The Corporate Reality

The surreallistic transition from the study of complex organizations from an academic perspective to actually participating in such structures can take on truly Kafka-esqe proportions.

Max Weber, in his seminal esay, mentioned some of the irony of the way that power is located and exercised within bureacracies. He stated that, by necessity, detail of knowledge is more closely concentrated at the lower levels of the organization.

In other words, people who do the real work have far more knowledge of the subject matter than those who tell them to do it. This gives people some bit of power over the actual functioning of a company. However, this power is extremely limited... managers (in other words, those who simply move the pawns) have control over those who know more than they do. This can create a situation wherein a few individuals at the bottom can hold the organization hostage to their individual whims (at least at the micro-level). The problem is that this power is limited, and in direct contrast over the decisions made by management which often has no clear understanding of how actual work is produced.

In reality this can get in the way of the very efficiency that bureaucratic structures are designed to create. Individuals at the lower levels carefully guard their knowledge, both to maintain some sense of individual power, as well as to maintain some sense of job security. Meanwhile managers are continually finding ways of exercising their power for similar reasons

All of this may be very amusing from the academic perspective, however when caught in the midst of this, it ceases to be so. It can be downright hellish for many people... add in the lucidity of having observed from the outside first, it can feel like something right out of Dante's Inferno.

The incomplete idea

So, you ask, what was it specifically about the "thesis" that was causing me so much trouble? Let me see if I can recreate the basic concept (bear with me... this was 7 years ago).

Essentially, the major focus was an analysis of the social construction of American political attitudes towards unemployment, and how it should be dealt with from a policy perspective. The basic theoretical framework from which I was operating was a critique of the American culture of individualism.

Essentially, the idea was that the very idea which drives the "American Dream," that a person who works hard enough should be able to become successful ends up with some nasty side effects. If one assumes that hard work produces success, conversely one could easily come to the conclusion that someone who is not successful must therefore suffer from some form of inadequacy.

This is the case from both "conservative" and "liberal" sides of the American political spectrum. While the conservative assumes that failure is the result of some moral turpitude (i.e. laziness), the liberal assumes it has to do with the lack of adequate skills or training. Neither side acknowledges that that there may be structural problems which may prevent success (for instance, international economic competition which would provide cheaper labor than is available in the US could lead to increases in unemployment). Though both sides may give lip service to larger macroeconomic issues, essentially, due to our cultural framework, the assumption is that whether a person is able to work is more dependent on the individual.

Sure, it may be tough to find a job, but you just have to "try harder" or "get more education." Essentially all policy discussion must reside within a framework between these two perspectives. (For more information on this concept, see The Culture of Inequality by Michael Lewis.)

This, by the way, was in stark contrast to many European cultures that basically see individuals as members of a social class which was problematic in itself, as for many years it was difficult to move between different social strata (but this is a different point, so I will not digress at this time).

As for the thesis itself, the basic source was the congressional record. I was looking at discussions of a two major pieces of legislation which had to do with unemployment policy (The Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act of 1986 and the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947, which though mostly known for its limitations of the power of labor unions, affected unemployment policy as well). This is extremely dense stuff, and reading the masked political statements of various political blowhards became increasingly depressing.

However, regardless of all the evidence I was finding confirming my basic point, it was doing a number on my own sense of identity. See... I have never been what one would call a "joiner." I've never really been either a follower or a leader, but more of a friendly outsider watching from the sidelines. I've never felt very comfortable in groups, neither accepting the group-think mentality nor feeling particularly accepted by these groups either.

It was specifically the tenets of individualism that enabled me to get by from day to day. As I found myself critizing individualism, I found myself eliminating the only identity-space where I actually found comfortable. As a result, I found myself unable to continue from this perspective. Though halfway through this thesis and with the near-ability to have at least something to show from all these years of school, I found myself unable to continue...

so I ventured off on my own... more about this later.

How it Happened

Okay, I guess by way of introduction, I should probably explain how I ended up in this situation. To begin with, I will, following the standard grad-student habit of spending an immense amount of time writing a preface... well, preface myself.

Twenty-three plus years of schooling should have prepared me better for dealing with the real world, right?

you laugh... "silly academic," you say... "of course the hallowed halls of learning barely prepare one for the dog-eat-dog world of trying to make a living... most people do not progress much further than the standard required or recommended years of schooling. Why should they let those they generally disliked, those bookworms, those teacher's pets, those A-students... those people who made them look bad actually define the world?"

... and of course you'd be right.

The arrogance of those with (what some might call) too much education ill-equips them for the regular rat-race. Most of those are smart or clever enough to find themselves a nice comfortable little niche within the ivy-covered walls, where they are able to read, write, discuss and argue amongst each other about immensely important concepts and ideals which appeal to none except themselves.

However... for those of us who never quite "fit in," or lacked the confidence to continue, or who left those halls for whatever reason (anger, disillusionment, failure, etc) are then doomed to exist in a world where we are both over-educated and under-socialized for jobs which fail to challenge, around those who see us as nerdy, irrelevant, out-of-touch pests.

Okay, okay... enough of pretending that I speak for others... this is about my own journey.

Hope I don't bore you... as of course there is more prefacing to come.

Basically what you will see here is anything that follows from the above premise... this includes social and political observation, rants about work, and anything else that flows from my incomplete mind.

... some time ago, after some four years of floundering around attempting an entry into the academic field of sociology, I discovered that I no longer agreed with the basic tenets of my thesis. Though the foundations of the theory seemed solid, I found that I could no longer incorporate these views with my own identity... as a result I exited the world of academia and foolishly attempted to brave the "real world"... these are the results.

As I attempt to navigate through my own confusion and alienation within the under-paying, humiliating, and ultimately baffling corporate world, I will be using this space to keep track of the various thoughts, rants, fantasies and other insane musings that populate my so-called reality.

stay tuned...