Today's blog is slightly different. It has been brewing in my mind for quite some time and can be considered a continuation of my previous blog, slightly harsh.
So let's start with some context. I recently switched my IT organization from a smaller startup to a larger IT/MNC. For quite some time, I had felt this dryness, this drought in my soul when it came to IT. But I kind of kept it on the back burner, thinking that this dryness, this drought, would pass away, possibly with a bigger organization. In a materialistic way, it did go away, with a better office and more money. But I guess it stops there. In fact, in my first two weeks at the MNC, I felt even more dryness, a greater drought, and then came a third element, sadness.
With all these fancy offices, bigger salaries, and perceived status, when we tear that veil, we see a sad world, so sad it might kill people like me, so-called creatives. With ID cards like a dog's leash. With fancy presentations that are so dry, it's horrendous. With generic videos as introductions where even a bad AI would be more creative than that. With generic vision words plastered on walls, presentations, and every goddamn place. But those vision words are just as dry. The fake enthusiasm, so much so that we can cringe out.
But what are we? Why is there this dryness? The sad reality is we are a number on a spreadsheet. As long as the number is positive, you are paid for your services. As long as they are satisfied, money is thrown at you like a whore. The moment the number is negative, you are trafficked out. The worst is when you are sold as a product. You might have heard of SaaS, and IaaS, but have you heard of HaaS (Human as a Service), where a "Domain Expert" is sold to keep that same spreadsheet in the green? And I don’t have to repeat what I said in the last blog about the pointlessness of this all.
When I entered the gates of the premises of the building of my new job, I was going up to my office, to my desk, and I saw more and more faces, the more I sensed this immense sadness. This corporate slavery. People working like slaves to jerk off a manager in the US, hence the word, the whores. Working day and night with zero time for self and family. Because there is this constant danger and uncertainty lingering, that you will be chewed up and thrown out.
But then one might question, why all this? I will tell you from my personal experience, to pay the bills, to pay off that student loan, to pay off that house loan. Or simply poverty, to be the first one to end the cycle of poverty in the family. What are we left with then? Sad people, workers, working for a random company for money in a soul-sucking environment with no meaning in life.
What's the solution? To be honest, I don't know. I am figuring it out. But unless we get out of that old slave mentality and start adopting a more Gen Z approach, there won’t be any significant change. I purposely stayed away from blaming the old generation for acting badly, there are old people who are cool. What we need to oppose is the rotten mentality of treating employees like whores, slaves, and numbers on a spreadsheet.
For me, I feel this dryness, this drought, more, and it’s unbearable. I might choose a different career than climbing the corporate ladder. But all of this has become insufferable and miserable. But before anyone gets offended, I am trapped in the same cycle. So we need to ask, what will get us out of it?