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First you say (or agree) that corporations and their workers are robotic drones, doing the same thing without thinking, staying in that rut without thinking about how to do things different or better. Well obviously your company wants to change, and if they ask their current employees--those robots you complain about--they won't get anything but robotic repetitive answers. The only way for a company to not repeat the corporate drone cycle is to bring in outside perspectives. And yet you complain about this too.
And from your own description you are part of that middle management inertia. Of course you think you're special and different from all the rest but you're just the same. You are in your rut, with your routine sales pitch, even though clearly management wants a different type of client. But instead of thinking of how you should do things differently, you just continue along in your rut and then complain that its management's fault that your rut doesn't fit their changing business model. You ARE corporate america. Stop deluding yourself that you are any different.
Maybe the better definition of a corporate drone is people who complain about everything, simply for the sake of complaining.
Really why should the top have to ask anyone what's going on? They shouldn't be so clueless in the first place. If they knew what they were doing, they wouldn't need high dollar consultants, and they wouldn't need to ask their staff.
Some corporations are doing relatively okay *in spite of* top management because the people just keep plugging away, you have people at the front lines who really do care - and they keep it going.
One of the worst corporate jobs I have heard of is Yahoo. I had a friend who worked there as a long term temp to hire( she actually told them no thanks).
It was mainly younger people in their 20s and you could dress casual everyday so it made it see like it was laid back....LOL.
It was far from laid back, after a meeting one time she stopped off at the restroom, that was a no-no.
Since it was a call center environment they had various codes for anytime you were not receiving calls. She was told she was on the code for meeting and should have gone back to her work station, and signed back in, then sign out on the code for bathroom break....LOL.
She said she was right by the restroom and it would have taken longer to walk back to her work station and do all that then just use the restroom.
She was in her 40s and quit...LOL....they treated their employees like robots and were always looking for something wrong.
Maybe if you're in your 20s you think that is the norm.
I've been interviewing a lot and I've been feeling "out of place" during the interviews, I could not put my finger on it but it dawned on me today.......the environments and people are very uptight and are like robots.
Well the impression from interviewing will likley be vastly different than actually working there a while and getting to know people. In an interview or a tour, everyone is going to be on their best, professional behavior - which may not be fully reflective of how these people act the other 98% of the time on the job.
Well the impression from interviewing will likley be vastly different than actually working there a while and getting to know people. In an interview or a tour, everyone is going to be on their best, professional behavior - which may not be fully reflective of how these people act the other 98% of the time on the job.
I'm on board with the original quote. While I agree that the interview environment will not be fully reflective of the general work environment, there is a lot that can be discerned from the interview.
Now, I know my comments to follow with make some people flame, but I find that a lack of diversity (and that can mean a lot of different things - not just the kneejerk notions about what it means) can contribute to uptight work environments. However, there is a counter-reality this this assertion. Greater diversity can also bring about subversive factors into a workplace and somtimes those realities can co-exist in a very unsettling, confusing way. None of this is an endorsement of "diversity" - that's a topic in and of itself, but I just suggest that it can be a factor.
I am in my first big corporate office job - most of my job experience is in small and mid sized businesses - and what I see in "corporate America" is a lot of fear and paranoia on the parts of the employees. People are afraid to make decisions or rock the boat. The CYA'ing is over the top. People are defensive.
I've been in the corporate world for about five years and I'm about ready to throw in the towel and pursue something else for this very reason. Too bad I didn't figure it out before spending $30k on an accounting degree.
Everyone is afraid of their own shadow, afraid of management- the over the top fake politeness, everyone is walking on eggshells around each other. Just a bunch of stressed out, paranoid people who are selfish, scared, lack empathy, all mixed in with frequent rudeness.
It's driving me nuts.
I'm considering truck driving or maybe joining the Coast Guard or Navy to get away from this living hell. The teaching English overseas thing is appealing as well, but I've read some horror stories and hear that most of them get paid squat. Any of these other options is a crap shoot, but what isn't nowadays? I may just pick something and hope for the best.
I realized it long ago. That's why I want out of the rat race. It's only going to get more repulsive too, as it's becoming more and more competitive. Technology has also made the corporate world more faceless. In our office, we sit in cubicles and communicate via IM. I was even reprimanded via IM by my spineless line manager. I was also reprimanded for expressing free thought and talking about Romans and Celts at the banal Christmas lunch, while everyone else was being fake and talking about their kids, Snotleigh and Bratleigh and their boring Christmas plans. It's also become far more "let's throw Bob under the bus" for the slightest thing, rather than "let's work with Bob as a team and help fix the problem".
I was in a small company and due to financial problems, we merged with a company that has over 4x as many employees.
I still do essentially the same job, but just in a very different environment and culture.
The differences are striking.
In the smaller company, people tended to be knowledgeable about things that were not their direct responsibility. In the new one, you ask someone a question and they say, "sorry, not my department."
In the smaller, there was a culture of collaboration and openness. Pretty much anyone could pitch ideas for how to change or improve things and upper management would be willing to listen and often implement ideas that had merit.
In the larger, its a very rigid structure. Any idea has to be approved by 3 or 4 levels above and most new ideas are just rejected out right. Lots of reinventing the wheel, over and over and over again. Poor communication. One group has no idea what another group is doing. Everything takes forever to accomplish. Because everyone focuses on his or her own tasks so exclusively, creative thinking can't be used to solve problems.
I'm stuck here for my own reasons....its definitely not a culture I would choose to be in if I could help it.
And another thing I've noticed with large corporations, they will pay a consulting firm $2.5 millon to tell them what to do but they won't ask the front line (who would be more than happy to answer the same damn questions for FREE).................????????????? Go figure !!!
Sounds exactly like the education field.
And the front line actually has realistic solutions that will work.
I realized it long ago. That's why I want out of the rat race. It's only going to get more repulsive too, as it's becoming more and more competitive. Technology has also made the corporate world more faceless. In our office, we sit in cubicles and communicate via IM. I was even reprimanded via IM by my spineless line manager. I was also reprimanded for expressing free thought and talking about Romans and Celts at the banal Christmas lunch, while everyone else was being fake and talking about their kids, Snotleigh and Bratleigh and their boring Christmas plans. It's also become far more "let's throw Bob under the bus" for the slightest thing, rather than "let's work with Bob as a team and help fix the problem".
*vomits* @ corporate America.
Oh, a thousand rep points for the bolded.
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