Thursday, December 29, 2005
It’s a scary scary world out there.
Ok so today my manager was not at work. He was helping at the airport because it was slammed. We are having huge load factors so that’s good for the company. The day just seems to go by so smooth without him around. I don’t have to think about if I’m saying the right things or not. A person can’t accomplish a lot when they are walking on egg shells all the time. The most arbitrary things can trigger a comment of unhelpful ridicule. It’s really like an explosive button, one that doesn’t go off all the time but there are those uncomfortable moments at least once a week…at least. I guess I was naïve and will die naive. I thought when you grew up and went into the real world, the professional world everyone was part of this lean mean cohesive machine. I thought everyone had a job and would help each other accomplish the company goals. I thought people would have relationships where they were actual friends not cube dwellers that are less than acquaintances. I feel embarrassed because I invited all these co-workers to my birthday party and now 90% are hardly talking to me. I think it’s just the frigid cube culture. I talk to people all day in my cube and when I walk pass them in the halls they do the whole avoidance of eye contact thing. I wish someone would have warned me...if you hated high school...you will despise corporate culture. I feel like I have a big city mentality when it comes to politics and acceptance of cultures but maybe I have a small town philosophy when it comes to my relationships. I just wish everyone could be up front and genuine with each other…oh well I got to keep chuggin along my boot camp time in Revenue Accounting. Today another company employee died. This is the fourth in the last month. I can’t believe it. I didn’t personally know this lady but I’ve seen her walking around the halls and she just seemed like one of those bubbly people. She had two sons and a husband. Today one of the newest additions to our department walked out. She said she was going to run an errand and she just walked out. Pay is decent at our company, we have paid vacation, we have holidays like Christmas and New Year’s Day (my birthday) off, we have weekends off, we have a consistent schedule, we have health benefits and flight benefits but she felt the need to just go, without any notice. It’s very symbolic that we have all those benefits and it wasn’t even good enough of a situation for her to give two weeks notice. This lady even knew three other people in our department before she started. Because of the adversarial nature of our department we have been having these harassment training classes. In the class last week I complained that our department has a high turnover rate. The trainer replied, “People don’t quit jobs they quit people.” I told the trainer that I made this compliant to one of big wigs of our company at another meeting and the big wig said, “people leave for the money.” I was shocked by that response from the big wig but hey, I do appreciate strait talkers…I really do. The trainer said people know how much money they are going to make when they take the job. I agree with this. I know that we have social mobility in this culture but it’s really hard to take the human element out of the equation and I think here was a woman that worked with us for a month??? a month and a half or so??? When she walked out, she was walking out on the people.
Ok so today my manager was not at work. He was helping at the airport because it was slammed. We are having huge load factors so that’s good for the company. The day just seems to go by so smooth without him around. I don’t have to think about if I’m saying the right things or not. A person can’t accomplish a lot when they are walking on egg shells all the time. The most arbitrary things can trigger a comment of unhelpful ridicule. It’s really like an explosive button, one that doesn’t go off all the time but there are those uncomfortable moments at least once a week…at least. I guess I was naïve and will die naive. I thought when you grew up and went into the real world, the professional world everyone was part of this lean mean cohesive machine. I thought everyone had a job and would help each other accomplish the company goals. I thought people would have relationships where they were actual friends not cube dwellers that are less than acquaintances. I feel embarrassed because I invited all these co-workers to my birthday party and now 90% are hardly talking to me. I think it’s just the frigid cube culture. I talk to people all day in my cube and when I walk pass them in the halls they do the whole avoidance of eye contact thing. I wish someone would have warned me...if you hated high school...you will despise corporate culture. I feel like I have a big city mentality when it comes to politics and acceptance of cultures but maybe I have a small town philosophy when it comes to my relationships. I just wish everyone could be up front and genuine with each other…oh well I got to keep chuggin along my boot camp time in Revenue Accounting. Today another company employee died. This is the fourth in the last month. I can’t believe it. I didn’t personally know this lady but I’ve seen her walking around the halls and she just seemed like one of those bubbly people. She had two sons and a husband. Today one of the newest additions to our department walked out. She said she was going to run an errand and she just walked out. Pay is decent at our company, we have paid vacation, we have holidays like Christmas and New Year’s Day (my birthday) off, we have weekends off, we have a consistent schedule, we have health benefits and flight benefits but she felt the need to just go, without any notice. It’s very symbolic that we have all those benefits and it wasn’t even good enough of a situation for her to give two weeks notice. This lady even knew three other people in our department before she started. Because of the adversarial nature of our department we have been having these harassment training classes. In the class last week I complained that our department has a high turnover rate. The trainer replied, “People don’t quit jobs they quit people.” I told the trainer that I made this compliant to one of big wigs of our company at another meeting and the big wig said, “people leave for the money.” I was shocked by that response from the big wig but hey, I do appreciate strait talkers…I really do. The trainer said people know how much money they are going to make when they take the job. I agree with this. I know that we have social mobility in this culture but it’s really hard to take the human element out of the equation and I think here was a woman that worked with us for a month??? a month and a half or so??? When she walked out, she was walking out on the people.
# posted by Nick D @ 7:39 PM 
