Scaring Myself the Executive Way

I'm a fairly anti-corporate person.

Things like the movie "Office Space" and anything by Scott Adams, creator of "Dilbert," really resonate with me. I tend to agree with a lot of Michael Moore's anti-corporation rantings on how the high level executives' pursuit of the bottom line can destroy a person's lifestyle, ability to support a family and, in extreme cases, sanity.

I have seen how the corporate culture can cause people to do things and act in ways they wouldn't normally. In many cases, it can completely transform an ordinary person into a greedy, power hungry, single minded, narrowly focused workaholic who cares about their title and income level more than their family or their quality of life. It's great if you can own the mansion, the Ferrari, have an incredible spouse and kids, and are financially secure. But if all you're doing is spending all your waking hours on the job, when do you really get to enjoy and appreciate all of it? I don't even want to get in to the likelihood that if you've achieved that sort of high status, you probably have a healthy contempt for people "below" you and freely treat them like that.

But I digress...the point being that I work to live, not live to work, and I try to resist doing anything that I feel can make me too corporate, such as wearing any sort of tie and a white shirt or playing golf.

So when Dan, my old colleague from a company I used to work for, offered to take me and Jim, my current work colleague, out to lunch, naturally I agreed. It's always fun to catch up with old friends...and of course get the all important free lunch.

But I also need to mention that my current workplace "farms out" a good amount of projects to my former employer. The reason I mention this is that for the first time in recent memory, I actually approached this as a true business lunch, that is, to discuss potential future dealings between Dan's company and mine.

As Jim and I discussed technical capabilities and potential business arrangements with Dan, I found myself increasingly driving the conversation, bringing up the issues that pertained to my company and determining the keys to establishing a business relationship to mutually attain what we both needed. The discussion moved flawlessly, almost comfortably, as if we were discussing the weather or the Red Wings.

Upon dwelling on it, it frightened me a little. It really wasn't that long ago when I was the one sitting still in a meeting, letting someone else more proficient in corporate-speak babble on about specifications, staffing, outsourcing or confidential secrets. Now here I was, a loving spouse and soon to be father of two, an admitted geek with a love for sci-fi and comedy movies with a past history of participating in RPGs, a passionate hockey fan and recreational player, and a generally lazy guy with high suspicions of anyone that wears a power suit and tie to work, essentially forming the foundation of a potential business arrangement between workgroups of two fairly large automotive suppliers. I wondered if my hair was starting to form into two points on either side of my head like Dilbert's boss.

Happily, as we ended the formal part of our business lunch, we found our way back to more interesting topics like sports, weather and TV. And as we parted ways for the time being, Dan offered to take us to lunch on a more regular basis and possibly provide some tickets to a Wings game or two. Of course I showed interest. After all, free food and sporting events are a nice little perk.

Besides, I'm sure that someday in the future, we'll be discussing this or another deal on the 9th green of a golf course somewhere.