Back when I had a corporate job, even though I enjoyed the benefits of health insurance and being able to afford food that is not Ramen-based, I would sometimes think that the time that I spent filling out duplicate status reports could be better spent on more interesting pursuits.

I used to think that people in the corporate world made me chase my tail for their own personal entertainment, but towards the end, I started entertaining the possibility that they might not even realize what they were doing because their behavior was considered so normal within the corporate structure.

The minute when a lot of people swipe their ID to enter the building, they become resources. They become managers of resources. They leave the informal humanity that makes them normal right in that oversized cup holder in their overpriced BMW.

It’s not personal, its business. They’re not treating you poorly as a person, they’re utilizing a resource for the sake of satisfying their professional curiosity. It’s the right of the manager to control a resource as he or she sees fit, and if that resource is you, that’s too bad. Since feudal times, this has been the way that the system has worked.

Sometimes, I wonder if people would treat each other differently if the corporate power structure were eliminated. Would that cluster of smartly dressed workers be sitting together if they weren’t in pursuit of favor? Would the guy who wears that tie even wear it if it gained him nothing? And more interestingly, is the kowtowing and deception of those in control simply a byproduct of doing what the job requires, or would the negative qualities exist even in the absence of power to pursue?

The question is, would the assholes still be assholes because that is who they are, or are they merely assholes because of the context of their role? Or more precisely, do we attribute negative qualities to those in control of us not because they have those qualities, but because we resent them for having control over us?

Does authority modify personality, or does authority modify the perception of personality?

In the absence of a hierarchical power structure, would it matter? Would we finally tell a good portion of the folks that we deal with on a daily basis to go fuck themselves, or would we find that there was no longer a need to? Is it the personalities of the people above us that dehumanize us, or are they the ones being dehumanized into a simple symbols of authority?

Is it the structures that corrupt or the corrupt who structure?

Posted in Work