The Cynic Express(ed) 2.22: An Employee Goes Dilbertal

     Well, friends, I have recently celebrated my first anniversary in the white collar world and have survived with roughly sixty percent of my sanity reserves remaining. In this wacky, wacky world of workplace casual and casual casual that comprises the information technology neo-corporate world, my eyes have opened to the fact that it really is like Scott Adams says, except slightly less amusing and a tad more malevolent, or perhaps just reflective of the human condition more than the funny papers.

     A few of the things struck discords in me, and I thought I would catharsis them all over you. These are the things that irk me in the workaday world where the hands stay clean:

     Cross-corridor conferences. I don't know what instinct prompts two people in the hall to put their backs against opposite walls as they converse on the day's events or their latest projects, but I think we could all stand a little rebellion against it. I hate coming across two people engrossed in these chats. Should I feel like I am intruding as I break their line of sight and brush between them? After all, they typically, like people in the stands at a hockey game, let me know with stiffening body language what an intrusion and inconvenience into their world I am. Excuse me, but I am using this hallway or gerbil tunnel among the warren of cubicles as the Architect intended it, as an access way between distinct sections of the building, not as a corridoratory. The Architect also put places for conversations such as yours, namely everywhere else. It's not as though the impulse to put your backs to the wall when dealing with coworkers does any good; a proper coworker won't stab you in the back when you're talking to them.

     Cubicle confidential. By the same token, I would like to point out that cubicle walls, at three-quarters of an inch thick and almost seventy inches high, do not provide the best sound insulation. When a coworker is plotting his or her latest Machiavellian Office Morale coup, I'd rather be just as surprised as everyone else. Also, I do not care for the occasional slander that slithers through the porous fabric. I do not mind the personal phone calls or confessions, though; as a good cube dweller, with eyes going white from the fluorescent light, I have no life of my own and really need to hear your personal conversations with your children and lovers. I feel like I know them. Can I have a couple of pictures of them to hang on my cubicle wall, too?

     The Shareholders. Upper echelons of The Corporations tend to rationalize actions using The Shareholders much as convictionless politicians use The Children. Too often, especially in Information Technology, The Shareholders are day traders sitting around in their undershorts reading the Yahoo message boards and scanning for rumors with the word "Internet" in them. Personally, as a stock holder, I like companies that provide a steady growth and this weird thing called a dividend. I am pleased with profit, regardless of whether the company hits its numbers, which The Analysts, almost as important or maybe more important than The Shareholders, make up. When a company goes on a lark because the stock has dropped a point or because the stock has not doubled or split in the last thirty days or because The Analysts have downgraded the stock, upsetting the Daytraders, and cans three thousand people to "improve its Internet presence," count me out.

     Finally, Corporate Language. One further step from the Proto-Indo-European than English, Corporatese is a language developed very specifically with the thought of keeping people employed in the management seminar industry. I recently heard the word "Face Time" used seriously in a conversation, without the trace of irony or the smirk I would have used with it. When a Human Resources Acolyte told me that I was being "Separated" from my previous position, I had to ask him what he meant. After all, I was familiar with the terms "canned," "laid off," "fired," and even "RIFfed," but I had never taken a formal vow with The Company. It would be awful if the people in corporate America realized that these buzzwords all meant similar things, especially those paradigms that shape the management relations segment of the industry. If only they knew managers have to be accessible and underlings expect recognition and decent treatment for work given and dismissal and punishment for work promised but not given, whole publishing markets would evaporate.

     Perhaps I am just cynical, or maybe I just don't have what it takes to scale the corporate ladder or the scales to slither my way to the top. But give me another year.