The American Corporation

The corporation demands the complete and unwavering loyalty of the employee. His life outside work is only a distraction; her family can never be allowed to get in the way of meeting an arbitrary, unreasonable, and insignificant deadline.

The corporate policies and procedures must be followed or Bad Things will happen. Sometimes Bad Things happen even if you do follow them, because they mixed you up with someone who didn’t or some other insignificant cog mistyped the information into The System.

No good deed is left unpunished. No amount of good you do will atone for one ounce of failure.

The rules change as you’re trying to figure out the old ones. Every time you get close to hitting a target, they move it or decide it wasn’t the right target.

And your unfaltering loyalty, your sacrifice of personal life and family, is rewarded with apathy, credit-stealing, oblivion, shrinking benefits, longer hours, less time off, and a layoff if you are too close to retirement.

awc 2004-06-30 00:42