Originally posted 2/12/08 on an old blog...
It’s 12:35 am on a Friday, and I should be logically sleeping. This irregular pattern of sleeping early/going to bed late seems to be catching up to me as I get older. When I was younger, I literally could stay up all night and maybe have a 15 minute power nap before I left for the day. Ah, the days. This beginning sounds like a whine and I promised that I would stop.
In about 5 hours, I will be once again open my eyes to the sound of some preset pop song that I have chosen to annoy me at that time in the morning. I will probably hit the snooze button too many times that the neighbor will scream at me for playing the same song over and over again. I will turn on the coffee machine, jump into the shower and get ready for the day. Hmm, isn’t this what people in the corporate jungle do? Oh yeah? I’m one of them!
This must stop.
Years ago, while my friend Shauna and I would drive through the streets of Toronto in her gas guzzling VW, we’d swear to each other that we would never become one of them. We’d debate existentialism and listen to Radiohead, U2 or even the alternative radio station while we debated our futures. Shauna was studying sociology at UofT, I was in the business program at Centennial with the desperation to transfer over to the Education program at York. Little did we both know that we’d end up in the daily grind of the 9-5. Both of us decided to start running a greeting card business, after we would spend most of our money at Hallmark on Stationery or cards for whomever at whatever occasion. When I worked at a book store, I’d buy stuff at a 20 percent discount for no reason. Our dreams were small as we both wondered what would face us after school.
Then reality happened.
I am now writing this a day later while on the way home. It’s Friday evening and after working more than 50 hours this week, I find myself to be exhausted. The subway is filled with greedy people who needed to shop for whatever reason with money that they probably don’t have. I never understood the need for money completely, as I never had enough when I was young and now I find myself making 3 times the amount that we used to live on in that small apartment in Scarborough. When I think about those days, it amazes me that I was able to be a part of any opportunity. My school friend Greg and I discussed how individuals like us who grew up in single family homes usually land up in the bottom of the barrel. Over 20 years later, Greg is one of the most outspoken individuals in the Canadian social service scene, and I believe that he is helping others like himself become more than a statistic. Another mutual friend of ours who faced the same is now coaching for Florida State. These are the people that make me proud because they have realized their dreams.
Hmm, I just digressed; let me get back to it. Oh yes, I am a corporate slave, I am a corporate slave. Oh now I remember what I was going to continue on with. After highschool/college, when our dreams had walked away and life slapped us in the face, the choice of what to do for the rest of our lives was hit with a sense of dread and misery. I will be honest, I had no sense of direction for a while and one can argue that I, like many others in the corporate scene never will. I mean other than the geeks who study business because they love it, no one says that they want to become an office manager, a bankroll clerk or heaven forbid a mail room admin. These are the jobs that the lost find themselves going without any direction because they either never had or they lost their way. I think I am the latter, although the choice to become something meaningful was always right in front of my face. I am getting there slowly, and by the time I am ready to drop off this planet we call earth, I shall have succeeded. So I guess I’m not one of them fully. I’m babbling. So!
I shall now discuss the inner workings of the corporate jungle in detail. To those who never have worn a suit and graced the halls of the cubicle world, my assumption is that you will base your belief that every corporate worker and workplace the same. You can blame media for that, including movies like Office Space that base their comedic value on a software company with no purpose. Or you may have seen the Dilbert cartoons or watched one of my favorites, Boiler Room. I too for a while thought the same until I started my first real full time job for a toy company located in West End Toronto. I was an eager young adult straight out of university and my main mission solely was to get a job as soon as possible. The interview went well; I thought that everyone would be excited to see a new person in the company. What I found is my co-workers were drained pasty individuals who hardly saw the light of day. Their task was simply to get up in the morning, get on the subway, work, get on the subway again and then maybe have time to watch some TV. I guess that can be said of everyone, where we find ourselves with not enough personal time because our duties involve school or work or some other activity that makes us want to crawl back under the rock that we came from.
Being a corporate slave can take you on two directions: the standard 9-5 business attire “yes sir” philosophy or the. Businesses are looking for new ways to create opportunities to create revenue. They will tell you that the company has changed or that they are taking a fresh new approach to business. I have been in companies that have given the same line, including the one I work for now. While I do not wear a business suit to work, my duties are the same. I work for the man. The man makes all the money and I get a little bit back. When I get a little bit back I pay the bills and then wait for the man to give me a little bit more. I am a self trained monkey doing work for someone that says that they value my time and energy, but at the end of the day I am still a monkey to them. If I start to complain too much or push for change that is not within the corporate environment, well they will find a new monkey to pick up where I left off. It really doesn’t matter if you are a cook at McD’s or the CEO of a company that you are in charge of. The process of creating ROI will always be similar. What can differ is how your role to create widgets is set up. You could actually be on a plane 3 weeks out of the month talking to new vendors, eating out every single day and sleep in different beds for the whole month. Or you could have a job that you can leave when you say goodbye to the location you are placed in. Your daily routine could start off going to the gym, Starbucks and then the office or it could be leaving for work with nothing in your stomach. Those who work for the man do not differ in this way and understanding the corporate mindset can take forever to. However, when working for the man the corruption with minds and hearts of individuals takes time. I’m not sure that I will be able to explain and make a grand conclusion by the end of this posting.
I will give you an insight into my own experience. With every resume that I have sent, the first line in the summary would be: dedicated and experienced individual. My dream job would be working as a monkey for Apple. Okay, my dream job if I wanted to remain a corporate monkey. What is funny is that I have been in the technological field of work for over 10 years now. I have used my skills that I have gained outside of school and carved a path that is going to nowhere. It has taken me a while to comprehend the inner workings of how the corporate jungle. Once you understand it, you can both adapt and become a mindless trained monkey or you can rebel. The process begins with this: You interview for over a month, get in, the first day is HR work, the first month will contain a lot of promises broken and by the end of your probationary period, and you’ve become redundant in your process. You understand that this will probably not be your last job or company that you work with. Within a year or two, you want more than the job you have now, within two years you want to be promoted and well if you last five, you will be schlepped over your desk waiting for it all to end. You will attend company parties, meet and greets, mingle with those who you would have never talked to in any other situation. You do it with the feeling of obligation, for the office corporate worker for the most part makes a salary above the poverty line. Team lunches, dinners, wine and dine, etc are all paid for and for someone that never had the chance to do that before, it is a treat. But it does come at a cost. There are those who just attend those outings to make a fool of them because they see those people as family. They are not your family. They will stomp all over you for their way up the corporate ladder. I am thinking that I should end this here and talk about what really happens in the workplace in another post.
In the whole mess of this, I want to make it known that anyone can get out of the corporate jungle if they wish. The dreams of innovators and creators will run the world, not the ones who decide that they do not count for anything other than a paycheck. As I will one day leave the corporate world and enter my own niche, I will take the memories of the places that I have worked for and with, and perhaps tell their own little story one day. I know that there are many to tell, for I haven’t really got into the personal scope of who the average corporate worker is. It is not a dream for most to end up in an office, but it is a reality that most of us face. We either do it with pride or with a sense that one day it will end. It has for some.
Like my friend Shauna, who went from the banking world and ended up as a learning coordinator for the mentally challenged. She is finding it rewarding and it makes her want to get up in the morning every day.
Be yourself no matter what the world asks of you. What it will lead you will take you beyond any scope of your Imagination.
