"As an employee of a multinational corporation, I pivot in my cubicle toward wall street and bow in unison with our corporate executives to the tarnished gods of a failing laissez-faire capitalism. As I do so, I supress a twinge of doubt. Is my faith failing? No, I must not question. I must remain faithful, committed, and without doubt as I wait to find out if I am one of the 2700 employees to be sacrificed in this round of corporate restructuring."
The paragraph above was something I wrote in February,2009 in response to an article in the corporate newsletter announcing the latest in a long series of corporate restructuring, downsizing, offshoring, and outsourcing events. The corporate HR department, in an effort to present an appearance of concern for what employees think, solicits responses to these articles via a link at the bottom of the web page. I was invited to comment, so I did. My comment went to a "corporate communications expert" in the HR department who is apparently required to respond to every comment.
The responses are usually some sort of non-informational corporate boilerplate. This has led me to believe that the position of "corporate communications expert" is filled by someone with a regurgitative personality who has never had an original thought - but who is probably very well paid for his continual regurgitations of corporate orthodoxy.
In response to the above post, one of the "regurgitators" responded with: "Your comment made me smile." I took that as a sign that there was really nothing in the corporate liturgy that could be used as a response, and that my comment had forced him to respond in an ad-hoc fashion. I claimed this as a small victory on my part, and vowed never to comment again in response to any corporate newsletter article.
If you have managed to read this far, I feel obliged to give you fair warning before allowing you to read further in this posting or future postings in this blog. I must warn you that my story has many parallels to the tales told by Lemony Snicket in his series of books entitled "A Series of Unfortunate Events". That unfortunate series of books tells of three unlucky children who lost their parents in a horrible fire and were forced to continue their lives in the custody of a series of evil, profiteering characters. My story is of a company whose founding fathers died and my piece of the business was spun off as a separate company under the control of a series of wall street financiers.
To paraphrase Lemony Snicket, I must tell you, as he does in his introductory letter to readers, that there is nothing stopping you from leaving this blog at once and reading something happy, if you prefer that sort of thing.
If you choose to continue reading, you will be drawn into a corporate world where logic and reality take strange forms. You will be introduced to life in a cloth covered box called a cubicle; a world which resembles a Dilbert cartoon, with pointy-haired bosses, evil human relations representatives, and preventers of information technology.
I entered this cubicle world long ago, bringing with me a youthful optimism and considerable potential for learning, growing, and contributing to the corporation. Along the way, I have aged and been transformed. The fiery ambition of youth has not been completely quenched, but has consolidated down into a glowing ember of determination and commitment which gives impetus to my work and life.
These are the Tales of the Old Man and the Cubicle. They are also the tales of a transformational journey through life.
