In a recent discussion with my daughter, she told me that she is "inflicted" with a characteristic of mine that we might describe as a resistance to "shutting up and taking it"... an unwillingness, almost an inability, to "look the other way" when to confront the issue would involve personal risk. Most of us face such situations in our work environment, and the personal risk is the fear of losing our job, or of losing future promotions. I suspect that each of us can identify such situations we've faced, and can clearly remember the choices we made. You might have called them "career choices"... small compromises to keep a career intact. Examples might include not speaking up about another employee that simply isn't doing their job, or not defending an employee you thought was unfairly criticized or dismissed. You might have encountered cases when your employer was doing something unethical, or even illegal, and chose not to speak out.

Over my lifetime, I've watched big changes in the American workforce. I've watched with amazement, and with some dismay, as an ever-increasing number of people went to work for large corporations for what they viewed as practical, career-building reasons. They went, suspecting the price they would pay... understanding that they would be expected to be compliant and obedient, no matter what conflicts arose. They went, knowing that they might even hate their work, knowing that they would be surrounded by nonsense in the form of internal politics, backbiting, inefficiency, and loss of the feeling of truly being productive. They went, knowing that they would become, in effect, "drones"... a mere number in the company database... a replaceable resource... real-life Dilberts.

The lure of such corporate life isn't difficult to appreciate. The rewards are great... good pay, and for those willing and able to "play the game well", there are often spectacular incomes. There are many corporate benefits: educational opportunities, good medical, dental, and insurance coverages, comfortable retirement benefits, and often much more. For a great many Americans, it's a supremely comfy workstyle.

I've watched in amazement as employees paid their personal bills on company time, made lots of personal phone calls, did some shopping on their lunch hour (or two), and had pleasant chats with other workers. When I was part of that scene, I could spend a whole day inside my cubicle without even being noticed. I'm quite sure I could have skipped whole days without being missed. My estimate was that most fellow employees actually worked productively only about 2 hours/day.

Certainly there are exceptions to what I've described. There were employees who worked hard all day every day... the sort of pale-blue-collar workers who had to respond to massive paperwork or customer contact (notice that those are the sort of jobs being outsourced to other nations). Those jobs aside, the number of lucrative, cushy jobs available to qualified candidates has skyrocketed over the past few decades... if you're qualified, and willing to play the game.

"Qualifications" is another area in which large corporations have changed America. Prior to WWII, college degrees were relatively rare. The GI Bill changed that, giving veterans easy access to college (at the expense of non-veterans) and gradually making a college degree "the thing to do after high school". Later, the advantages returning veterans had enabled them to afford to send their children to college, and college soon became an expectation for children.

When you apply for work at a small or medium-size business, you're going to be interviewed by the owner or someone else responsible for the success of the business, and the qualifications sought will be simply "can this person do the job?" or "will they be a good addition to our team?" In larger corporations, there is a much stronger emphasis on paper qualifications... does this person, on paper, look qualified to fill the position. The decision has little to do with capability, and much more to do with personality (can this person fit in nicely?) and with credentials. Naturally, the one inescapable black mark is to have been dismissed from another large corporation. It's quite possible to have a long career in large corporations without ever doing anything very well... if one is willing to meekly play the games.

What I find most disturbing about these changes is the psychological effect on those corporate employees. Once such an employee has found their comfortable corporate niche, it's very easy for that person to fall into a lifestyle that matches it... one of serious consumption based on a presumed continual income stream. There have been many destructive results from that presumption. Presumed income and easy credit based on it has put most American workers deeply in debt and seriously dependent on maintaining their corporate positions. Once dependent on a level of income, on corporate medical coverage, and on securing the retirement benefits they've worked for, it becomes increasingly difficult to break out of corporate life.

Another effect of the prevalence of the comfortable corporate lifestyle is that it often leads to a very limited view of the rest of the world. Once a career seems secure with a specific employer, it becomes easy to indulge in the fantasy that one is safe and secure... and that the rest of the world really doesn't matter. It becomes easy to plan out the rest of ones secure life, including retirement, then to simply follow that planned path, ignoring all else. That secure feeling can relegate the state of our nation or local communities to no more than casual conversation.

The corporate requirement of overlooking some wrongdoing, some unfairness, carries over into public life as well, as does the financial wastefulness that corporate employees witness each working day. I think it accounts for the American citizenry's apathy toward politics, and the fact that fewer than half of us bother to vote. I think it accounts for Americans being able to ignore the many travesties being perpetrated by our government, and the extravagant wastefulness of that same government. Big, corrupt, wasteful government doesn't look so unusual when one is already used to existing within another big, corrupt, wasteful environment.

I consider myself pro-business, and I can appreciate the capabilities of large businesses, but the corporate workstyle has some serious side-effects. What will be the long-term effects of this trend? I'll speculate on that on another day, but I hope you'll consider it yourself.