"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.
This post made me smile. :)
ReplyDeleteI wish you the best on your transformational journey and wish only to see the occasional ray of hope to inspire the continuation of my following as you introduce us to this strange world and the characters that contribute to your reality.
Dear sir, this cubicle talk peaked my interest and raised the question of health coverage. Would you also be on the Google Health Plan?
ReplyDeleteRE: Comment from Mervyn
ReplyDeleteWe are not yet on the Google Health Plan, but I understand that the Corporate HR department has plans to move to it as part of our new low, lower, lowest cost operating model progression.
As I understand it, they are just waiting for availability of a device called an assiculator which will connect to your laptop (or iPhone) and assist with the self-diagnosis. (The device is the brainchild of Scott Adams and may be featured in an upcoming Dilbert cartoon). Development of the assiculator is being funded by a consortium of Corporate HR departments via an outsourcing agreement with an Elbonian company located offshore in a low cost geography.
The device is packaged in an elongated cylinder with an attached USB cable. Deployment will be done using the corporate standard method where you drop your pants and bend forward in the presence of an Elbonian contract employee who will install the device. The company will not provide petroleum jelly, but employees may provide their own to ease the pain of installation.
This innovative approach to health care is expected to significantly lower operating costs for the company and could contribute as much as five percentage points to corporate ROIC. The HR department has assured us that although it may be painful at first, we all will benefit in the "end".
Of course, corporate executives will continue to receive free unlimited lifetime healthcare under a separate plan.
I have indeed heard of this excellent low, lower, lowest health care device which also has the added bonus of seriously reducing the number of complaints among employees when used. It must surely be the total satisfaction from the proper use of the device and their renewed health status. I sure wish you luck with this new corporate program.
ReplyDeleteObviously, Executives cannot only have such limited health care plan. They need to be in perfect working shape all the time and in full complaining mode. How else could a corporation operate at its utmost performance unless upper management can properly complain about under performing employees?
Thank you good sir for the introduction and fair warning. A friend opened the door to this blog for me for which I am sincerely thankful.
ReplyDeleteMy comments to this blog are neither to counter what is shared nor to confirm it. To be honest I’m not sure what they are [will be], but they might be reminiscent of a lunch conversation in which there is neither a clash nor a perfect unison of perspectives. I, too, “live” in a cubicle offered to me by a multinational corporation and though my job title has the “M” word, my place in the org chart is in the well-spotted tier of the illustration in your March 2010 posting. So, in reality I am but another cubicle dweller with much of the same experiences and frustrations.
I share this because readers of the blog may detect corporate speech or undertones which are not intentional rather programmed into me through a steady regime of daily management communication for nearly half of my fourteen years in cubeville.