As much as we complain about our “tough” days and our “brutal” meetings and “vicious” clients, the truth is there is really no such thing as “hard work” in Corporate America. There really is no hard work in Corporate America. Think I’m wrong? Ask your IT crew if they want to join Special Ops and get shot at in some war-torn village on their next vacation. Ask the VP suffering from “hurried woman’s syndrome” or some other narcissistic mainstream pseudo-malady if she’d rather work a construction site lugging 50-lb. sacks of SAUKRETE in 85-degree heat on her next day off. Ask the 30-something middle manager that keeps whining about no one “being on-board” with her if she’d rather wait tables at $4.50 an hour plus tips. Ask your CEO who swears they’re a bargain at six figures ‘n’ change to trade their power suit for a Wal-Mart greeter’s vest at 9 bones an hour with suspect benefits.
Don’t sleep: The toughest corporate gig around is sponge cake compared to sweeping floors or being a trash man. Or driving a cab. Or being a cop. Or driving trains like my pops did for 33 years. Shuffling papers in a cubicle for $20G a year is better than being in the projects or a trailer park. The most stressful job on Madison Ave. is a thousand times easier than working in Haiti, Iraq, Mexico, or just surviving the ‘hood like I did for 25 years. But Corporate America has us all convinced that our shirt ‘n’ tie lives constitute hard work and real drama. They’ve got us sheltered, pampered, and shook. Consequently, we’ve gone soft. And like Mickey D’s, the business world has softened us from the inside out.
To tha’ tick-tock, ya’ don’t stop…
I did the math one day: The 40-hour workweek is a lie; nobody gets in at exactly 9, leaves at exactly 5. Most come in early, like 8 or 8:30 a.m. and don’t head home ’til 6 or 7 p.m. The average corporate workweek is really closer to 50, more depending on your job and industry. For me, even with my ad copywriter’s roll-in-near-10am-cuz-things-are-slow days, 55-hour weeks were normal. Plus, I stacked more 70-hour weeks than Madonna and J-Lo have done bad movies. (And like most corporate types, I never made a lick of overtime.)
So if you break it down for the average office type, we’re looking at 10-hour days, minimum. That’s ten hours a day of sitting. Sitting in meetings. Sitting on the phone. Sitting punching keyboards until the carpal tunnel sets in. Sitting and reading memos, emails, project briefs, and client files as your eyes cross. Sitting. Ten hours a day. Five days a week. Every week. Tack on a couple more hours of sitting on buses, sitting on trains, or sitting in traffic for your daily commute. Add the all-too-typical “working late/working weekends” and your butt cheeks are kissing seats for 60-70 hours each week, 52 weeks a year (minus holidays and vacations).
Now, let’s go home...
And sit:
Sit to eat dinner. Sit on the toilet. Sit ‘n’ watch TV. Sit with your PS2/X-Box. Sit on the internet... Clock another 3 hours of glute-flattening for all of the above. Toss in a night’s sleep—figure another 6 hours or so. Tally it all up and you’re pushing 22 hours day of sitting down and laying down. Twenty-two hours—that’s nearly 92% of your day. The other 2 hours? Well if it’s Thursday or Friday, you’re probably out sitting in a bar, a restaurant, or a movie theater just to break the monotony of sitting at work or at home. Otherwise, those hours vanish into the ether.
All that sitting and laying down… It just makes people soft. And once you get soft everything around you gets hard. The office vending machine gets hard. The clogged copier gets hard. The coffee kid screwing up your latte gets hard. Your $2500 company-leased desktop with the Intel processor choking on your MP3’s and emails gets hard. Office politics gets hard. Your flimsy cube walls with the soft, lacquered desk gets hard. The office with the soft cream-coated halls and soft abstract art gets hard. The stale bagels and catered meeting food gets hard. Traffic gets hard. The fall TV line-up gets hard. Eventually the happy hour scene gets hard. Slowly but surely, every little, soft, easy thing becomes hardcore drama.
Next thing you know, your mind’s so soft that you’re wasting meaningful words like “survivor” on songs and TV shows, or celebrities who’ve accomplished little more than marry well, divorce better and weigh under 180 lbs into their 40s. You start using “marathon” to describe any activity lasting longer than 30 minutes while “crucify” now equals negative criticism or bad PR. You also start believing that a “rebel” or a “revolutionary” is about wearing thrift-store clothes, playing three chords, and acting too hip for the room.
Corporate America makes you so soft that “war” becomes a legit metaphor for everything besides actual wars. It makes you soft enough to apply “brave” to guests on Dr. Phil or folks who take fashion risks or raise their kids with just one nanny. Corporate America softens you to the point that you believe most anyone with dark skin has a violent streak and any neighborhood filled with dark-skinned people is “ghetto” or “unsafe” while most any foreigner just might be a terrorist.
Corporate America turns your vision pillow-soft.
Don’t sleep: The toughest corporate gig around is sponge cake compared to sweeping floors or being a trash man. Or driving a cab. Or being a cop. Or driving trains like my pops did for 33 years. Shuffling papers in a cubicle for $20G a year is better than being in the projects or a trailer park. The most stressful job on Madison Ave. is a thousand times easier than working in Haiti, Iraq, Mexico, or just surviving the ‘hood like I did for 25 years. But Corporate America has us all convinced that our shirt ‘n’ tie lives constitute hard work and real drama. They’ve got us sheltered, pampered, and shook. Consequently, we’ve gone soft. And like Mickey D’s, the business world has softened us from the inside out.
To tha’ tick-tock, ya’ don’t stop…
I did the math one day: The 40-hour workweek is a lie; nobody gets in at exactly 9, leaves at exactly 5. Most come in early, like 8 or 8:30 a.m. and don’t head home ’til 6 or 7 p.m. The average corporate workweek is really closer to 50, more depending on your job and industry. For me, even with my ad copywriter’s roll-in-near-10am-cuz-things-are-slow days, 55-hour weeks were normal. Plus, I stacked more 70-hour weeks than Madonna and J-Lo have done bad movies. (And like most corporate types, I never made a lick of overtime.)
Now, let’s go home...
And sit:
Sit to eat dinner. Sit on the toilet. Sit ‘n’ watch TV. Sit with your PS2/X-Box. Sit on the internet... Clock another 3 hours of glute-flattening for all of the above. Toss in a night’s sleep—figure another 6 hours or so. Tally it all up and you’re pushing 22 hours day of sitting down and laying down. Twenty-two hours—that’s nearly 92% of your day. The other 2 hours? Well if it’s Thursday or Friday, you’re probably out sitting in a bar, a restaurant, or a movie theater just to break the monotony of sitting at work or at home. Otherwise, those hours vanish into the ether.
All that sitting and laying down… It just makes people soft. And once you get soft everything around you gets hard. The office vending machine gets hard. The clogged copier gets hard. The coffee kid screwing up your latte gets hard. Your $2500 company-leased desktop with the Intel processor choking on your MP3’s and emails gets hard. Office politics gets hard. Your flimsy cube walls with the soft, lacquered desk gets hard. The office with the soft cream-coated halls and soft abstract art gets hard. The stale bagels and catered meeting food gets hard. Traffic gets hard. The fall TV line-up gets hard. Eventually the happy hour scene gets hard. Slowly but surely, every little, soft, easy thing becomes hardcore drama.
Next thing you know, your mind’s so soft that you’re wasting meaningful words like “survivor” on songs and TV shows, or celebrities who’ve accomplished little more than marry well, divorce better and weigh under 180 lbs into their 40s. You start using “marathon” to describe any activity lasting longer than 30 minutes while “crucify” now equals negative criticism or bad PR. You also start believing that a “rebel” or a “revolutionary” is about wearing thrift-store clothes, playing three chords, and acting too hip for the room.
Corporate America makes you so soft that “war” becomes a legit metaphor for everything besides actual wars. It makes you soft enough to apply “brave” to guests on Dr. Phil or folks who take fashion risks or raise their kids with just one nanny. Corporate America softens you to the point that you believe most anyone with dark skin has a violent streak and any neighborhood filled with dark-skinned people is “ghetto” or “unsafe” while most any foreigner just might be a terrorist.
Corporate America turns your vision pillow-soft.
