Corporate America Strikes Again --OR-- Live Life Off The Wall

So today, I was in a meeting to discuss an ongoing proposed change to one of our Accounting processes. As I said in an earlier post, there are Accounting “laws” out there, which are there generally try to prevent revenue or profit from being overstated, which would then encourage potential investors from investing in a lemon, which keeps the financial world in a state of balance. Every public company then creates Accounting policies, which are intended to translate these laws to fit typical scenarios for the company. Then there are processes in place to either record and/or review transactions that do not violate policy.  And also as I wrote previously, Accounting is NOT math. It’s more like being a lawyer…applying Accounting law to a current situation using precedent and interpretation.

In this particular case, there is a specific policy around a specific set of services we sell, and the related process is having a negative effect on the financial reports of the division that is selling these services, so there has been a cross-departmental team that is reviewing the process to see if that process can be tweaked enough to record additional transactions, within policy, which would improve the financial performance of this division. There had been meetings over the past two months, and some progress had been made.

Yes, yes, I know…ho hum, yawn, blah blah blah (cue Mr. Lumberg’s monotone voice from Office Space…)  http://www.imdb.com/video/hulu/vi3529572377/

After today’s meeting, my manager (who is by far the best manager I’ve ever had…and I’ve had I think 22 managers in 13 years), my peer and I decided to call another peer in Finance. This person, whom I’ll call Steve, has been with the company over thirty years, is someone I’ve worked with for four of those years, and is one of my “Top 25 Respected” list. (On the flipside, I have a Top 10 Most Wanted List also, and then “a collection of jackasses”.) And not only do I have respect for this person in the workplace, I have a bigger respect for him outside as well. My first involvement with him, he jointly led a two-day workshop where we had lunch delivered each day. At the end of the first day, he asked me to help him clean up and load the leftovers to his car. It was his common practice to take these leftovers downtown to the local homeless shelter for their use. This, of course, speaks volumes.

So, we called Steve to coordinate pulling together some data for our next meeting, which took about ten minutes. After we finished that, for the next 20 minutes, as happens a lot in my realm of Corporate America, he started venting; a couple of comments of “can you believe…?” and “where are we headed…”, but this progressed to much worse. There’s a common scene in movies where a character is standing on top of a high ledge, distraught and ready to jump, and the cop or friend is standing, at a distance, gently trying to coax the person down by having them talk. The distraught character usually just rambles on, sadly, more to themselves than to anyone, questioning things and wistfully wishing things could be different and getting angry at how life has mistreated him and so on…and many times in the movies, the main character comes off the ledge and just collapses into an emotional release.

That’s what the last 15 minutes of this phone call was like, complete with the collapsing emotional release, where he basically quietly said he had to go and then hung up.  Throughout the conversation, he said several times to “not be surprised if I just walk out and not come back.”  It was probably one of the worst 5 moments in my career. The other four were:  when I got laid off from my first job in 1996, the first time it was announced the PA office I worked in was going to close in 2000 (where it did not occur), the second and final time it was announced the PA office I worked in was going to close in 2005 (where it did occur), and there was a time I had an employee of mine who had a breakdown in my office.

There is something inherently wrong, in my mind, in cases where average ordinary people go to work, try to complete a honest day’s work, try to make ends meet, and be brought to tears to the point of emotional breakdown. Or to be tossed out on the street, without warning, suddenly cast into a place where the ends are not meeting at all. It makes me ashamed and embarrassed to be a part of this world, and I work hard to be “in it but not of it.” More than that, it makes me angry and frustrated that this can happen, and the big wheel keeps going around and around.  That this behavior of just constantly adding pressure to someone to the point of breakdown is accepted. And for what? I joke that my job is really to make rich people richer…but it’s a sad joke. Like a sad clown. Ha, it’s funny, isn’t it? Right? Except in cases like this, it’s not funny. It’s not funny that I, and many others, are asked to do more and work more, and yet our paychecks are literally shrinking. Literally. My net pay has gone slightly down each year the past three years. OH and that doesn’t take into consideration that the price of EVERYTHING has gone up – and in some cases drastically.  

And the best part:  I’m supposed to be thankful that I have a job. Which, really I am. But I don’t want to hear that from one of the rich people that I’m working hard to make richer. Please, could you pimp slap me across the face a couple of times, because sometimes I feel like…no, I won’t go there.  :)

My peer was pretty shaken up by this.  She is a few years younger than me, and she said this was the worst thing she’s ever seen. And I had to put on  my “wise old man” hat (at the age of 38!!!), and keep her from heading up to the ledge,  And keep myself from heading up there too, like I almost did the last two paragraphs. I may be exaggerating that just a little, but what I told her is something I’ve learned (and have been taught) over the years. This job thing, this career thing, it’s a means to an end…but by no means should it be your end. We are all here in many cases because we need to work in order to be functional parts of society, to house ourselves and feed ourselves and do the things we feel we need to do and to do the things we want to do in life.  In life. Life outside of work. The important part of life. The real life. When you walk out that door at 5, or 6, or 7, you have to leave the stress of it all there. And if you can’t, because there are days where you can’t, there has to be an outlet, a place of stress release, whether it’s working out or zoning out in front of the TV or going home and hugging your kids or a spouse or calling a friend to talk or yell or pound a brew or two…or in my case, drive off into my element…you can’t let Corporate America consume you like a raw material.

We do the 9-5 in Corporate America, those of us who aren’t rich, to enjoy the nights and the weekends and family and friends.  So as songwriter Rod Temperton wrote for Quincy Jones, who asked a young Michael Jackson to sing, when he was still a young kid in the body of a barely 20-year old kid: 

So tonight

Gotta leave that nine to five upon the shelf

An' just enjoy yourself

Groove

Let the madness in the music get to you

Life ain't so bad at all

If you live it off the wall...