The typical newbie is…well…new, for lack of a better description. They are generally young and very impressionable. You can spot a newbie quickly, as they have an alertness (bordering on nervousness) about them. They are almost too eager to please, and will agree with almost everything.

A “new-hire,” as they are referred to in our company, is someone who is fresh out of the company’s new-hire workshop. This is a one-week session where new employees must be “oriented” to fit the company’s model. Brainwashing is a better description. This is the beginning of the end for many young people. Individuality, creative thinking, and many freedoms are sidelined as the company rhetoric is pumped up full volume to the somewhat naive participants. The newbie doesn’t stand a chance.

A week later, fully primed with a weeks worth of propaganda, the new-hire reports to work. Most will still have a child-like innocence and are very impressionable and eager to please. That’s why the newbie is usually taken under someone’s wing (a manager, normally) to be molded into the perfect employee. Once this happens, that person will never be the same. They will settle in as a small cog in a large wheel – never knowing what happened to their freedom and individuality.

Most of the office staff will have a standoffish attitude towards the new employee. I don’t know why that is, but I’ve seen it many times over the years. Is it that the more senior workers feel threatened by the enthusiastic newbie? My guess is, yes. Well, that, and the fact that they feel the new employee must earn a bit of recognition first. Office snobbery, I like to call it.

Personally, I am friendly with all new employees. I like to treat them decently, as I can remember walking into a strange office eighteen years ago, and feeling resentment and indifference from most of the people.

Once introduced, I smile and give them a friendly handshake, welcoming them to the “team.” In fact, I feel sorry for our new members. They are being blindsided and don’t even realize it. I still stand there, smile, and go on about how great the company is and how they have made a good choice. Man, talk about hypocritical – but what else can I say? I’m tempted to tell them to run and never look back, but that wouldn’t be conducive to a good teamwork environment. F**k, I hate this place.

This person will feel fortunate to have landed such a great opportunity. Little do they realize they have started down the path of the wage-slave. In the coming years they will bid for promotions, make more money, buy a house, and start a family. They will start paying bills and taxes. They will have an insatiable appetite for the latest consumer junk, and will work so much harder to obtain them. They will maintain an equilibrium of wages versus expenses. The more they make, the more they will spend. They will do this because that is simply the goal set by society. They will allow their careers to define who they are as a person. In short, they will be caught up in the rat race.

Well, here I am in the office. It’s just another day like so many others. I’m amazed that I’ve been able to handle it for eighteen years. I have a fifteen-minute break, so I thought I would write a few paragraphs.

I hate the office environment – sterile air, ringing phones, water coolers, office gossip, fake greetings, and pasted on smiles. Could I be the only one who feels this way? I doubt it. Most days I just feel like leaving and never coming back. Very much like the movie, “Office Space.”

My cubicle is just one among many hundreds (at least that seems like a reasonable number). The main floor is very large (at least 20,000 square feet). Along the far wall are the individual offices of the managers and senior sales. They are actual rooms with a window view. You really have to have your ass-kissing skills honed to perfection to have an office here.

Don’t get me wrong, many of the individuals with their own office, are talented and well educated. They deserve to be where they are. However, there are many people working in a cubicle on the main floor, that are just as talented, though, not as submissive to the corporation and external customers. They have a mind of there own – not that they are indifferent or lazy, just that they have stood their ground in the past when bullied by management and customers. I’m included in this group.

As a new employee starting out with this firm in 1987, I thought I had the world on a string. I had completed college in ’85 and worked as an office clerk for a company that eventually went bankrupt. I applied for a position at my current company and was hired shortly afterwards. I was bright, fresh, and eager to please. It seemed like dream come true. I had great aspirations back then, and couldn’t imagine the day would come where I literally wanted to run, screaming out of the building, never to return.

I guess I’m slightly jaded. I don’t know how many workshops, seminars, or courses it took. I don’t know how many years of office politics it took. I don’t know how many rude or irate customers it took. I only know that hope was gradually replaced with despair.

I am still putting in an honest days work. After all, I am being paid for it. I’m not the type to coast along and let others carry my weight. I might hate my situation, but the company still deserves a full day’s work.

However, I’m only here for the paycheck now. I don’t care about the corporation. I see it for what it really is. I feel no loyalty since that loyalty would certainly not be reciprocated. I don’t want a promotion. I don’t want team-building workshops. I don’t want an employee-of-the-month travel mug. I just want out.

That’s my 20 minute rant for the day. Back to work…

I have two mission statements. One is my company’s statement, and the other is my own. I don’t tell anyone about my personal mission statement, and the other, I simply follow out of necessity. I need a paycheck (for now, anyway).

In the 20 years or so in which I have been a loyal employee, I have been subjected to no less than 50 courses, seminars, workshops – all this in the name of employee improvement. It seems that with each executive shuffle, we are guaranteed at least one mandatory workshop. The new management wants to mold us according to their vision.

Very few are of any real value. We all sit through them, however, like a bunch of yes-men. We nod and pretend it’s interesting. “That’s it, it’ll be over soon. Next year the new execs will abolish this model and create their own.” Sigh…

You see, the number one rule to surviving the monotony of the corporate world is to smile when appropriate, act as though you give a s**t, and always keep one thing in mind: as long as you do a good job and satisfy the person directly above you, you’re going to be just fine.

Oh, and one more thing: Always keep in mind that you really don’t have a choice. They will tell you that they “value your input”, but at the end of the day you have to accept whatever is given to you. You are, after all, a team player – are you not? Team players follow orders and respect the chain of command for the greater good of the company. Team players will always put fellow employees and the company first.

While my company’s mission statement drones on about “customer service” and “results oriented” people and services, my mission statement is geared towards how I envision my ideal life to be. It tends to be much less structured than the company blueprint.

My company’s mission statement goes something like this:

“We are a customer oriented company whose goals are to provide our external clients with the highest level of service possible through an empowered and highly skilled workforce.”

And so on…

My mission statement is as follows:

“I will strive for freedom and self-sufficiency while remaining trapped within the corporate environment. I will learn to differentiate between things that will benefit me and things that will continue to enslave me. I am a self-oriented individual who will work towards independence and a life of my choosing and, ultimately, a life outside of the corporate world.”