Monday, January 29, 2007

GET A REAL JOB


One evening recently I was standing in line at my local convenience store and overheard a conversation between the female clerk and a young man who had several shirts in a dry cleaner’s bag draped over his arm. He apologized for the shirts as he juggled them to dig for his wallet and remarked, “I never used to have anything dry cleaned until I got a real job.” The clerk and I shared a laugh after he had left and agreed that we somewhat resented his phrase “real job.” She told me that she loves her job and considers it as real as any other.

We both knew what he meant by a “real job.” A “real job” means working in an office, doing things that are often boring and stressful but are generally considered to be somehow vital to our society and our economy; it means sweating under pressure in a starched shirt, but with the satisfaction of knowing that you are on a real career path, betting on the Main Chance, following The Money and getting in on the the Real Action.

The two kids in my cartoon will eventually abandon their piratical lemonade stand and may get “real” jobs some day - maybe even work for BigCola.com or BigBucksBillboards.com. A “real job” means working for THE MAN, the Establishment, for the kind of organizations that the authors of “The Cluetrain Manifesto” predicted in 1999 would soon become dinosaurs.

In 1999 David Weinberger, Doc Searls and Chris Locke created a “Cluetrain” website and book in which they heralded “the end of business as usual,” due to the arrival of what they call “networked markets.” Thanks to the spread of the Internet, and the development of intranets within big companies, they believed that businesses could no longer control markets, nor their own employees, and therefore could not continue doing business as they always had. The ability of people to communicate instantly, find information on virtually anything and find each other through the Web had broken down the barriers that businesses have traditionally erected around themselves.

I have seldom read anything as funny or as true about business as the authors’ searing observations of the traditional culture of “real jobs.” They compare corporations to medieval castles, surrounded by moats of secrecy, ruled over by absolute monarchs and favored courtiers. The primary force, they write, by which companies strive to motivate employees and structure their organizations, is fear. They point out that corporations create elaborate security networks to protect themselves not so much from their competitors as from their own customers and their employees: to make sure that no one but their inner circle really knows what it going on. They observe that corporations consistently avoid any kind of real dialogue with customers or employees, but instead issue propaganda that few people in or out of a company fully trust or take seriously.

As I laughed and cheered my way through articles from the Manifesto, I found myself writing down quote after pithy quote in my notebook, like:

“Somewhere along the line, we confused going to work with building a fort…As the drawbridge goes up behind us, we become business people, different enough from our normal selves that when we first bring our children to the office, they’ve been known to hide under our desk, crying.”

“Companies must ask themselves where their corporate cultures end. If their cultures end before the community begins, they will have no market.”

“Companies need to realize that their markets are often laughing. At them.”

“Companies attempting to ‘position’ themselves need to take a position…Bombastic boasts – ‘We are positioned to become the preeminent provider of XYZ’ – do not constitute a position.”

“Markets do not want to talk to flacks and hucksters. They want to participate in the conversations going on behind the corporate firewall.”


Observations like these echoed my own experiences of corporate cultures and the two worlds I have found there: the official world of corporate propaganda and the actual world of day-to-day work in the trenches.

I remember well my shock when I first discovered the gulf between these two worlds. In the office of a large telecommunications corporation where I worked for a while, a new supervisor arrived with great credentials but no actual skills, and proceeded to complicate everyone’s job with a lot of red tape, slowing us down by making us fill out detailed reports on everything little thing we did. When we complained, the general manager explained, “I know you all do a great job, but headquarters doesn’t perceive that you do a great job. So, the most important thing we have to do is change that perception. If we have to make ourselves a little less efficient in order to be perceived as more efficient, that’s what we have to do.”

Another day at this same company the whole staff was called into an all-day meeting, complete with a big lunch and fancy snacks, during which a representative from our new health insurance provider explained, at great length and with many glossy handouts, all the wonderful benefits of our new health insurance plan. As the hours dragged on, we began to wonder, why all this fuss? Then, late in the afternoon, the truth finally came out. “Now, I think you’ll all agree," said the general manager, “that these benefits the company is giving us are wonderful and that we need to do our part too.” Then the hammer came down as he explained how each of us would begin paying for this new health plan with big deductions from our paychecks. They had fattened us up and lulled us with happy talk all day so they could tell us that the company wouldn’t be providing us with health insurance any more. We had to buy our own.

I remember reading annual reports from a company in which I owned some stock. Year after year there were glowing reports about how they were growing and expanding into new facilities and new markets. Then one year they reported with equally glowing words, about how excited they were to be “streamlining” their operation by “downsizing” their staff, selling off excess facilities and “focusing on a more select section of the market.” They were sinking like the Titanic but their brass band was playing a rousing march.

I could go on and on. We have all had experiences like these that have made us grow somewhat cynical over the years about the business world. The authors of “Cluetrain” believed in 1999 that our cynicism was cresting, both as customers and as employees, thanks to our new ability to communicate with each other through the Internet and see the waves of B.S. that the business world is constantly rolling our way.

In a chapter called “Internet Apocylpso,” Christopher Locke tells the story of how little, isolated cells of techies began communicating with each other in the early 1990s and how they developed an iconoclastic, no-holds-barred style of communication that frequently punctured the overblown images of the organizations for which they worked. At first, he writes, the Internet was so small and specialized that no one in power took it seriously. By the time organizations realized how big the Internet community was growing and where it was heading, it was too late to control it or stop its freewheeling spirit. By 1999, the authors believed that organizations needed to either adapt themselves to a new spirit of realism, honesty and open communication or else go out of business.

So here we are now, eight years later. Have the predictions of the authors of “Cluetrain” come to pass? Has the spirit of the Internet community ushered in a new age in business? To some extent, yes. As in all revolutions, however, many people have simply put a new cockade in their hat and have kept their old ways. Also, as in George Orwell’s “Animal Farm,” many of the new bosses are acting more and more like the old bosses all the time.

Businesses are certainly presenting themselves with a new kind of image. An organization that once emblazoned the marble lintel over its door with brass letters reading “Associated Telecommunications Corporation” is now likely to call itself “aTeK,”in a logo that looks like hip hop graffiti. If its motto was once “America’s Communication Leader,” it is probably now something like “Communicate. Share. Discover.”

Businesses are also communicating differently. On its website, aTeK probably describes its services as “cool features” and “killer aps.” At meetings executives call each other “dude.” Customers can now “access” the company “24/7” through its website.

Of course most of this is just window dressing. Many companies are simply using new technologies and new communication styles to keep on shoveling the same B.S. they have always shoveled. Some of them are using the Internet to shovel EVEN MORE B.S. than they did before, thanks to the ability to send Spam infinitely and spread rumors anonymously on the Web. Some organizations are using their websites to retreat even further from the public than they did before. Want to learn more about aTeK? Just click on this link. Want to get in touch with us? Just email us and our computers will analyze your inquiry and send you an automated, personalized response instantly. No, you won’t find our address on the website. You don’t need it. We are everywhere and nowhere. Want to call us? Here’s an 800 number you can call to get recorded information. Want to talk to a human being? No problem. Just type in your credit card number and we will set up a customer service account for you.

Real changes are happening, of course, due to new technology, globalization, outsourcing and, yes, to the new spirit of business the authors of “Cluetrain” describe, and many of these changes are good! I think it is important, however, for everyone involved in e-commerce and digitized organizations to take a good look at the Internet’s potential to improve their relationship with the public, instead of just its potential to make life easier or more profitable for themselves. Everyone should read “The Cluetrain Manifesto” to catch the Utopian spirit its authors felt at the dawn of the Internet age. We need to keep this spirit alive.

There is hope that we can. A couple of years ago we got a new department manager at the hotel restaurant where I now work. He came from a background in human resources and one of his first acts was to call a meeting for the whole staff at which he presented, with great passion and with many Powerpoint slides, our parent corporation’s Mission Statement. When he was done he asked us how we felt about it. For thirty seconds thirty faces stared blankly at him. Finally, a little reluctantly, I raised my hand and commented that it sounded pretty much like the Mission Statement of every other company for which I have worked. What we really needed to talk about, I suggested, was our own individual mission as a restaurant and our specific goals, strengths and weaknesses, rather than the generic philosophies of the corporation. The new manager turned a bit red and began stammering, but the staff breathed a sigh of relief and a lively discussion of real issues ensued.

Later I heard through the grapevine that after the meeting the new manager was asking people, “Who was that incredibly RUDE guy?” In the following months, however, he and I became good friends and conspired together to make some real waves around the organization. On the day he left for another job at a bigger company, he hung up a beautifully printed, laminated poster on the back room wall. It was a brand new Mission Statement for our restaurant, which he had written himself, that really talked about who we are and where he saw us heading. He had gotten my message.

In little ways, here and there, the gaps between “real jobs,” real people and the real world may be closing.

2 Comments:

Blogger Christopher Locke said...

Despite what "my" ID says here, I am Chris Locke, one of the authors of the Cluetrain Manifesto. David Weinberger alerted me and the other co-authors to your post, which is a wonderful essay of the state of affairs today. I don't think any of us really believed in 1999 that business would evolve across the board and fully rise to the opportunity the web offered. We did hope (in simplistic terms perhaps) to shame the Bad Guys and encourage the Good Guys -- both of which camps are still well represented out there. Your example of how individuals can and do make a difference is inspiring. Thanks for writing this.

10:12 AM  
Blogger rand'm said...

I, on the other hand did not appreciate the readings until I read your posting.
Thanks VAun

10:22 AM  

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