Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Self-Muzzling



I have a million hilarious, sad, rage-inducing stories to tell about my former career, but if ever there was a time to keep my powder dry, this is it.
So here I am, a veteran Blogger with a head full of topics and the sense not to write about them just yet.
I'll have to keep things generic for now, m'kay?

As it turns out, I am not the corporate type.
Suiting up every morning at 7 a.m. and having to arrange my hair and make-up was bad enough, but folding my car into rush hour traffic and carrying around a briefcase in a 16-story office tower made me feel like I was miscast in a bad movie.
I was Vice President of Public Affairs.
That means I was supposed to do a lot of writing and schmoozing with outsiders, which suited me well.
What did not suit me were the constant staff meetings that seemed to be called for the sole purpose of letting the tiny little egotistical prick of a CEO sit at the head of the conference table and pretend to be running a business.
That, and a zillion redundant reports, reports about the reports, and reading others' reports consumed way too many hours per day.
At one point, weekly staff meetings on Mondays spun off into department meetings they spaced throughout the rest of the day.
So, we'd waste an hour or two in the morning meeting bragging to each other about what we were allegedly accomplishing, then we'd meet with the tiny CEO and his cronies later that day and rehash everything for another hour.
Sometimes he'd want a written report summarizing the meeting, then once that was handed to him, he'd ask what it was for.
Toward the end, we had an emergency, mandatory meeting where the COO laid out the new rules: No talking to each other about the business, no threatening each other and no sex talk.
Seriously, wouldn't those three forbidden topics make you want to ask everyone in sight exactly why those rules had to be made?

Ooops, I am getting a little beyond generic.
Never mind.

12 comments:

Dawn Fortune said...

Wow. I am so glad I am self-employed now. No shit. I word hard and bang my fingers on occasion, but I never have to deal with that stuff. And I never have to wear a skirt and heels.

Karen Zipdrive said...

Yep, well, I'm not going back to the corporate world.

Matthew Hubbard said...

Rules two and three are like, duh! You have to be professional at work.

But rule one seems counterproductive. Aren't meetings people getting together and talking about work?

Karen Zipdrive said...

Double duh! Can you imagine what must have led up to those rules?
Rule one was because they didn't want us comparing notes.
The word paranoia comes to mind.

Unknown said...

My last corporate job was pretty much like yours KZ...which is why I ran screaming out of San Diego and hooked up w/the ball n' chain in hicksville.

I might have a helluva lot less money, but I like myself a lot better.

lisahgolden said...

Well, I suppose this is why I stay where I am - not for profit, association management, five employees or less. The money ain't great, but if the sex talk gets too rowdy, we can do rock paper scissors to decide who gets put in the stocks for the hour.

I even wear pants most days.

Okay - I'm preparing a post begging people to do away with word verification and what do you know? My word verification here is - CUDDLE.

Suggestion? Taunt? Teaser? Appetizer?

Dr. Monkey Von Monkerstein said...

Thanks for reminding me how much I hated the coprorate life.

Anonymous said...

I never wanted to work for the corporate world because it was totally about the almighty dollar and screwed individuals. But sounds like Zip's corporate world was more like Kramer's pretend "job" where they had useless meetings, bogus reports and Kramer wore a suit and carried nothing but crackers in his briefcase.

Anonymous said...

if only managers, supervisors, and all those above them were forced to take competency tests instead of sleeping or blowing their way to the top.

Anonymous said...

BigSis nailed it; the whole office was like a pretend workplace.
They should have called it Vandalay Industries.

Unknown said...

I felt like I was cast in a bad movie in the corporate world now. I love working at home! But it's for a nonprofit and they still drive me nuts w/telephone meetings. Still, not nearly as bad. And it's for animal rights so...

I was stuck working for some of the country's biggest lawfirms in their IT depts. for 15 years. I am SOOOO glad I'm done with that.

Like you, I ain't goin' back.

I HATE MEETINGS!!! THEY ARE TIME SUCK AND NOTHING ELSE! OK, now I feel better.

Unknown said...

Um... the last word of my first sentence should be "too". WTH?