- Not so long ago, I worked for a corporation. I had a
title, an expense account, and traveled extensively in the US of A. I was
a strange duck as far as corporate entities go, I was a Manager of Applications
Development -- I invented new products and systems for an aerospace corporation.
Yes, I was a modern-day corporate inventor.
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- My hiring interview had been conducted in Atlanta, a
location which financially agreed to be somewhat central to my ability
to pay the airfare. After an hour interview, I was hired on the spot. The
corporation and I parted company with the understanding we'd stay in touch
by check.
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- However, the heart of this tale is not found in what
I did for that corporation, it's about the corporate culture I found myself
immersed in.
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- California, or Caw-li-faw-nya as its new governor says,
was home to the corporation that hired me. Ontario, Canada was my home.
This would make for a rather lengthy commute.
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- Three bank-account-bulging months passed without another
word from the corporation, nothing! Oh, yes, I'd receive the odd inter-office
memo informing me who'd left the company, who'd been hired in their stead,
and I was even placed on the mailing list for the corporate newsletter.
Was I living in a bubble?
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- If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
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- In a moment of consummate stupidity I decided to call
head office to see what was up. "Thank you for calling blah Corporation."
Answered the female voice. She sounded proficient - almost congenial. "How
may I direct your call?" Indeed, how could she direct my call? I only
knew one person by their first name, the general manager, Frank (not his
real name), a friendly and approachable fellow. Our last conversation had
occurred exactly 3 months, 4 days, and 3 hours, previous. "May I speak
with Frank please?" She immediately asked another question. "May
I say who's calling?" Apparently my answer to her question, "It's
Lea MacDonald," released her from her fiduciary duty as a shield,
a stalwart beacon of security whose sole function was to shine the light
of scrutiny on hapless callers seeking Frank's time. "Just a moment,
please." With that I was immediately incarcerated in Muzak jail, a
place that plays near-music, the soya of sound.
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- "This is Frank." His comment startled me. I
snapped back from an out-of-body experience -- I was losing the will to
live -- provoked by Much Muzak. "Hello Frank. This is Lea." I
answered. "Lea?" He asked, with recognizable uncertainty in his
voice. "Yes, Lea MacDonald. I was hired by you 3 months ago in Atlanta.
You know, at the Weston Peach Tree Plaza?" I answered in a voice pleading
that he recall the meeting. Frank erupted in a volcanic explosion of laughter.
"Of course, I remember you Lea. I'm just messing with you. How have
you been?" It's possible another person might have been content to
suckle at the corporate chest unnoticed. Not me. Three months of being
paid for doing nothing was all I could stand. After exchanging niceties,
I revealed the unthinkable reason for my call... I wanted to work.
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- Ask and ye shall receive.
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- Within days I found myself at headquarters passionately
pitching ideas I'd pecked away at over the previous 3 months. It hadn't
been work, I loved what I did. Some of the ideas flew while others plummeted
straight to earth in a fireball of indifference sparked by personal agendas.
It became evident that some people at head office were made uncomfortable
by new innovations that required their support by assuming the accompanying
workload associated with new product development. In short, a work-producing
project that can't immediately be shuffled to the desk of a subordinate
gets a two-thumbs down. This revelation is just as true as it is cynical.
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- We need to have meetings.
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- The most misunderstood corporate ritual of all is the
meeting. This medieval practice summons baggy-eyed, ashen-faced cadave-
um, managers to a wooden table subjecting them to hours of enthusiastic,
REM-arresting questions put to them by a senior executive: "Can we
do this? What's the time-line for return on investment? Cost of a prototype?
Do we have proprietary rights, you know, can we get a patent? On that return
on investment, what's our divisional contribution to margin? . . . just
thumb-nail it. What's our legal exposure from a liability perspective?
Boilerplate it for me. Can someone give me a cost on collateral support
pieces?" Such corporate speak is enough to give the Lingo Czar nightmares.
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- And so it went, year after year, we had meetings to set
meetings, meetings to review meetings, meetings to set meetings to review
reasons for missing meeting meetings. Madness became infectious. Death
by Power Point was compulsory.
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- During one meeting I found myself nodding off because
of jet-lag suffered from arriving at head quarters 6 hours before. A canceled
flight had been the culprit. In a legendary effort to dodge unavoidable
questions, looks that scanned my mental sobriety, and just flat-out escape
the insanity if only for a few seconds, I doodled two bright and open eyes
on a piece of notepaper then licked and stuck them inside of my glasses.
I replaced my glasses and settled back in the chair.
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- I had planned on staying with the corporation for 7 years,
just long enough to become fully-vested in their retirement program. Being
an over-achiever has its problems though, I stayed for 9 years 9 months;
right up to the point they asked me to move from Canada to Caw-li-faw-nya.
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- I entered the corporation to make a difference, I could
not. I left the corporation to make a difference, I have. I became a firefighter.
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