Young Underpaid Professionals

Posted by Rio S.

Back when I was still living the hell that was Corpo, I learned a couple of stuff that helped me live through all the bull crap in the office. Of course, corpo’s not all bull crap but you know what I mean. So anyway, here are the things I learned in Corpo:

Thou shalt not shit where you eat.
This is something I learned late in my stay in corpo and let’s just say it’s something that still comes rearing its ugly head and biting me in the ass. Sure, it was good to have something to look forward to as you can see your (in)significant other at the workplace you fantasize burning to the ground. But those kinds of things rarely ever go smoothly and so in the long run, you might find yourself left holding a bag of shit. It becomes especially nightmarish right after the break up since people you work with might have a tendency of (mis)interpreting everything you do as an effect of the said break up. Read: Everything you do is because of HIM. That’s annoying, unless you ARE doing things because of HIM.

It can get ugly too. Imagine crying scenes at the office and – let’s not go there. Plus, the “motivation” you previously had would turn into a great glob of the opposite. Don’t shit where you eat. It’s not only disgusting, it’s unsanitary.

Thou shall keep your friends close, enemies closer.
That’s a general rule anywhere (coming from either Sun Tzu’s Art of War or Niccolo Machiavelli’s The Prince) but it is useful in corpo for obvious reasons. Also, one of the not-so-apparent reasons is that you might find that you can actually get along with some people who appear to be dickwads inside the office. I think the lesson is, most people just find themselves displaying different characteristics in the workplace. I say most because some are just plain dickwads.

Most of the time, it is better to be feared than loved.
This comes from Machiavelli’s The Prince (good reading for those aspiring world domination). Leaders might be torn between being loved or being feared by their underlings. I got hit by that and chose the former option, but then I found that I didn’t like people using me to wipe their feet with. In an effort to get your peons to like you, you might be letting them get away with murder. The universe likes balance, maybe you should too.

Just when you thought the skeletons were safely in the closet, they come back from the dead and nip you in the ass.
While you might think that last week’s memo has been safely tucked away in your 201 file, it might have earned you a tick on one’s list, specifically, your boss’. Sure, it’s easy to say, “Pinag-iinitan ako.” (I’m being picked on.) whenever you’re under the boss’ microscope but you never stop to think about all the times you were late or absent. All the times you missed a deadline, and all the times you were generally irresponsible. Be responsible, you’re not being paid to slack your ass off.

Of course, I learned a couple more stuff during my yuppie corpo stint and so we’ll talk about that in the next part.

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