The Awkward Absurdity of Corporate Culture
by Daniel LonitaLink to article
As an Eastern European arriving in the United States initially for college, the corporate culture is even more inexplicable to me than to someone who lived in its presence from birth. A few years ago I had just a vague belief that “corporations are where the real economy and culture of America lies.” Right after college I started a job in a medium-sized corporation, and within weeks I was stunned by the abnormality of its culture.
The company should have been named “the cult of John” since it was a sycophantic cult devoted to its mythical founder. The ultra-energetic recruitment person stressed to me at the interview that “John is a genius” and my manager found endless ways to phrase his devotion to “the big man.” The pecking order was painfully enforced with condescending remarks from superiors to subordinates, and through testosterone-filled meetings among upper management, each eager to outdo his colleagues with obscenities and back-slapping in front of the father of us all, John.
Work, which should have been plentiful, was forgotten under political moves and revolting inefficiency. My manager was “protecting us” from a higher-level manager who promised to “make our life hell.” Why, and how, remains a mystery. An employee from a different department triggered a small-scale war by asking for my help. The manager took each of his team to his office and individually shouted them into promising “never to help anyone without his consent.” I quit after realizing that the corporation is a complex game I was not prepared for.
I am young and I moved on, but the corporate world still lingers with me as an awkward absurdity. Inside windowless cubicles, fear, sycophantism, hypocrisy and selfishness reign free, leaving people both exhausted and humiliated. I find it perplexing that in a nation that prides itself on dignity and liberty, some employees let such abuses go on day by day in a “business as usual” manner. I kept hearing “that’s how managers are, you’ve got to let that insult pass by you” or “you need to pick your battles.” Most upsetting, it seems that almost nobody tries to keep a cool head when judging corporate culture. The problem is not so much something you can understand by looking at facts and figures, but by looking at the monsters the corporation creates out of its employees. And in the college medium, opinions are split between the “lefties,” continuously demonizing corporations to a caricature, and the “econ” students who have no qualms and expect to pick up the corporate culture “on the fly” in internships and jobs.
The resemblance of corporate culture with high-communism is shocking. Communism too was based on fear, hypocrisy, double-talk and many lies. The important communist bureaucrats were masters at speaking with a “wooden tongue” — a style of talking that had no connection with the reality of governing. They were diabolically able to wrap very pragmatic actions in completely irrelevant Marxist-Leninist talk. The major difference from the corporation is that the generations formed in communist times are extremely cynical and bitter, while corporate U.S. keeps pushing credulity, self-blame and “a positive attitude.” Just like communism, the corporate workplace culture refuses to be aware of itself. It wraps a simple and pragmatic set of actions with a complex and irrelevant set of behaviors and justifications, all the while somehow mysteriously passing on the management wisdom over the years.
I have a message to add to my complaints: if you have to work in such a medium, always try to understand what is really happening around you. It is better to be aware of an unpleasant reality than to let your gullibility and insecurities make a victim of you. Be cynical and allow yourself to see through greed, backstabbing, abuse and absurd speeches. Try to connect and communicate with people you can trust. Think scientifically — science made the world evolve; cults always backfired.
June 26th, 2007 at 1:00 pm
Daniel, You triggered a few musings:
It occurs to me that your boss might have had psychopathic tendencies. The way he wanted to control your contacts with other employees is a red flag to me.
The management style now in vogue seems to me to more closely resemble totalitarian dictatorship.
With regard to internal economics, however, corporations have always operated in a manner similar to communism, which makes their genuflections to “free enterprise” seem rather rehearsed.
June 26th, 2007 at 1:28 pm
Daniel’s advice in his last paragraph is sound for every aspect of society. I’d say be skeptical rather than cynical, but the point is nearly the same — don’t “drink the KoolAid” or lose yourself in slavery to somebody else’s vision of their dream. Keep your own dreams alive. Work is just a place you have sold 40 hours a week to. If your own dream happens to be one that can turn a profit, start your own company and drink your own KoolAid.
June 26th, 2007 at 5:26 pm
All of what you write is true and many of us have experienced the same or worse corporate conditions.
However, the chances of finding people you can trust is about the same of winning the lottery.
People, at least in this country, no longer have a sense of community be it at home or at work. Neigbors live next door to each other for years and never cross each others thresholds.
Colleagues eye each other suspiciously, each vying for the next wrung up on the corporate ladder and each willing to do anything to beat the other guy.
It’s wrong, it’s degrading and it’s the way it is.
June 29th, 2007 at 11:05 am
Years ago, they told me in Aerospace, and
I guess in other things also, there are two
groups of workers. Those that do all kinds of
things and work hard. The other group does not
work so hard, but somehow gets by. When things
are hot, both groups are in good shape. When
things slow down, the first group is in
trouble, there is nothing for them to do.
The second group is OK, they don’t do anything
anyway. I spent fourty years in Aerospace, and
know it is true!!!
June 29th, 2007 at 10:19 pm
Daniel,
I agree with you whole-heartedly in reference to the corporate culture. One day you are getting praises and bonuses….and the next you are getting backstabbed and “set-up” by those who want to climb “just one more step on the ladder.” I’m working on forming my own home-based Commerical Real Estate Company…I’ve had enough.
Thanks for sharing.
July 19th, 2007 at 11:13 am
Dan,
Great post. I am American-born and raised yet I have no clue how to function within today’s corporation. As successful as I have been it has mainly been from luck and the graciousness of a few good people I have worked with/around. I know that it is luck that I stumbled into these people and nothing else.
The corporations I have worked for and their so-called cultures are in no way linked to my reality. To actually use the word “culture” to describe these strange groupings of people places humanity back about 10,000 years. Put another way, I don’t spend one iota of my time being racist, sexist, homophobic, a liar, thief, nor simply trying to deceive others in order to get what I want (not need, but want, a key concept here). Yet I have witnessed these attributes as the daily way of life from CEO on down at these corporations I have worked for.
I am working on my own business venture and will be self-employed asap and never look back. Best of luck to you as well…..
July 23rd, 2007 at 11:35 am
Sounds like a bad company that will do poorly over time. It is a good thing you had a choice to leave it — which most citizens of “high-communism” did not.
What you describe has nothing to do with “corporate culture” in America, and everything to do with one company’s poor management. Luckily, you have the option of starting your own company and treating your employees how you wish you had been treated.
July 29th, 2007 at 12:07 pm
I don’t think the original essay overstated the problem. My observation is that corporate culture changed after about 1980. Companies went from working to accomplish something to being clubs of like minds who did work when it fit into the daily schedule and when there was a panic. Many panics were created by bored managers.
There were lots of psychopaths in the companies I worked for.
August 1st, 2007 at 6:39 pm
I’ve worked in corporations most of my life. Yes, I had all of the same complaints. The boring meetings, Friday cookout day, etc.
But now I’m in a small Mom/Pop company, and I WISH I were back in corporate America - for all it’s faults.
I’m dealing with all the corporate BS WITHOUT benefits: decent pay, time off, ins., etc.
Every one of you that says you are going to start your own business, Good for You! But eventually, if you’re successful, you’ll have to hire people.
How will you treat your employees?
September 7th, 2007 at 1:17 pm
I grew up with discussions at the dinner table with my executive father talking about the ideocies of his business life. It’s no wonder I turned out to be an artiste. But the climate changed even for him at the end of his career then the arrogant MBA know-nothings rose to power. They believed only in short-term profits and spreadsheet numbers and succeeded in driving a very profitable company my father and a colleague had built up from scratch into the ground in less than 5 years! (Because they knew only about crunching numbers, not business!) I think it’s a metaphor for our times.
November 7th, 2007 at 5:59 am
I am not an American. I have, however, a significant amount of experience working around the world in different organisations and it is refreshing to see that others like me have had the same experience. In addition to the above comments I would like to add that my experience has been one of complete disappointment with the abilities and professionalism of, specifically, CEOs. I have found that politics stems directly from their inability to do their job. So, as they become more and more incompetent the politics climbs and so does the bullying and toadying. My belief is that the average business can be viewed as a large pile of excrement with the biggest, most incompetent maggots at the very top.
I feel universities are partly responsible for this as they teach and foster a “way of working” that is at complete odds to actual corporate reality. People are employed based upon their qualifications not on their ability and my experience has been that there is a significatn gap between qualifications and ability. And until this addressed we will always see the scum rise to the top.