maxopedia

I have never been good in dealing with those that assume they have authority. On the flip side of the coin, I am generally not good at ordering people around. It's not that I lack orders I could give, but rather that I don't feel I have that right over others.

Only the most serious of endeavors - organized warfare - truly requires a highly demarcated chain of command. Soldiers are not supposed to question orders for a good reason; they lack information. Not only do they lack information, they frequently lack the time to analyze that information and come to their own conclusions. Thus, I advance the notion that commands and orders are particularly nasty types of efficiency measures. They empower the giver and dehumanize the receiver while at the same time standing in place of true consensus.

As I've said before, the larger a corporation gets, the more it becomes like a total institution, with policies, procedures, and eminent managerial domain standing in place of consensual and reasoned analysis. These items may have been put into play based on healthful guiding principles, but by their very codification have become breeding grounds for petty power plays and other insidious inefficiencies. The letter of the law means far less than the spirit.

Businesses have the difficult goal of erecting a supportive and comprehensive framework for their constituents while still allowing them a great deal of autonomy. However, people don't generally do well inside of boxes, unless they are of their own construction.

It's my dream to be able to build an organization on the principles of true consensus. I'm not going to hold my breath.

For a while now, I've been going to work and hating every minute that I put more money in my employer's pocket than I put in my own. I spend much of time scheming ways that I can begin earning income on my own without working for anyone else than myself. If I form partnerships with people in the future, I want them to be mutually beneficial; one of my friends mentioned how we could 'work for each other.' That's exactly what I'm getting at; I want to work with people and not for someone.

Well, because I spend all day scheming on these things, I invariably end up discussing them with my co-workers, particularly those that I consider friends. Mostly this involves me talking about how although there is a lot of risk in starting your own business, it's almost a criminal act of stupidity not to, as long as you possess the requisite skills and a work ethic that will see you through to eventual success.

Well, one of my friends at work has taken my thoughts to heart. He now schemes far more openly than I do, and he openly expresses many of the dissatisfactions that I possess. His enthusiasm is inspiring, but I tend to keep a bit of a tighter lip about these things at work, although I will certainly discuss the most sensitive of information and ideas with him directly through secure channels.

Perhaps I am paranoid, but I don't really want everyone at work to know how I feel about the company and the project that I am on. I don't want any complications while I'm still working here. Corporate America is a very strange place, and that classic 'telephone game' effect is out in force. A tiny bit of dissatisfaction expressed to the wrong (right?) person can become a 'that guy is gonna leave tomorrow' when it finally comes through the grapevine to your boss. I don't want my boss to know anything about how I feel about the job unless it is absolutely necessary for me to communicate that information. If I am going to leave unless they give me a raise, I would like my boss to hear that from me first and not from some guy who might be out to 'get me' somehow. Just think about how hard it is to communicate unambiguously when you're directly talking to someone face-to-face. Even if only two face-to-face interactions are between you and your boss hearing about how you want to leave, that's huge potential for distortion.