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Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Comrade Kjohn Betrays the Corporate Motherland


Ten years of working in corporate America have taught me that if Joseph Stalin were alive today he would probably be the CEO of a bank, an insurance company or perhaps an energy conglomerate.


When I started as a fresh faced poorly paid jobsworth in a corporation early in 2000 I was amazed at how quickly I was able to catch the eye of management by making a concerted effort to increase sales. One of my colleagues at the time complained, “because of you we’ll all have to work harder. If you hadn’t bothered then we could have carried on sucking.” At the time, her attitude appalled me because I was the guy Stalin would have had on posters throughout the USSR being hailed as a son of Mother Russia for growing a million kernels of corn in a single flowerpot.

I enjoyed the adulation and wondered why no one else had ever thought of working this hard before. What I did not realize was that the praise I received wasn’t aimed at encouraging me it was aimed at belittling my colleagues. If we were in the USSR they would have been the Ukrainian farmers sent to labor camps for failing to meet unrealistic harvests whilst I was receiving bouquet’s and having Cossack dances in my honor.

The problem is though that it never lasts and praise turns to silence and silence turns into “you piece of garbage you should be lucky you still have a job. If and when we fire you’re slack arse you’ll be lucky to get a job as a penny an hour janitor forced to clean bathrooms with your tongue.” Like any despotic regime, a good corporation lures you in with promises of glory and a brave new world then keeps a hold of you through fear.

I can abide this life no longer especially considering that according to the Mayans we only have 2 years left before the world ends. I don’t want to be on a sales conference call when a cosmic pulse incinerates the Earth. I want to be doing something fun and creative and so my challenge, which will be documented in this blog, is to escape the corporate world and earn a living as a self-employed creative soul.

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