Metro Pulse/Yikes!/Feeding the Corporate Beast

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Employees, eat your hearts out

by V. Lorne Hopp

I used to think employee input was important to my company. So I used to pay close attention at company meetings. I used to raise my hand and speak my mind. I used to take voluminous notes. But I used to be very, very stupid.

While I was taking notes and asking carefully considered questions and taking the whole process very, very seriously (remember, I was very, very stupid), the corporation went about its business, which is eating up employees' talents, time, and energy, and excreting our residue when we're used up. All my friends long ago were "downsized" into the Great Toilet Bowl of Despair. Finally, my time came. I, too, have been extruded from the corporate orifice, because the corporation finished absorbing my essence: my creativity, my passion, gone, all sucked out. There's nothing left of me. Except sarcasm. I seem to be about 99 percent sarcasm now. Perhaps sarcasm is a byproduct of the corporation's digestive system?

Whatever the case, right to the end, I still took notes at company meetings. They looked like this: "needless to say—9, far and away—4, up a creek—7, long and short—10, tide will turn—5," etc., etc. These were some of the favorite phrases of the COO ("Chief Orifice Opener"). Whenever we had a meeting, I diligently recorded the number of times he used clichés or filler phrases. As you can tell, he did. A lot. In fact, I finally realized he wasn't really saying anything at all. He just spewed pat phrases to numb everyone into unconsciousness, so he could suck out more of our life essence while we were catatonic.

Of course, it wasn't just the COOcoo. (Yes, I know it's childish to make silly insults out of "COO"; no, I will not stop doing it. I'm peeved.)

I worked with engineers, which is techno-speak for "nerds." Enginerds have a pack mentality, and their tongues loll out and they begin to pant and woof uncontrollably when they start rooting in minutia and insignificant details that would cause violent seizures in humans. (Am I being too hard on engineers? Perhaps it wasn't their basic engineerness, but rather, feeding at the corporate trough for too long that caused this behavior? Possibly, but it doesn't matter; I'm going to insult them anyway. I'm peeved, remember?)

For example, the COOcoonut started one meeting by telling us that our insurance company had just made a deal with some travel agency, and anybody traveling should use that agency. If you didn't use that agency, you needed to own an insurance company and make sure you had comprehensive, regular bowel movements. Or something like that. I checked my notes, but all they say is "rock the boat—8, crux of the matter—15, by and large—10, kind of thing—4."

Anyway, it was straightforward information that should have taken no more than a minute to say. The COOcooforcoocoopuffs droned on about it for 20 minutes! He talked about travel insurance. He talked about his personal travel preferences. He talked about the differences between business and leisure travel. He talked about indemnity. For all I know, he may have launched into Patrick Henry's famous "Give me Liberty Mutual Insurance or give me death!" speech. I had my fingers stuck in my ears up to my elbows by the time he wound down.

But that wasn't the end. The engineers, who have a nose for this sort of thing, sniffed out trivia that had not been delved into. One raised its paw and yapped, "Now, COO, I have my insurance card right here, which, as I recall, took seven months after our last buy-out for me to get, and then it had my middle name spelled wrong so I had to send it back, and then it got buried in my mail, plus, I spilled chili on it—I love Wendy's chili!—so it got smudged and it smells like onions, but it doesn't say anything about using that agency. So, my question is, can I get someone to clean up the chili? I'd do it myself, but I'm overqualified."

This could have been answered any number of conventional, non-time-consuming ways: "Yes." "No." "I don't know." "Shut up, you're an idiot." But what happened was that a debate ensued. Seriously. After the topic was brought up, another engineer howled that its card said something different. How could that be? The pack began slobbering and salivating. Each engineer now dug friskily into its wallet. Why did some insurance cards say this, but others, that? Were some members of the pack being given preferential treatment? Had different cards been given out at different times? Which was correct? As engineers do when trying to solve a dilemma, they all began running in circles and sniffing each others' butts. Wait, my mistake; that's the marketing department.

I'm sure you are on the edge of your seat, anxiously wanting—no, needing to know how the problem of the differing insurance cards was finally solved. The suspense was gripping—gripping, I tell you! But I can't tell you is how it was resolved, because I went out for a beer. What the heck, the day was shot anyway. Probably, what they did was appoint a committee to develop a process to design new cards. That's what corporations do.

Of course, none of this is relevant to my original point, which was that corporations drain the life out of people faster than Dracula ever did. How do they do it? By driving employees insane by wasting their time with completely irrelevant crap...as I've just done to you, hah, hah! Hey, sorry, but even extruded ex-employees have to eat. So welcome to my corporate body. Gee, your head tastes terrific!