I've Been Living a Lie

The Corporate Illusion

I’ve been with my current employer for nearly 13 years. The term “you’d serve less time for murder” isn’t quite accurate yet, but replace “murder” with “armed robbery” or “serious fraud”, and you’d be about there.

We currently have a “four days out of the fortnight” policy - in other words, everyone does two days a week in the office and three at home. But this “luxury”, dear reader, is soon to be coming to an end. Whilst it’s not been officially announced yet, the expectation is that the number of mandatory office days will increase. We have a new CEO you see, and he wants to drive the company forward. He’s young, enthusiastic and full of shit, but don’t hold that against him. I recall the time pre-covid where there was no such thing as a work laptop. Being in the office everyday was a given but now we’ve had a taste of working from home, the thought of giving more of that up is repugnant. I guess if you’re the committed employee type with aspirations of ascending the fluorescent-lit, corporate, misery ladder then this might not bother you. You may also be reading my meandering grumbles and think, “stop moaning and just leave if you hate it so much”, and if you do think that, you kind of have a point.

Back before covid afforded us the luxury of remote working, I would spend 45 hours a week in the depths of hell. The walls are somehow blindingly bright like white gloss, yet duller than dishwater at the same time. The most clinical straight lines and jarring right angles make up the desks, screens and any of the meaningless “Brand Values” that are plastered all over the walls. Any spare wall? Just cover it in brand values, obviously! Some of the brand values that cover the walls are from about 4 years ago, since which time they’ve changed twice. Nobody cares. Why would they? They don’t mean anything.

I’m largely competent in my role - I certainly talk a good game. I’ve always managed to be able to get the necessary work done by the deadline provided and then spend my time reading articles online or back in the pre-covid days, reading Wikipedia pages. If you’re familiar with the Metal Gear Solid computer game series, the following will make sense, if you’re not, I’ll do my best to give context for my fascination. I’ve always been a fan of the MGS series but the storylines are admittedly extremely convoluted and sometimes difficult to follow. We’re talking espionage, genetic engineering, secret societies, nanomachines & giant walking battle robots aka Metal Gears. A geeks paradise! Anyway, the point of this is I would often find websites or go on Wikipedia to find full breakdowns of the characters, their backstories and their connection to the wider plot. I would copy these articles, paste them on to a Word document, removing all the images and making the font and size of the text all the same. To any onlookers or passers-by, I was simply reading a document on Word. When in reality I was absolutely knee-deep in a conspiratorial, sci-fi, robotic wonderland. From very early on I’ve been able to go above and beyond (enough) to rise through the levels at work, yet at the same time still find spare hours to do my own thing. The salient point here is though, that I’m not special, I’m not unique - this is in fact what millions of people are doing worldwide.

Most people don’t want to take over the world. Most people don’t want the pressure of being a CEO of a Fortune 500 company and working a 70-hour week. Research actually shows us that a lot of these top achievers have narcissistic, psychopathic and/or Machiavellian traits and are generally low in empathy when it comes to decision making. There will of course be outliers but there’s a lot of data to support this. Take heads of state for example, rarely is it the ones who are there to actually make the world or their country a better place, they’re either complete egomaniacs or captured by a specific ideology. Most of us want to feel useful, do a good job, be creative, get paid fairly then clock off and spend time with the family. The issue with society today (amongst many other things), is that the smaller businesses, where you may feel part of a “work family” just get swallowed up by the huge corporations. The biggest companies get bigger, need more staff and then keep either buying out the smaller companies or (in)directly put them out of business. I get it, it’s a dog-eat-dog world but it’s more like a wolf-eat-rabbit scenario now. So, there are less and less secure jobs out there that aren’t for the biggest companies. The problem with this is, if you feel undervalued and that you’re just another number in a huge organisation, you won’t mind quite frankly taking the piss from time to time.

I’m a hugely conscientious employee in actual fact - though I’m aware that up to now I’ve not done a very good job of making that clear. I ensure whatever I have to do will be done well and before deadline. I keep very high standards but the company is so huge that nobody really knows what anyone else is doing. I sit in endless meetings and it’s so apparent to me that most, if not nearly all employees are there to tick a box and not actually make real improvements. I often ask my co-manager if anyone actually wants to make positive changes or are we all just doing enough to keep our respective manager from inviting us to their office for a “chat”. This is a longwinded way to answer the question of why I’ve not just left. Things generally have to be a 1 or a 2 out of 10 to make people get up and declare that they’ve had enough. In my situation, along with many others I guess, it’s more like a 3.5 or a 4/10. It’s shit, but you know, it’s not that bad. I think secretly most people are doing their own equivalent of reading Metal Gear Solid character bios in work hours; and being paid to do so. Hopefully, you’ll be please to hear I’ve changed my ways as I no longer waste company time on personal, online odysseys trying to make sense of complex computer game characters, I now just write on Substack about a time when I once did.

With Love, 
Waylon

If this piece touched you or sparked something, please reach out directly. I’d love to talk.