporate Hell. I wake early in the morning, only to spend a good thirty minutes agonizing over my closet to make sure that I look the part. Then, I climb in to my budget-priced sedan and make the treck to work. Along the way, I watch the bums on the side of the road, who I doubt are really bums and are truly in need - but that is for another discussion. I watch the Yuppy of the New Millennium in his/her over priced SUV - a vehicle that will most likely never see any mud - equipped with the latest gadgets, talking on a cell phone, while looking at their Blackberry and gazing at their reflection in the mirror - again, another discussion to be had. After 30-45 minutes of this fun, I arrive at the gates of Corporate Hell.
I proceed past the gleaming exterior of the building, and through the plush Lobby, into the inner cave of this Hell. I enter the fishbowl-type room where I spend my day, along with four others, playing the Corporate Game. And it is here that the rant truly begins...
I have spent the past 10 years searching for the right career, only to stumble horribly along the way. My first stop was a small private college, which lacked any shred of ethics. This stop led only to a wonderful experience of testifying before a federal grand jury, who was prosecuting my former employer for fraud. This fun lastest for five years after I left that place. My next stop was in retail management, where I learned that an organization comprised of 95% women can get pretty darn catty. Which leads me to my current residence inside the gates of Corporate Hell.
I now spend my days as a middle manager for a Fortune 500 company and each day becomes closer to "Office Space." For those of you who have not seen this little flick that spoofs Corporate America, you are missing out. Three years ago, my employer began the process of restructuring and looking at "what is good for the company." We explored such thrilling topics as efficiency, cost savings and procurement. Millions were spent collaborating with an outside consulting firm, blueprints were drawn up and the new model was born. Under the new structure, every function has its place, and every employee has a specific function. Critical thinking, problem solving and creativity have all but disappeared. In its place, we have forums like Ask the Leadership, where employees are offered an anoymous source to voice their opinions. The responses from high level executives read like a class from Business 101. (We all doubt that the B.S. in their undergraduate degree stands for Bachelor of Science.) Clearly, they paid attention to the section on Blowing Smoke Up Your Employees Ass.
Many of my friends from college are leaving their own Corporate Hell in an attempt to give back to the community. They are returning to school for careers in teaching, nursing and even heading to Haiti to build churches. This leaves me wondering what I am contributing to society. Each day, my hard work and long hours only really benefit the stockholders. Yet, I am finding that organizations outside Corporate America are not safe either.
My mother spent 37 years in the education field, rising from an English teacher to a position created for her at the adminstration level. During her tenure in this position, she was responsible for numerous special projects, after school programs and generated millions of dollars each year in grants. Two years before retirement, the school district began its own restructuring journey. Her position was eliminated, a $20K salary cut followed and she was forced to bump a younger employee out of a position, in order to serve her last few years before she was eligible to retire. A year later, the school district realized they no longer had grant funds flowing in. They had the nerve to ask her to take on additional grant administration duties, in addition to her full-time load at the high school - and with no increase to her salary. I am left to wonder how different education really is from Corporate Hell.
So, how does the rant end, you ask? It is highly unlikely that our generation, and those that follow, will spend 35 years working the same company, as our grandfathers did, and certainly won't be satisfied with a gold-plated watch at retirement. So, we will continue to search for the "right" place to land, and only hope to find it before the Corporate game consumes us.
