A Patch of Stormy Weather

Over the past week and a half, the corporate cubicle work environment has once again drained my emotional reserve and shriveled my psyche down to one single raw, inflamed, pulsing nerve. Faced with a choice between behaving like "Fist of Death" Alice, the Dilbert cartoon character, or withdrawing into a defensive, surly caricature of myself, I have done what comes naturally and chosen the latter.

You would think that after all these years of life in the cubicle, I would have a better way of coping; a more positive way of responding to the stress of it all. However, the Eeyore (and Alice) in me continue to lurk barely below the surface and always fully show themselves when I am under stress. I don't think that will ever change, so I must seek respite by somehow avoiding or reducing stress which puts me into this condition.

I now invite you to step into my world for a paragraph or two and let me lead you through the last week and a half of my life in the cubicle.

Actually, the precipitating event occurred about six weeks back, when the corporate officer in charge of finance and IT (CFO) left the company. The CFO exit left a vacuum which set off a political scuffle among the more ambitious members of the management chain above me. The result was that several people in this management chain were promoted. This event in the corporate hierarchy awakened the political instincts of all the ambitious cubicle dwellers and set off ripple effects which reached to the very bottom of the corporate hierarchy. The leaves on the corporate tree were again being stirred by corporate political winds.

When a lower level manager wants to prove his mettle, he creates a new organization chart. This is exactly what my manager did. The old org chart was one page, sparsely populated. The new org chart is much more impressive. It is a five page PowerPoint slide set which is fully populated with text encased in colorful "pillow boxes" and overlapping stair-stepped horizontal bars. If you saw it, you would surely be impressed. Page one is a functional view of the organization, with function titles across the top and lists of accountabilities and key measures underneath. Page two is the same as page one, but includes names of the newly ordained functional leaders in the boxes across the top. These functional leaders are elevated above normal cubicle dwellers by virtue of their new title (Functional Leader) and their new political status as members of the power structure of the group. Page three consists of several levels of horizontal bars which show how functional responsibilities overlap and intersect with each other. Page four is the same as page three, but with names of group members in the bars. Page 5 is a stylized version of the original org chart which shows the reporting structure of the organization. This new slide set was presented with much fanfare as the sole subject of a one hour conference call during which some of us read the financial news, checked the Euro to Dollar exchange rate, updated our LinkedIn profiles, or otherwise occupied ourselves with "multitasking". (Side note: "multitasking" is a cubicle euphemism for "not paying attention").

Even though I was "multitasking" during the presentation, I did happen to notice that the box with my name in it spanned three functional areas. I didn't think much of it at the time, but over the last two weeks it has become clear that I now have three jobs and three bosses, rather than just one of each. My calendar has filled with meetings, and all three of the newly titled "Functional Leaders" want a piece of me.

The final straw came when one of the functional leaders assigned me to a typical corporate project. Those of you who have labored in the corporate cubicle will recognize this kind of project. A four hour meeting every day (yes, I said four hours), during which the discussion goes down one rathole after another without resolving anything. At the end of the meeting, a list of action items is distributed. The next day, everyone comes back without having completed any action items, and the same ratholes are explored yet again. I ask where the project plan is. There is none; all we have is a list of action items. The project manager rarely shows up for any meetings. I attend meetings for six days. My anxiety is rising. I have lost all patience for this. After the second day, I begin to press for a project plan and for some progress on actually getting work done rather than sitting around in meetings all day. It turns out that we don't have anyone on the team who can actually do any work. The contractors who are supposed to install the new software don't have cubicles, or phones, or access to the project documentation. Niether do they have any systems where they can install and test the new software. The contractor who is supposed to set up the new servers has not agreed to participate in this project, and is being reluctant to do any work. This has been going on for almost five weeks!

I'll spare you further boring details. Suffice it to say that after six days in these project meetings, I was in full Alice "Fist of Death" mode - all of my emotional energy had been drained. I arranged an audience with my "real" manager. He pulled me off the project, and had a "heart-to-heart" with the absentee project manager. I have been assigned to do a weekly review of the project and report status to management. This makes me the bad cop - a role I'm not comfortable with - but it's better than sitting in those project meetings for four hours a day while other work from my three new bosses piles up.

I don't know why I get so upset about these things. I know I'll never be a corporate animal. The corporate world will always be a strange, uncomfortable, and incomprehensible place to me in many ways. But for now, another storm has passed through my cubicle and is dissipating.

One advantage to having almost 30 years of service is that I have plenty of vacation stored up. Beginning today, I'm taking nine days of vacation (plus two weekends). I'm going to put the cubicle out of my mind, and immerse myself in real life for a while.

Speaking of real life, I want you to read this:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-lux/how-do-christians-become_b_570361.html

I found it interesting. It explains a lot about why I'm not a "Christian Conservative".

A Gossamer Thread of Hope

I mentioned in the previous post that my employment history spans almost forty years, with most of that time spent as a corporate employee. Yet, I have so far presented a very critical view of cubicle life and the corporate work environment. A reasonably astute reader might sense the hypocrisy here and ask: "If the corporate world is such a mad, soul-less environment, why have you stayed there for so long?" I don't have a simple answer. I'm not sure I can even muster a coherent response, but the rambling that follows here is a result of my musings on this question.

A FREUDIAN PERSPECTIVE

Maybe the reason I've stayed in the corporate cubicle all these years is that I lack the courage to follow my own dreams and I'm too cynical, self-centered, and independent to give my life's energy to a worthy cause. Maybe I am neither a leader nor a follower. Maybe I am neither a team player nor a coach. Maybe I'm a prisoner inside myself, caught between fear of failure on one side and doubt of success on the other. Maybe I am a resident of the nether land of mediocrity, where tortured souls sit, fret, and sink into the quicksand of cynicism and self-loathing because they are afraid to launch themselves onto the sea of life. Maybe I am a Freudian psychoanalyst's dream of neurosis and suppressed desires. Maybe my psyche is such a Gordian knot of dysfunction that it would stymie the sword-stroke of psychoanalysis to untie it. Maybe this is why I've spent so many years in the cubicle. Maybe I'm just avoiding life.

A POSSIBLE EXIT POINT

And maybe you should stop reading right here, cover yourself with a suffocating shroud of despair, and accept the futility and hopelessness of life in the corporate cubicle. If you choose to read on from here, be aware that I am going to taunt you with a gossamer thread of hope that may give you reason to believe that life as a corporate cubicle worker isn't so bad after all.

A GOSSAMER THREAD OF HOPE

For a different – perhaps more hopeful - perspective on my motivation for staying in the corporate cubicle all these years, I now turn from Freud to Abraham Maslow and his “hierarchy of needs” - otherwise known as Maslow's Pyramid:

If you've taken a college psychology course or attended a corporate-sponsored motivational leadership seminar, you've probably been exposed to Maslow's Pyramid. According to this view of the human psyche, we are motivated to satisfy our needs in a hierarchical fashion, sort of like climbing a ladder. Once needs are met at lower levels, we then increasingly focus on meeting needs at higher levels. We reach the top level of the pyramid when we have experiences where we reach our full potential in terms of what we want to be or do in life.

It seems to me that regarding the “lower level” needs on Maslow's pyramid, life is more about balance than achievement; more about having enough than getting all I can get. In attempting to satisfy my “lower level” needs, perfection is somewhere in the middle, not at the extremes. From this perspective, I can honestly say, “I have enough.” I don't crave more food, a bigger house in a better neighborhood, a nicer car, more security, or more money. I don't have an aching, unfulfilled hunger for more friends, a more loving family, or sexual intimacy. I do confess to a certain anxiety that this balance could disappear in an instant, and I could suddenly face a debilitating deficit of one or more of these things in my life; but at this moment, I am full. I have enough. My life is in balance.

I don't look to my job in the corporate cubicle to satisfy all these needs. I don't expect to have a corporate career that takes me to the pinnacle of Maslow's pyramid. However, being a cubicle worker, a cog in the corporate machine, does play an important part in enabling me to live a balanced and rewarding life.

WHAT I GET FROM MY CORPORATE CUBICLE “CAREER”

First – It's how I make a living. It's how I earn money to provide for the physiological needs and security of myself and my family. My cubicle job is the primary source from which I draw to satisfy basic needs.

Second – My job allows me to participate as a community member. For example, because I have this job, I am a member of the following communities: cubicle workers, IT professionals, [my company] employees. Within these communities, I have friends, acquaintances, mentors, and heroes. I participate and contribute as an individual in these communities.

Third – My job gives me opportunities for personal and professional growth. Here, I can pursue formal education as well as learning from experience. For example, I recently completed a Bachelor's degree which was paid for by the corporation. Over the years, I have attended many professional seminars and been a presenter at some.

PUTTING IT ALL IN CONTEXT

I'm not a careerist. I don't look to my career as the primary source for a fulfilling life. I have a career; the career doesn't have me. At the beginning of the day, I come to the cubicle prepared to make a contribution. Sometimes I am successful; sometimes not. (Sometimes, I feel like I can't possibly do this even one more day.) At the end of the day, I try to take home what I need and leave the rest behind for another day. I don't need the frustrations, but I do need a paycheck.

Over the years, I've learned that perfection and excellence have to be created by means of hard work, skill, and patience. I won't find the perfect career, or the perfect life companion, or the perfect friend just by searching. I have to take what's good enough and work with it to improve it over time.

I recently read an article on forbes.com entitled “Why Our Search For Perfection Fails Us” by Marc and Angel Chernoff. The article closes with this paragraph: “With a little patience and an open mind, over time, I bet that imperfect house evolves into a comfortable home. That imperfect job evolves into a rewarding career. That imperfect friend evolves into a steady shoulder to lean on. And that imperfect lover evolves into a reliable lifelong companion.”

I don't think a career in the corporate cubicle is likely to take anyone to the top level of Maslow's pyramid in and of itself. However, it can be a rewarding career and an important part of living a successful, balanced life. It may bring you to the point of being able to say "I have enough" in terms of lower-level needs and provide a springboard for achieving higher level life goals associated with esteem and self-actualization.

ARE YOU NOBODY, TOO?

There have been times when I have fantasized about being "somebody"; about changing the world; making a difference on a grand scale. But I am becoming more and more comfortable with being nobody; just a cog in the corporate machine; just an ordinary human being; just a dot in the big picture. I've had a great life so far, and I'm nobody. In closing, I offer you another verse from my favorite poet, Emily Dickinson. I imagine it may be of some consolation to those of us who labor in obscurity in the cubicle.

I'm nobody! Who are you?

Are you nobody, too?

Then there's a pair of us -don't tell!

They'd banish us, you know.

How dreary to be somebody!

How public, like a frog

To tell your name the livelong day

To an admiring bog!

From Sense to Nonsense to Madness: A Natural Progression

Looking back over almost forty years of employment, most of it with large corporations, there were times when it all made sense; times when I felt like I was a real person with real skills making a real contribution. Inevitably, these periods of equilibrium were disrupted by destabilizing forces and followed by periods where sense gave way to nonsense and madness loomed on the horizon.

It seems to me that this progression from sense to nonsense to madness is a natural and perhaps unavoidable progression in the lives, businesses, organizations, and institutions of human civilization. It may stem from the prevalent belief that perfection lies at the extreme, not in the middle. It may be a result of seeing life as a competition to maximize certain things. Individuals strive for maximum wealth and freedom; corporations strive for maximum profit and return on invested capital (in fact, they have a fiduciary responsibility to do so). Life and business are portrayed as a zero sum game where there is potentially only one winner, and the winner takes all. "He who dies with the most toys wins", we say. All the leading players in this game are driven, frantic, and desperate to find some kind of advantage over the competition. Greed, fear, and ambition drive people and companies to (and sometimes beyond) the limits of legal activity. Corruption and cronyism compromise the efforts of regulators and governments.

There is a sort of logic driving this progression from sense to nonsense to madness. As the game progresses and builds towards its apogee, the madness becomes pervasive. The world becomes a place where the leaders, power brokers, and news makers all seem to be mad and madly ambitious. Everything becomes polarized. The middle ground is no longer occupied - everyone is moving toward the extremes in an effort to gain some perceived advantage. Voices of moderation are drowned out. Anyone who is not infected with the madness is considered dangerous or insignificant by the growing mad majority. People who were once considered unsavory are elected, hired, and promoted. Corporate job requirements read like a psychological profile of a dysfunctional "Type A" personality.

The message to job applicants and those who seek career advancement is: "We want high energy overachievers. Please apply only if you are are time-conscious, highly competitive, ambitious, business-like, and aggressive. We are looking for high-achieving workaholics who multi-task, drive themselves with deadlines, and are unhappy about delays." If you happen to be patient, relaxed, and easy-going, please don't bother to apply - even if you are twice as smart and three times as capable as any of these stress junkies.

In this super-competitive environment, humans are stripped of their humanity; corporations become soul-less entities without moral or social conscience. It's not that any of the players are evil - they're neither evil or good. Morality does not exist in this world. There is no morality, only logic. Raw business logic. Every decision is strictly a business decision and is driven primarily by the potential short-term impact to the bottom line.

This is the world of Alice in Wonderland, described by author Lewis Carroll in his classic book which was published in 1865. This kind of behavior is nothing new. It has come in regular cycles over the course of human history. In Alice in Wonderland, as the Cheshire cat acknowledges, "everyone is mad here" (except Alice, of course). All the mad characters are self-important, authoritative, and pretentious. None of the characters is evil. There is no morality - only "logic". They try to use logic to justify and explain their absurd behavior. However, if Alice challenges them or presses them for a more rational explanation, they change the subject or otherwise sidestep the inquiry. Alice has little success in using her powers of discernment to make sense of this mad, upside-down, inside-out world where she is unable to get complete answers to her questions from arrogant, self-absorbed characters.

Think about it - Alice's world is an apt metaphor for the corporate cubicle worker's environment. Everywhere there are things that don't make sense, yet the inhabitants use logic to justify their actions and ignore or otherwise deflect rational thinking from non-conforming members... and the madness continues.

I now leave you with one final thought regarding madness in the form of a short poem by Emily Dickinson:

Much Madness is divinest Sense

To a discerning Eye;

Much sense the starkest madness.

'T is the majority

In this, as all, prevails.

Assent, and you are sane;

Demur, -- you're straightway dangerous,

And handled with a chain.

POSTSCRIPT - Added 3/13/10

Thank you for your comments. I apologize for failing to include a drawing to illustrate corporate logic and madness, so I am adding it below. I have included textual notations for clarity.

Introduction and Warning

"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.