#corporate culture

[prokopetz]

Conventional wisdom is that the best route to girlbosshood is to start out as a girlintern and work one's way up as a girlassociate, girlmanager, and vice-girlboss before finally becoming a girlboss proper. In practice, however, internal promotion within the upper girlranks is limited, and most girlbosses enter the role directly via external hiring, usually due to pre-existing girlconnections. A more fruitful approach is often to enter the industry as an independent girlconsultant and keep an eye out for girlnetworking opportunities.

[zzzzzestforlife]

working girl diaries // habits to maintain sanity ✒️🖤

we have a saying in our department, "if one person succeeds, it's the success of the team, and if one person fails, it's the failure of the team." that's the root of no-blame culture that allows everyone to grow and learn, keeps toxicity and burnout-inducing stress at bay, and fosters an attitude of having each other's backs. whenever i made a mistake, i used to be very hard on myself, which makes me much less productive. over the years and with amazingly supportive mentoring from my former manager, i learned to put my mistakes in context to not only improve, but also move forward. so today i felt especially frustrated at a current superior's hypocritical way of handling a situation that goes against all of the above. i'm also frustrated with myself for allowing their attitude to get to me and falling back into my old, counter-productive ways. i'm trying not to let it weigh me down anymore.

❤️ journalled about The Drama™️ at work

🥰 workout with @studentbyday

🎧 当我飞奔向你 (Chinese comprehensible input, but also this is my new comfort show)

📚 read a chapter of Everyone In My Family Has Killed Someone

🥰 went for a walk

📝 Chinese lessons (2x) for the dopamine hit

💌: i really hope there isn't any more drama since i have to start prepping for final exams soon (not to mention actually taking them 💀) if there is... well, i suppose i'll just have to deal with it 🙃

[enigmasandepiphanies]

career this, corporate culture that, please stfu and come watch the meteor shower with me

[copperbadge]

Every so often I research a company where I reach their website and go “Oh, you’re going to be a pain in my ass.” Often it’s just that these companies are so niche they don’t feel the need to explain what it is they actually do, since anyone doing business with them already knows and nobody outside of that niche really needs to know or would understand completely without lengthy explanation. 

Rarely have I gone to an “about us” page, knowing I likely won’t understand anything About Them, and been faced with such an imposing and frankly terrifying opening line. 

[ID: A screencap from a corporate “About Us” page, which shows the opening line of the page to be “Your car. Your smartphone. Your wrist. Your heart. Even outer space.”]

[whatacaitastrophe]

detouring a little bit from my usual content (okay, a lot), but all i've been able to think about for the last week is the fact that i spent the last six months getting absolutely gaslit into thinking i’m fucking terrible at a career i’ve otherwise excelled at, and there’s a pretty good chance someone else needs to hear this too:

crying at work is not normal.

going to bed on sunday evenings dreading monday morning is not normal.

being expected to be on call and available 24/7 for a job that DOES NOT require you to be on call is not normal.

you are not lazy, or a bad employee, or a bad coworker because you didn’t take your work laptop with you on vacation, and being made to feel guilty about being unavailable whilst on vacation is not normal.

being made to feel guilty about how much higher your salary is than your less experienced coworkers, and how unfair it is that they make less than you, when you make a mistake is not normal.

being expected to be in a leadership position when that isn’t in your job description, and without the title and the salary to go with it, is not normal.

being expected to understand the scope of a job and to perform that job successfully when you don’t have all the tools (training, a full list of tasks you are supposed to be performing), despite repeatedly asking for the tools, is not normal.

being blamed and called lazy because others are “doing your job for you” when your BOSS was the one who asked them to do tasks that should have been assigned to you, is not normal.

also, if you find yourself sitting at your desk with nothing to do, and everyone else is complaining about how busy they are, chances are your boss is delegating your work to someone else instead of you, and that's not normal-- ESPECIALLY if you ask your boss if they have anything they need you to work on and they say "no."

if a company doesn't have a local HR person, and HR has absolutely NO IDEA why you got let go / what your "performance issues" were that led to you being let go, because they were not looped in until your boss emailed them to tell them you were being let go? that is NOT. NORMAL.

if any of the above has happened to you at work, RUN. run as fast as you fucking can.

[tenaciousgay]

Hot take:

I think CVs/Resumes are incredibly dehumanising as a concept. Describe yourself like a video game npc using specific language which makes you sound like a non entity? It is all part of the act of begging for a job, the pomp and circumstance that makes businesses feel better I guess. Let us not forget about the lying too. The lying that goes into making a CV/Resume is insane. All to make you more employable apparently. Yet you will still be rejected regardless of experience in whatever field you are applying to or lack thereof.

Can corporate culture just die already. I am sick of it.

[hobohobgoblim]

3 years ago I put in a formal complaint about a mandatory staff lecture by a pseudoscience, ableism, toxic-positivity spewing grifter who literally tried to tell us that striking silly poses and jumping up and down shouting "yes" cures depression, anxiety disorder, and reduces chronic illness symptoms. At the time I was recovering from a spinal injury and was in no shape for jumping up and down but he literally bullied me into it.

Showed up for a department meeting this morning and it's the same asshole spewing the same bullshit.

[theresnosafeharbor4myships]

To help gauge what you're up against, look at the way management models various behaviors around time off, sick time, after-hours emails, and integrity. If the exec team is still Slacking and emailing from their Mexican villas or while out sick with the flu, it's going to be much harder for you to set a boundary around your time off. That kind of culture comes from the top down, and even though your company might say it values employees' work/life balance, the actions of those in charge speak louder than their words. -from The Book of Boundaries, by Melissa Urban

[sweaterkittensahoy]

(I read the article, and points for the headline being pretty accurate)

Important to note, "disagree and commit" is an Amazon core value. The idea is that, even if you don't think an idea is the best way forward, if it's what's decided, you commit to doing your best with the idea.

As a basic rule of work, I think it's a good one.

But this fucker is standing here saying "I have no proof being in the office will make things better, but our employees should come back because I say so" while then saying, "And employees should do it because we have a core belief about it being okay to disagree and do the work."

Dude has clearly not considered that maybe HE should be the one to disagree and commit NOT his employees. The employees have made it clear what THEY want to do and how THEY want to move forward, and he isn't fucking listening OR standing by the core value he's trying to use to guilt people back into the office.

Executives who swear disagreement is core but refuse to believe their position can be disagreed with are a fucking problem.

[4setsofcorsets]

Just asked my deescalation trainer at work what to do in the “homphobe yelling about queer books” scenario if all the managers present are visibly queer and the customer therefore won’t take us seriously. He said to call the police. I don’t think this man has a very accurate understanding of the state of the world

[spaceshipsandpurpledrank]

Kate an opp

[art-is-in-the-detail]

So someone at the office accidentally send an email to the whole institution, followed promptly by an apology and an advice to just ignor it. Now everyone is answering the mail, saying it was wrongly send to them and the will ignoriert it, like the original sender needs to know exactly who it was send to.

And every email is worded more and more elaborate and ridiculous. We are currently at 12 answers that all say the same in different and more and more confusing words.

And I could just ignore those mails, but i read them and i am delighted by each one and the ridiculous self-importance of all those people.

[the-font-bandit]

On the Poison of "Corporate Culture"

So.

Back when I was working a corporate job with a Fortune 500 company.

I worked in the printing and marketing department, doing graphic design.

Every year, there were these goal-setting and achievement initiatives. In January, you'd set business-related goals. In December, you were analyzed on how well you'd met said goals, and given a raise (or not) accordingly.

I wanted to be the best at my job (design, marketing, print) as possible. I set goals to learn the latest software, to be up on design trends.

Once, one of my goals was taking two semesters of ASL classes to better communicate with a Deaf coworker.

Those all ranked lower than management training.

Every year, in evaluations, I was asked if I had ambitions for management. Every year, I said no. I'm not made for leadership, but I'm DAMN fast and pretty friggin good at design work. And happy to do so.

Every year, I got That Look™️ when I said I just wanted to remain in my position and do it as best as I could.

Corporate culture is broken.

I was penalized for wanting to do the thing I was best at, rather than moving into management.

We now prioritize The Hustle over people doing skilled labor (yes, this means all labor, there is no unskilled labor) well.

I hate it.

[meanypunches]

Below is a piece I’d written for a compliance industry blog but it was perhaps too close to the edge for ‘the office’. It relates to horror and modern society though perhaps not an exact match here. Still I include it as I would like to touch on issues of mundane horror, or the horror of everyday life, as perhaps Thomas Ligotti does with his short stories, though I am not nearly so glamorous. Still we all feel a certain sense of the uncanny in the everyday, the unity of the paradox as Luhmann says, so here you go, a little food for chit chat around the water cooler—

The importance of work-life balance:

‘Bad apples’ are out of fashion. Still, some studies estimate 3.5% of business executives exhibit ‘psychopathic characteristics’ (as opposed to 1% of the general population). Ironically those same executives may be the most exciting leaders.

Certainly, in an overtly corrupt environment it is much easier for ‘bad apples’ to conspire. Plus, ‘good apples’ are less likely to blow the whistle. With the idea of compliance culture there is the comforting illusion of control.

Psychopaths are unpredictable. Yet, some suggest they play an outsized role in societal dysfunction or political terror. Some hint that psychopaths could be the key to understanding modern society. The quintessential psychopath is often thought of as the serial killer, but this is misleading. Fears about psychopaths, ‘neckties, contracts’ and lawsuits are all modern fears.

In The Social Network, director David Fincher relates the harrowing tale of Mark Zuckerberg, a less murderous if still cutthroat H. H. Holmes for the Information Age.

In another Fincher film, the killer asks his helpless victim: “Why don’t people trust their instincts? They sense something is wrong. Someone is walking too close behind them. You knew something was wrong. But you came back into the house. Did I force you? Did I drag you in? No. All I had to do was offer you a drink. It’s hard to believe that fear of offending can be stronger than the fear of pain, but you know what? It is . . .” – perhaps worth thinking about in the context of society and ‘compliance culture’.

Tellingly in The Social Network, as Zuckerberg’s star is on the rise he meets again the young woman who first rejected him and sparked his digital ire. He asks to speak with her alone, but she refuses – “I was nice to you, don’t torture me for it,” she says.

The Social Network is a modern folk tale, but from the wolf’s perspective, about the dangerous collapse of the public/private distinction. The serial killer as ‘unsub’ similarly reflects the disintegration of the individual subject from the private into the statistical public sphere. Sean Parker in The Social Network warns the younger Zuckerberg, “Whatever it is that’s gonna trip you up you’ve done already. Private behavior is a relic of a time gone by.”

The family too is a relic some would say, a social network that lends itself to corruption, specifically kleptocracy but also in this context the childhood abuse that may contribute to a psychopathic personality. In contrast to the family we have the corporation – which some fear could eclipse even the state. Like the serial killer, and notwithstanding corporate social responsibility, the corporation remains a ‘person’ without a conscience.

One can perhaps then see the risk of a collapse between public/private, work and life. To illustrate further, Brandon Cronenberg’s ultra-violent (à la the Brothers Grimm perhaps) Possessor presents the case for such a dystopia, wherein family life itself is fatally erased, to be replaced entirely by the corporation, which finally renders corruption and society indistinguishable.

[360degreesasthecrowflies]

Some thoughts on corporate teambuilding events, capitalism & boomer-vision

I had my first 'teambuilding conference' at work yesterday and it was such an interesting thing to be in the room for. I might write something longer about it at some point but a few key things that stood out right away:

These kinds of events feel very much like the brainchild of boomers and still taking that work ethic/approach to work as a) absolutely universal across the organisation as a norm - newsflash they very much are NOT - and b) absolutely natural, obvious, default. We had roughly two hours on the history of the organisation and 'what's happened in the four years since you were all last here, and what we expect to see in the next five years when we do another one of these' - as if a majority of the people in the room have been there for so long AND expect to be in the same job, or at least in similar roles, for life. But interestingly, obviously enough people on the organising committee or in the room DID feel that that was realistic, and something that we would actually be invested in learning more about. The thing is, I do care about my job. I don't dislike it and I do think broadly it's valuable. But that doesn't mean I care a jot about the organisation, the leadership or its history, growth etc. for anything more than if they can still afford to pay me or if they can still afford to provide the services to the client they said they would and signed up to. It feels almost performative that anyone in the room would care more than that.

Similarly, there were a lot of other assumptions made about the people in the room, which particularly came out through the 'wellbeing/mindfulness' activity we did in the afternoon. The assumption was very much that we were a room of people whose only issues might be small interpersonal things in the backdrop to what was otherwise a comfortable, middle-class, married, parenting, healthy and able bodied, existence. (e.g. - overthinking things, not believing in yourself enough etc... as if the only possible barriers to thriving in the workplace in 2023 might be personal psychological barriers a person has created for themself and can overcome easily by the power of positive thinking, reframing or confidence boosts etc.) Which in itself felt quite... anti intersectionality and awareness of the individual real and impactful external difficulties, that people might be struggling with or up against. (So again, performative)

One of the things we had specifically was to, in groups, discuss the 'three things you're grateful for today', that we were assured we would all have if we just thought hard enough about. It was great to be told how we all had that by the unbelievably cheery, straight white married dad guy who was giving the presentation. Didn't you know, he didn't used to be thankful for his children or the fact he owned a house? Like my dude, at which point does your own low self-awareness of your own privilege become a teaching point for a group of strangers without the recognition that that actually kinda comes off like a brag? I also was struck once again by the implicit messaging that work should be a place where everyone is comfortable to share everything about themself with everyone, and to be a major, if not the only, social space that adults inhabit. Once again, this feels like something that a very non diverse board thought up. As a queer person in a majority straight, and likely conservative workplace, I need to always police myself and say what's safe, because ultimately, I'm not there working as a hobby. This is how I pay for things in my life, and that relies on keeping that environment as safe and comfortable as possible to avoid real conflicts that might escalate and actively put me in danger. This is the country that just voted for Brexit and Boris Johnson after all.

There was once again, a lot to read between the lines, and - perhaps because of the establishing backdrop, giving us the presentation about unity, history etc. and so on - was that a deliberate psychological technique I now wonder? - anyway, a lot of people in the room didn't seem to be actually reading between those lines. So some things that were mentioned in the later sessions in the day; the financial pressures the company was under to meet obligations (so... that means cuts, or a lack of payrises, or possibly not delivering our services as promised?), or the fact that a majority of our projects delivered little value and didn't cover themselves monetarily (so... how are we going to afford to do them? why are we doing them? ARE we going to keep doing them, are people going to lose their jobs?) The interesting thing once again that struck me was that these things were both presented as inevitabilities, but also things that we as a group of people would all have to deal with together as they came up, as if just because we CURRENTLY worked there in certain roles, if anything changed, we would somehow have to just take it and suck it up and suffer in those roles instead of... moving on for a better opportunity and leaving the leadership to pick up the pieces of the messes that they themselves ended up making. Like folks, the thing is, if you're going to tout collective responsibility and organisational solidarity, you can't have a hierarchical model of who makes the decisions. And if you're going to, it's pretty bad form to attempt to psychologically manipulate your underlings to feel bad about things they have no control over, and to stay in a bad or difficult situation that you single-handedly ended up creating.

Of course, what was interesting is that those of us in the room who were a bit younger and who have already worked through hardships and adversities, who are used to not being respected or treated fairly in the workplace or appreciated for what we do and given opportunities to progress, literally didn't give any of this the time of day. It came across to us like polite fiction towards the members of staff who wanted to delude themselves and put their heads in the sand. Ironically, this team day that was meant to be about discovering our commonalities and finding better ways to work together just illustrated more clearly than ever how some of us are living in the real world regarding the current economy and situation, and some of us aren't. Well sadly, if things do go a bit tits up, it's those who aren't who are going to be caught out, and the longer these kinds of delusions and optimistic beliefs persist, the bigger that crash is going to be both financially and in terms of self image and what they've invested in psychologically. And then what good is wellbeing and mindfulness going to be when the very foundations that you've built yourself around have crumbled under you?