I live north of Houston.
And you can read into my post anything you like. But all of those things apply to me. And I'm happy. So shudder about corporate life all you like. But it works for most of us. And if that's how you feel, then we are glad you aren't sharing an office with us.
Could be seen as condescending. Not a stretch.
I'm glad I don't share an office with any of you. I'd never be happy being a wonk. As long as you work for somebody else, you don't control your own future. You can be fired. Laid off. Demoted. Left to rot while jobs are given to the boss' girlfriend/son/nephew/sister-in-law/cousin/pal/mother (none of whom are remotely as qualified as you may be).
No matter what any boss tells you (myself included) there comes a point where an employee is just a number. Profits down? Pick a number, somebody's got to go. Business getting bought out? Pick a handful of numbers, boss said let 'em go! Company gets sued? See ya! Say the wrong thing to the wrong person at the wrong time? Get out!!
True stories from my once upon a time corporate life:
1) Attractive girl in the office is getting a boob job. She tells everybody. At one point she simul-humps my doorframe as she tells me she's going up to a full D. She's got a calendar on her cubicle marking down the days. She gets the boob job, is out for two weeks and comes back to the office. First day back she's wearing a shirt cut down to there and a skimpy sweater that didn't have a button until well past her midriff. They're sticking out there like lighthouse beacons. Married guy whose wife just had a baby passes her in the hall and says "nice. your surgeon did a great job." Just a random comment to somebody who loudly publicized her impending expansion. She sued for sexual harassment. He was fired.
2) Company hires a consulting firm. It's the first ever job for the firm which just happens to be headed up by the nephew of the boss' wife. They attack the IT department first. None of them have any IT experience whatsoever. Don't even know what to ask. It's like a bad scene out of Office Space. "What would you say you do here?" After a six-week evaluation they make a recommendation to cut the department by 60%. Their plan eliminates everyone who actually does any work and retains "analysts" and "project managers." Essentially they leave a staff in place to manage work that cannot be accomplished because there is no one who can do it. Word leaks out and the suits organize a Friday afternoon catfish dinner to reassure everyone that there will be no changes, everyone is safe. Sighs of relief all around. On Monday I'm in the CFO's office looking at a chart on the wall with every employee's name. Me, the lead DBA, and a couple of other people are presented with the very plan we had been told on Friday had been scrapped. We were told if we didn't like the plan the consultants had devised, come up with one of our own to cut 60% out. Certain people were "protected" and couldn't be touched regardless of their complete lack of contribution. When one of the people in the meeting had to give up his secretary, he retaliated by insisting that one of my people be fired. Didn't matter which one, just pick one. We essentially played cards with people's lives. The following Friday, during the annual company picnic, those we selected for ouster were essentially given a severance folder with their potato salad. (In truth, they simply called everyone into a common area and if you were directed to the left, you were safe and kept your job. If you went right you were handed your walking papers). People had ridden to the event together and had to depart together with some still employed and others no longer on the staff. It was awkward. Those of us on the inside were taken to another area of the park for horse dorves and cocktails while the massacre took place. So we didn't have to see it.
3) Bonus: At great expense and effort the company implements a tracking system to monitor where the employees are going online. The program is first implemented only on staff at a certain level or below. Bosses are exempt. Uh oh! A guy whose name you'd recognize is straight up busted for perusing some pretty kinky stuff in his office. Multiple paid sites. Fired to great fanfare. Two weeks later, a lower level employee inadvertently turned off the blocking mechanism and exposed the activity of the bosses to the tracking system. One VP was spending more than 60% of his time downloading stuff from sites that featured farm animals. The tracking report was destroyed, the tracking program was abolished and the lower level employee was transferred to an even lower paying job. He quit.
43 Replies
7562 Views