Corporate brainwashing

I was reading the 360-degree survey results the business recently conducted in the context of my performance. None of the comments provided by my workmates came as a surprise. They confirmed and coincided with how I think I perform at work.

One insight I have gained though explains why work seems to get harder each year and why I can't wait to retire - it is not the underlying work that is difficult; rather, it is the constant judgment and the need to conform based on this judgement that has been slowly sucking the life out of me. While there are many elements in my nature that actually coincides with what is seen as the values of the business, constantly measuring myself against those corporate expectations and requirements brings a continuous and never ending source of stress in my every day life.

At the risk of letting my ego express itself - who are you to tell me how I behave and manage my work life is 'good' or 'bad'? How could I respect such a binary value system when things are arbitrarily labelled as acceptable or unacceptable? What gives you the right to judge how I think and what I do and say? Yet that is the framework in which most if not all of us live within.

In the end, the industrial revolution hasn't really left us - it has just put on an appearance of progressiveness through the use of certain more socially acceptable buzz words and phrases to justify the true nature of the relationship between the corporation and the employee - 'modern slavery' if you will.