Caring and Compassion

Here’s the deal. A lot of us are corporate schmucks, even though we are loath to admit it. Maybe you’re a short-term corporate schmuck, just passing through on your way. Maybe your a long-termer, for which corporate schmuckdom is a lifestyle, deny it as you may. If this struck a chord with you, don’t be afraid to admit it. There are vast numbers who effectively live and breathe for the corporate world – even if they don’t see themselves in quite this light.

It’s not necessarilly only about stability, because there are a couple of distinct things that large corporations offer, which is the chance to be involved in a certain type of strategic thinking, and the sorts of large scale projects that large corporations are ideally suited to undertake. This is a powerful draw, since there are loads of fascinating projects that fit this bill.

There is also the third type, whom I will refer to as the unemployed corporate schmuck. You may well have been one of those at some point.

Unemployed corporate schmuck’s are those who know that they will not be satisfied until they are safely back within the walls of a stable employer. They may have occasional entrepreneur fantasies, but deep down they crave the status that having a stable employer brings (”ie. He’s a responsible family-man with a solid 9-5 job”).

And let’s face it – until you’ve established a successful business, there are plenty out there who will discreetly or indiscreetly poo-poo your independant ambitions at every corner. If your heart isn’t completely into the entrepreneurial lifestyle, you probably won’t be able to derive sufficient satisfaction from the process of turning your own ideas into reality in this way. For such people, the ’poo-pooing’ of others resonates quite strong and ’negatively’ in the sense that it causes those being questioned to quickly confront your own uncertainty regarding any potential entrepreneurial path – and generally reject it.

Freedom

Contrary to popular belief, there is room for independent thought within corporations – you just have to be clear where the limits are, what you yourself are comfortable accepting, and when to get out.

Probably the most strongly negative issues associated with the large corporation is the image of a bunch of desk jockeys living in a cubicle farm – tied to the office hour after hour. For many jobs, this is a legitimate issues, but similarly there are just as many jobs that don’t have these characteristics.

The limits of being a corporate schmuck

Corporations can never provide you with blank-cheque security. Security is only something that  you can create in your own mind. A sense that no matter what happens, everything will be alright, and anyway its all for the better, even if it seems unlikely that this is the entirely case from time to time.

Even the most dedicated employer, working on the most profitable and important of projects will never gain this level of security from their employer. Security is a feeling – a conviction – that we each must create it ourselves. It is the confidence to know that as we create our own reality anyway, we can always safely navigate the unexpected twists and turns we are faced.

And you will never have full independent freedom – there will always be somebody above you looking ’down’. Of course, many would argue the same is true in an entrepreneurial setting, where there can be customers and investors and others who can have a strong influence.

I consider myself a short-term corporate schmuck, but the bottom-line is that until my behaviour goes in another direction (entrepreneurial), whatever adjective I wish to put in front of it, I remain a corporate schmuck. I admit it.

When I accepted my current corporate gig, there was a little voice inside of me nudging me to do it, telling me that though I knew deep down in my heart that I was an entrepreneur, and that this would ultimately be my future path, there was a kind of deep understanding that I also needed to experience that would be gained by taking the corporate path for the time being. It wasn’t entirely clear what this experience would be, but I had an idea it was out there waiting for me.

It wasn’t so much experience in the sense of direct professional knowledge garnered from my work, though the potential high relevance of this is not entirely lost on me either. Rather, it was a more general sort of ’life’ knowledge that I believe was just as important. The feeling of being tied to the office routine, along with the knowledge of how it is to work in an organisation, to communicate, the knowledge of how a certain type of big business works on the inside. The way decisions were made, and the knowledge of what could be possible and what was difficult to accomplish within the boundaries of a corporate set-up. Because this knowledge can be used to limitless benefit in an entrepreurial setting, and in general, it is valuable.

You could call it a kind of conscious growth experience.

But allow me to now discuss the corporate schmuck-by-nature personality type.

When to accept you are a corporate schmuck…

Although it is trendy to smash and bash corporations in the blogosphere – particularly within the personal development world, it must be acknowledged that corporations carry out the vast majority of projects upon which the technology and infrastructure that we depend upon to live our lives as we do are created and built. That is an enormous statement and a degree of truth worthy of acknowledging and accepting.

Idealise as we do about a world without large corporations (and I do this quite regularly), the truth is I probably wouldn’t be too satisfied with what it looked like. But what is the personal consequence of this sort of thinking

Well….

When I think about my own wanderings and my own contributions to the world I love to experience, I admit to having had a guilty feeling, from time to time, that I was not doing enough to keep my end of the ’enjoyment of life’ bargain. That is, I was serious consumer of all kinds of stuff, but what was I giving back? What did I create? It’s a tough question to answer, and a tough judgment to make.

The creation and undertaking of most large-scale projects requires vast numbers of people.

Think about the bridge that spans the river (such as the Oresund bridge and tunnel just out of eyesight from where I live connected Denmark and Sweden together). I’m pretty happy that it was built, but I’m pretty glad that I didn’t have anything to do with the actual building process.

The list of examples goes on and on. The food we eat, the roads we drive on, countless technology (GPS systems, mobile phones, computers, Internet, desks and furniture, clothing, and on and on). It didn’t just built itself. Furthermore, the best of it took some pretty talented people with clear ambitions and visions to turn into reality. It wasn’t just faceless corporations, even though it is often them who end up with their stamp on the final outcomes (and a large chunk of the profits in their bank accounts).

So let’s be clear: if you are the sort who envisions BIG – really BIG – then the corporate world may well be the right place for you. In fact, it may well be the only place for you.

There are certain kinds of projects which are only accomplished thanks to a corporate structure that enables them. I am the first to complain when this same corporate structure litterally fucks it up – by creating lousy buildings, inadequate roads, crappy unimaginitive computers and software, and mobile phones that don’t have the functionality I really want, low-quality, uninspired clothing, and on and on.

And we haven’t even touched the issue of pollution and social awareness, of which many corporations have an appalling record.

Yet, it must be acknowledged that sometimes – not always – this structure and all the compromises it entails is nonetheless the only realistic way to realise many project.

It would be wonderful if we could all just work together as a coalition of small, highly motivated, self-owned entrepreneurial firms on even the largest of projects. The reality is this is not always the most efficient, and moreover, in many instances it just doesn’t produce the necessary results.

So if you sense that you have a purpose that is best filled by being a part of a structure that is in many senses much larger than yourself, don’t apologise if the anti-corporate crusaders start questioning your motives. But be sure you are conscious about what you are doing, because within the coporate walls, it is all too easy not to be.