Corporation Fun

Giving up watching media stuff but using YouTube is very much like quitting drinking but declaring beer doesn’t count.

YouTube, unlike channels on cable, is good.  Not only that, it has everything.  You can watch that Bauval guy at the Great Pyramid and then quickly move to which South American jungle retreat is best for having an Ayahuasca cleansing ceremony.

Things just happen and I, for one, have slowed down just enough and let go just enough to stop wondering why.  That’s the reason I have no idea how I ended up watching short clips of people making fun of corporations and the cultures that surround them this afternoon. It’s not like I forgot, it’s just I wasn’t paying any attention at all.

I have been lucky enough to have worked for myself for almost 30 years now. My fading memory is that I didn’t play well with others in corporate world to start with. That would be about right though. I have never been much good at conforming and do not believe anybody, even me most times, knows what I should do or what I need to do. I can almost always resist the DNA command to tell my children what they need to and should do.  Almost always.

Admittedly, power point presentations with bullet points are captivating.  Even better is the vocabulary that is forever evolving in the corporate section of the zoo. Where else can you hear “A measurable, fast-evolving and high-powered platform to incrementally adopt and escalate the paradigm”? Like you, I have no idea what that means. Not quite sure anybody does but, so what? Stick that on a power point slide with connecting football shapes and you are a frigging genius. Extra points for syllables and then “where has the day gone?” and cocktail time.

The true beauty of corporate world is the fact there is no real risk and you are not troubled with the outside world of having to do stuff. I mean anything that counts.  No payroll to meet, no rent to pay, no struggle at all really.  Everything has a downside though.  That downside to corporate world is the fact that your job and future are in the hands of people who are also in corporate world but are higher up in the tree. That risk is way underestimated by most everybody.  At this stage of the game I am seeing folks my age, 58 now, getting the sharpened end of the axe and they are more screwed than they realize. Who will hire them now? That’s what you call “welcome to Wal-Mart”.

Those folks very quickly find that dental insurance is almost a unicorn. Same with a lot of things.  What I’m saying is that, having sucked out your brain and best years, you are scrap to be thrown on the pile out back. Oh, sure, there is maybe some severance and the glib assurance that it’s for the best, beyond their control, market driven strategic defensive move and blah and blah.

This is a sub study of sociology.  The study of the how and why groups form around some economic activity and then quickly spiral out of control.  Big corporations, when they get to a certain size, (critical mass in corporate speak), seem to have enough inertia to somehow survive severe market downturns and, of course, any number of dumbass management moves. It is as if the laws of Newton and Quantum Mechanics are suspended and there is no way in hell it can be rationally explained or understood. Go ahead, try.

So, ignore this at your peril.  Guys (phrase I use to include everybody; bathroom confusion included), the time between age 27 and flexibility with no responsibilities for others and age 58 with kids to be educated and maybe parents to care for it is not 31 years. It is more like 25 days. I mean, boom, and you’re there. You can be downsized, laid off, fired, f@#ked over, whatever. Same result. Network, laptop at Starbucks and jobs.com. Thing is, 50 may be the new 40 and all, but in the corporately employed world, 50 is the new marked for the heap. Now, yes there are exceptions.  There are even urban myths of people finding themselves and going on to kick ass in something new and exciting.  These stories are in the same book about 20-year-old chicks wanting to bang you and having the six-pack belly by eating donuts in the right time window every day. Ain’t gonna’ happen.

Only thing to do is practice remaining calm while resisting the extreme urge to choke the living shit out of some asshole who tells you this is just the beginning of a new life.

Whatever happens, they can’t kill you and they can’t eat you.

Cheers!