*********************
WARNING TO CAREERISTS
This posting includes examples of behaviour which are not acceptable on the part of those who are focused on having a successful corporate career. If that is your goal, please don't read the rest of this post. Instead, go read this: http://www.ehow.com/how_2135494_handle-change-work.html
*********************
Even if you come to work every day and stand on your head in a corner in a pile of bull excrement, eventually you will get used to it. After a while, your perspective will change to the point that the world will again appear to be right side up and the excrement will smell like roses and taste like candy to you. It's all a matter of perspective.
The more flexible you are, the sooner this change of perspective will come about. In the world of cubicle workers, our corporate masters place a high value on "flexibility". From their perspective, "flexible" workers provide a more efficient match between labor resources and the work required. The general idea is that any one will be willing to do any thing at any time. "Flexible" workers have multiple skill sets, work variable hours, and multi-task among multiple job functions as needed; they are open to changing organizations and job responsibilities on the fly. From the perspective of the corporate executive, this all adds up to lower cost and increased agility for the corporate elephant. From my perspective, this is all well and good... up to a point. At some point, reality intervenes and sets limits. Elephants are good for heavy lifting, but aren't great tap dancers.
As my thirty-year anniversary with the company approaches, the smell of reality permeates my cubicle, and it doesn't make me think of roses. I suppose it is evidence of some sort of sclerosis on my part that recent changes in my organization and job function have sent me into a sort of apopleptic fit. I guess I'm just not as flexible as I used to be - or maybe I'm just not as naive. I've been around this block before. I've heard this restructuring dog bark many times.
The memos announcing an organizational change usually start with a phrase like "I am very excited about the opportunity..." The message is full of corporate speak and replete with buzzwords like leverage, synergy, stakeholders, and "customer intimacy" (yeah, right, I can hardly wait to get "intimate" with MY customers). The memo then ends with a phrase like "I know that I can count on you all to stay engaged and focused during this challenging time...", followed by a repetition of the "I am very excited..." phrase. Included is an attachment with a new org chart.
Last December, I scanned the latest org change memo with a jaded eye, expecting to ignore the changes for the most part and just continue with my cubicle duties. Beyond having a different "reporting structure", I didn't expect much to change. I planned, as usual, to follow my time-tested "hide and watch" tactic as people jockeyed for position and power in the new organization. This can be a fun game to watch, but not one I want to participate in. So, I settled in to watch the show. At first, it was quite entertaining.
Immediately after the announcement, three first-level managers bailed out of their newly assigned positions. One (the one I was supposed to begin reporting to) left the company. Two others maneuvered into positions elsewhere within the company. This set off a flurry of activity among my "cubicle careerist" peers. They put on their best faces, polished up their resumes, and set out to pursue newly percieved opportunities to advance in their corporate careers. This was all great fun to watch... for a while.
After a couple of months, the new selections were announced via yet another org change memo in the same format as usual, with the usual revised org chart attached. Scanning through this one, I began to feel increasingly uneasy. This didn't look like the same old dog barking again. This was a different animal, one that could bite.
In this latest memo, it was announced that two of my peers would become managers. I would be reporting directly to a guy who used to be my walking buddy, and his boss would be another of my peers who had recently joined the company and with whom I had often clashed fiercely... but the part that bites is that the number of people in my group is reduced from eight to five, and my new "role" is a combination of two jobs - my old one plus a new set of tasks consisting mostly of corporate transactional administrivia.
Over the next few days, my brain was a pressure cooker of emotions stewing in their own juices. I felt high anxiety, punctuated with periods when I was just livid, seething, and shaking. I wrote down some notes on how I was feeling, along with some ideas about the role I wanted vs the one I was being given. I "shared" this with my new manager, who was probably a little overwhelmed by it. His reaction was: "So, are you refusing to do your job?". That wasn't exactly what I had expected. Obviously, we weren't going to be walking buddies any longer.
Not being satisfied with my ex-walking-buddy's response, and still intent on sabotaging my corporate career, I composed an email message outlining my thoughts and feelings about my new role and sent it off to my first, second, and third level managers. I got a similar response (Are you refusing to do your job?) from my second-level manager(who also used to be my peer), and no response from my third level manager. I assume it is bad corporate form for a manager three levels up to respond directly to someone whining at the bottom of their newly-formed organization.
In the end, my dear wife of 35 years came to the rescue, providing relief and comfort as she has always done. She went to the library, checked out the book "Who Moved My Cheese?" by Spencer Johnson, brought it home, and read it to me, cover to cover, in one sitting. In case you haven't read it, it is a silly little story about mice in a maze that purports to "reveal profound truths about change that give people and organizations a quick and easy way to succeed in changing times". I'm not sure that this book has lived up to it's billing, but I am sure that it, along with "The One Minute Manager", has made Spencer Johnson quite wealthy. People who haven't changed since it was published in 1998 still have this book on their cubicle shelves.
Anyway, I've settled down a bit, and am making plans to go find new cheese. I have also relocated my magnetic cut-out likeness of Wally (my hero from the Dilbert Comic strip) to a prominent place near my cubicle entrance. Each day, as I enter my cubicle, I pause and bow slightly to this image, while silently asking the great Wally for guidance throughout my work day.
I am sure that one day, hopefully not long in the future, I will walk into my cubicle one morning and say: "What a beautiful day it is today! It smells like roses in here!". After all, it's only a matter of perspective.
Until then - color me disaffected.
PS - If anyone has a good home remedy for stubbornness or hemorrhoids, please let me know. I've been having trouble with both lately. Also, I am in the market for a new walking buddy...
I leave you now with a new reader-submitted comic for your perusal and enjoyment:
