Personal Advancement
Workers: Don't walk the walkForget about working hard or working smart to climb the corporate ladder. In today's workplace, working less is the best way to get ahead. SHARON ASCHAIEK |
|
 [ 2006-05-03 ] |
To find out, take this test by eCareerFit, the career assessment experts.
Corinne Maier, author of the smart and deeply cynical book Hello Laziness: Why Hard Work Doesn't Pay, argues that in a corporate world that squelches independent thinking and exploits its workers, you may as well be a slacker.
"Companies don't care. They have no real concern for your well-being and they don't practice whatever 'values' they preach," Maier writes. "Just play the part of the model office worker, say the right words and do the right things, but without actually getting involved: The people around you are incompetent cowards who will hardly even notice your lack of enthusiasm."
A senior economist at French electricity giant Electricite de France, Maier systematically unmasks what she sees as the propaganda corporations use to portray themselves as benevolent organizations concerned with teamwork, creativity, progressive values and the engagement of their employees. Baloney, she contends: Large companies more often than not create cultures of conformity, mediocrity and bureaucracy that crush the spirits of their employees.
An international bestseller, the book has struck a cord with middle managers tired of maintaining the status quo. But how easy is it to switch from corporate slave to slacker?
To start, you need to learn to decode the "gobbledygook" of business-speak -- the jargon, acronyms and cliches executives mainly use, Maier says, to make themselves sound important.
"The newcomer to the world of business is perplexed, until he or she realizes that "these pearls of low-rent wisdom are nothing more than a disguise for the interests and ambitions of the person uttering them," she writes.
Understand that you are nothing more than a pawn to your employer, Maier writes, and your only purpose is to make your company money. The most likeable and best looking thrive in this image-conscious climate; training and experience counts for little. Don't get old, she says: like the rest of society, corporations are obsessed with the vitality and energy of youth.
"The 'life cycle' of the office worker, to adopt terminology loved by consultants and normally applied to products, is brief -- it is but a short step from the height of your powers (around 30) to decline (from 45 onwards)."
With sharp wit, Maier tackles a host of other business fallacies, including the concept of "business culture," which "creates an artificial sense of identity and belonging" through "an orgy of pointless seminars, unwearable T-shirts, badges and motivational slogans."
She also outs the personality types perpetuating the corporate machine, including the Yes Man, Mr. Average -- minorities, women and the disabled need not apply -- and the consultant or coach, who "serves no purpose except to convince employees of the need for rules and conformity."
As globalization shoves the business world toward international conformity, where we all wear Gap clothes and drink Starbucks, the time is ripe for workers to subvert the system with a lazy revolution, Maier writes.
So, look busy but avoid responsibility, talk the talk but don't walk the walk. Happily collect your paycheque and rest assured that one day the system will collapse. Writes Maier: "As Stalin said, death always wins in the end. The problem is knowing when."
Would you ever work for a social or charitable enterprise in the third sector?