Ravings of a newly appointed factory worker

I’ve recently moved from working in a small cooperation, for 7 years, to being unemployed for 3 months to moving into an organization that is 5000 employees large.

Now, this has mostly been quite a shock to the system but there are moments where you think, ‘wow, really, are you serious, really?

But what I want to share in the post is some of the intriguing things I picked up in big corps:

• There is a department called Strategic Intelligence, now this dude has a business card that reads: Name Surname Strategic Intelligence, how awesomely cool is that? I want to be in that department, I want Strategic Intelligence on my business card, then, then, the only thing I would have to get to go along with that is an actuarial qualification. No problem.

• Opposite to this is a title I saw going through one of the time-wasting invitations to yet another seminar that will teach you to do-the-obvious strategically, which is asls painfully obvious, in a time of economic difficulty. This dude’s title was: Name Surname, Chief Strategic Communications Officer! Now, for someone who works at White House, in the West Wing and is named Toby Ziegler, then this title would be a perfect fit. BUT if you actually are a specialist in internal communications, media relations, and brand positioning in a company made up of 3 people, then….

What funny titles have you come across?

There is also new language that I have to get use to. What the hell is Brand Activation? The ‘equity’ I know relates to money in the business sense, only asset managers and such people can use the word understandably for me. Of course the other meaning relates to fairness etc. but what the hell does it mean in the context of marketing? I slowly learning that terms get invented to make one’s job more scientic and financial. And I suppose that is a good thing, but why then come up with other phrases like green fields and blue sky. WTF?

The biggest frustration though coming into a big organization is the restricted access. Cannot access blog websites, work-related or not, I cannot access social media, even though some of my activities that I need to track featured there. I cannot access my gmail, my skype, any instant messaging, which is often needed to keep in touch with social and business contacts. The tool that was my right-hand (because my filling leaves a lot to be desired) google destop, I cannot access. My cyber life has been cut in quality so much that sometimes it brings me to tears. I get mimesweep emails 5 times a day to say that my mails have been quarantined. ‘Mimesweep’? ‘quarantined’? but the funniest thing, the saddest thing is that even with this, with all of this, we got a virus that took almost a week to figure out and sort out. The humanity!

The thing I miss the most though, the thing I mourn is being in control. In control of my finances for example. They don’t trust you to pay your own medical aid, no, even though you are paying for it, it has to come out of your salary and not your bank account. You have made your own plans for retirement, to die before you reach it or have separate savings, that is not good enough, you join our scheme or find another job.

How do people do it? How do you stay sane in the midst of such madness.

The upside to all of this I suppose is that it is all for your protection and the company’s. It is all for the greater good. You are part of a successful big corporation that contributes to the heartbeat of the economy and society. One is given opportunities to give off their time to charity and money (this is made so much easier), one is given a chance to be part of a community that is bigger than 10 people, and in that, the odds are raised to actually finding that other half of your self you’ve been doing without. But hell, if that other half is here, what does it say about my half…