Post: #1

I searched the forum but couldn't find such a thread. There is the forum lounge but it's very general so here we go gents.

There is a young girl working at the front desk where I work. In the directory she is mentioned as "front desk reception specialist". We don't have that many visitors so she can be seen behind her computer, I suppose, browsing the web. Gossip is an integral part of her job. She's commented on different occasions about my lunch that I microwave and take out of the kitchen. If you think this is a byproduct of having a made-to-work job you're wrong; this, i.e. gossip, is intentionally integrated into this job with female nature in mind. The central location of the front desk makes it easy to have an eye to employee movements. Wasn't there an article on "panopticon" on ROK recently?

When she is not busy with the task of gossiping and browsing the web she can be seen flirting with some of the male employees in their (open) cubicles, talking in a low voice which makes it more obvious. And SHE CAN'T BE HAPPIER.

Now that I've seen the evils of patriarchy first hand I'm aghast and am loosing sleep. Just imagine without such a job she would have had to marry a guy! Jesus!

There is actually another young girl working at the front desk as well. Just a couple of years ago when I arrived she was very cute but, surprise, surprise, she's been putting on weight. A few days ago I saw her walking outside with a cup of soda in her hand. She'd got so fat she couldn't walk comfortably. I was disgusted.

Sometimes the two of the girls are "working", sometimes just one and sometimes neither of them and an old lady (who unlike them is at work everyday) fills in for them. But none of them seem to be doing anything.

Post: #2

70-80% of all corporate jobs are just trying to look busy.

I reckon most people could get all their tasks done in 2 hours.

But naw, they need to, "See you at your desk" 8 hours a day. Nonsense.

Post: #3

I've learned that in the corporate arena, the ladies' room is used for crying more than any other bodily function.

Post: #4

(05-21-2017 10:43 AM)Sombro Wrote:  I've learned that in the corporate arena, the ladies' room is used for crying more than any other bodily function.

Which is amusing because you'll never see that in a factory. White collar urban people have pretty much nothing to cry about, yet they're always unhappy.

Post: #5

Shit like this is why I quit my office job and now I'm trying to become blue collar.

Listening to women babble about their kids or how inspiring Meryl Streep's speech was starts to drive you insane. Same for sitting in a cubicle and watching everyone around you get fatter.

Some of them are very legitimate, but the majority of these office jobs are completely useless. The money is just as good, and in many cases better, working with your hands. Plus no entitled women or manginas, and the work actually matters.

Post: #6

Having a zero fucks given attitude at work will literally save your life. Caring is a dangerous and destructive path to go down. I wish I had figured this out decades ago. The only thing worth caring about are possibly babies and small children because they don't know any better. Everybody else can fuck off. Work and get paid. The lady in the office who has had 9 abortions, the hot chick who just got hired is fucking the boss, the guy who wants to quit... who gives a shit.

Post: #7

(05-21-2017 10:43 AM)Sombro Wrote:  I've learned that in the corporate arena, the ladies' room is used for crying more than any other bodily function.

Very true. And of course, as men, we wouldn't know this except that women tell us first hand.

I remember one VERY successful, VERY senior female corporate executive at a large Fortune 10 company. She and I were close because we had worked closely together and sort of came up together, though she was 12 yrs older than I. Every time i got promoted, so did she. So we had a connection. And one day this super-senior executive admits to me that one time our department head said some fairly benign comment to her, something like "you work so hard, but don't just work hard, work smart". A guy would've said "right!" But she confessed to me that she toughed it out to the ladies room and started crying!!

I've had many highs and lows in my long career. I'm much older than most on this board. I've had a lot of success, yet, my career could best be described as unfulfilled potential. Certainly to me, knowing that I could've been that super-senior fortune 10 company executive, my career has been a disappointment.

And when i look where my career went off the rails, not one time but several, all the scenarios had the same thing in common: A thin-skinned woman got offended.

Sometimes, the thin-skinned broad was my boss. I wasn't sufficiently deferential or sufficiently cognizant of the insecurities ALL women, even those with 7-figure incomes, carry around with them. Other times, it was a co-worker who was both sensitive and back-stabbing, overly competitive. Sometimes it was a fat female employee who burst into a puddle of tears when i pointed out they could do something better. And complained to HR. Or the female employees who exaggerated their claims to HR knowing HR would always back the female, and if i got in trouble....maybe they'd get my job!

So much conflict. But rarely with men. ALL of my issues in corporate america have come from working with women. It's a shame.

But i've learned. I may have one more go at the brass ring. If I reach it this time, it's because i've learned the Golden Rule of working with women: DON'T! Don't engage! If a woman is your boss, transfer. If you have female subordinates, try to put a guy in between you, or at least an older more stable (likely fat) woman. If your peers are women, be pleasant but DO NOT ENGAGE! Do not take the bait. Avoid! Evade! And live to fight another day.

This is the primary learning i've gleaned from nearly 30 years in corporate america. It's a sad one. Because, for most of existence, men didn't have to walk on eggshells, worried about losing their careers because little Betty-Lou-Boo-Hoo needs a good cwy...

Post: #8

My 2 workplace rules.

1.
Do not chat on instant messenger EVER unless you want to troll your bosses about having other job offers, because they read that shit like a 40 year old cat woman reads Eat Pray Love.

2.
Fuck the hottest co worker in your office. Unprotected. Watch all the dudes chase her around like shes the one and beg to get your sloppy seconds. Even if you get fired at any point in the future you will have desecrated that entire office with your dick. You win.

I know this goes against the conventional advice of "don't speak, breathe or take a shit if there is a female in your office within 70 meters" but this tactic will put you in a different realm.

Post: #9

If you like Wall Street Playboys, don't miss their post yesterday:

Watch the Company Man Give Away His Life

It's the story of two men, John and Adam, who take different paths at the same company.

Post: #10

(05-21-2017 10:43 AM)Sombro Wrote:  I've learned that in the corporate arena, the ladies' room is used for crying more than any other bodily function.

Still better than what goes on in the men's room...

Post: #11

The "HR" department. 6 hot dim witted young things in an industrial site with 200 hard working men.

They sit around, buldge and think of ways to shaft over the pay and conditions of hard working men toiling in the shit and dangerous grime.

Makes me puke.

Post: #12

My observations from working in various corporate office jobs:

1) People, especially managers, will constantly use idiotic corporate phrases like "moving forward", "low hanging fruit" and "let's take this offline."

2) Meetings are held wayyyy too often and 99% of them are just a pointless waste of time.

3) 99% of roles in corporate office environments basically don't produce anything of value whatsoever. However, I understand that we live in an extremely litigious society so most organisations create roles simply to ensure that everything is legal and documented properly.

4) Most people working in offices are women.

5) HR departments consist mostly of younger females who want to have a disproportionate amount of power in a workplace without actually having any real valuable skill. It also allows them to treat work like dating because when they have recruit new staff they go through resumes like they are swiping on left/right on Tinder.

I'm so glad I don't work in this sort of environment anymore. Being chained to a computer in a grey cubicle for 40-50 hours a week for the rest of my life sounded worse than hell to me, so I got out of there fast.

Post: #13

I was young and hot-headed when I worked at a corporate job. On the one hand it's a shame I don't do it anymore because I was moving up and if I had just not given a shit I could be sitting around doing nothing most of the day and pulling in $70K or well over that. I also had just worked out a side hustle where I could've made some pretty good extra bank without technically breaking any rules or laws. On the other hand it would be a brutal waste of my life to sit there in a dreary office doing nothing for a pointless middleman company and having that be the one place where I spend the most time awake in my entire life.

Things started to go bad when I started actually caring about my job whereas at the beginning when I had no attachment I was infinitely patient and easy-going. That's how I started to move up. But if you start to get on their bad side they will twist everything to be used against you.

I sent a strongly worded e-mail to an uncooperative provider in which the word choice was admittedly imperfect but they blew it way out of proportion. The president and my immediate supervisor were women. The president stormed out of her office and went to the middle of the floor to angrily call me into her office. She's acting all tough and haranguing me for awhile and ends her diatribe with "what do you think of that, Sisyphus?"

I thought for a second and I said only two words: "I quit." The response? Crying!!! Sobbing and bawling from both of them such that they couldn't even get words out. I can't fucking stand women crying and I'm stuck there watching this shit. The one was probably crying because I was the best project manager and she was realizing that she'd have to actually do work instead of doing whatever bullshit being a bottom level sub-manager entitled her to do all day.

To hell with that. My "office" was a converted warehouse and there was one small circular window near the ceiling through which I could see one tree branch. Who cares if I could be driving a Mercedes now if that's the place I had to drive it to every goddamn day.

rpg and The Father: spot on.

Post: #14

New girl started today. She works in another department and swung by to get the lay of the land on Friday.

I was on the comittee who interviewed her? My only thought?

I thought she was 32 and now she looks 38. Hmm. She did a good job putting on just the right amount of makeup in just right way to hide her age. Job well done.

Long term? The older women in the department are going to hate her, because our boss plays favorites by pitting the young women against the old.

Post: #15

(05-22-2017 07:02 PM)Sisyphus Wrote:  I was young and hot-headed when I worked at a corporate job. On the one hand it's a shame I don't do it anymore because I was moving up and if I had just not given a shit I could be sitting around doing nothing most of the day and pulling in $70K or well over that. I also had just worked out a side hustle where I could've made some pretty good extra bank without technically breaking any rules or laws. On the other hand it would be a brutal waste of my life to sit there in a dreary office doing nothing for a pointless middleman company and having that be the one place where I spend the most time awake in my entire life.

Things started to go bad when I started actually caring about my job whereas at the beginning when I had no attachment I was infinitely patient and easy-going. That's how I started to move up. But if you start to get on their bad side they will twist everything to be used against you.

I sent a strongly worded e-mail to an uncooperative provider in which the word choice was admittedly imperfect but they blew it way out of proportion. The president and my immediate supervisor were women. The president stormed out of her office and went to the middle of the floor to angrily call me into her office. She's acting all tough and haranguing me for awhile and ends her diatribe with "what do you think of that, Sisyphus?"

I thought for a second and I said only two words: "I quit." The response? Crying!!! Sobbing and bawling from both of them such that they couldn't even get words out. I can't fucking stand women crying and I'm stuck there watching this shit. The one was probably crying because I was the best project manager and she was realizing that she'd have to actually do work instead of doing whatever bullshit being a bottom level sub-manager entitled her to do all day.

To hell with that. My "office" was a converted warehouse and there was one small circular window near the ceiling through which I could see one tree branch. Who cares if I could be driving a Mercedes now if that's the place I had to drive it to every goddamn day.

rpg and The Father: spot on.

So what's the plan now?

Post: #16

(05-21-2017 10:14 AM)This Is Trouble Wrote:  70-80% of all corporate jobs are just trying to look busy.

I reckon most people could get all their tasks done in 2 hours.

But naw, they need to, "See you at your desk" 8 hours a day. Nonsense.

110% agree with this. I work in IB and honestly most of my day is trying to look busy and doing stuff for my side business.

Our receptionist and I usually take lunch together and we've noticed that a fair number of people in the office have at least one screen devoted to screwing around open at all times.

Post: #17

BB or Boutique IB?

Post: #18

(05-22-2017 08:38 PM)Tytalus Wrote:  

(05-22-2017 07:02 PM)Sisyphus Wrote:  I was young and hot-headed when I worked at a corporate job. On the one hand it's a shame I don't do it anymore because I was moving up and if I had just not given a shit I could be sitting around doing nothing most of the day and pulling in $70K or well over that. I also had just worked out a side hustle where I could've made some pretty good extra bank without technically breaking any rules or laws. On the other hand it would be a brutal waste of my life to sit there in a dreary office doing nothing for a pointless middleman company and having that be the one place where I spend the most time awake in my entire life.

Things started to go bad when I started actually caring about my job whereas at the beginning when I had no attachment I was infinitely patient and easy-going. That's how I started to move up. But if you start to get on their bad side they will twist everything to be used against you.

I sent a strongly worded e-mail to an uncooperative provider in which the word choice was admittedly imperfect but they blew it way out of proportion. The president and my immediate supervisor were women. The president stormed out of her office and went to the middle of the floor to angrily call me into her office. She's acting all tough and haranguing me for awhile and ends her diatribe with "what do you think of that, Sisyphus?"

I thought for a second and I said only two words: "I quit." The response? Crying!!! Sobbing and bawling from both of them such that they couldn't even get words out. I can't fucking stand women crying and I'm stuck there watching this shit. The one was probably crying because I was the best project manager and she was realizing that she'd have to actually do work instead of doing whatever bullshit being a bottom level sub-manager entitled her to do all day.

To hell with that. My "office" was a converted warehouse and there was one small circular window near the ceiling through which I could see one tree branch. Who cares if I could be driving a Mercedes now if that's the place I had to drive it to every goddamn day.

rpg and The Father: spot on.

So what's the plan now?

That was about 8 years ago. A lot happened in between, but I'm now in grad school for a career I'd actually be interested in. More importantly I'm taking advantage of the time and stability to get in shape, improve myself, and consider all the options for after I graduate. My priorities have changed since I was turned on to this community so I'm not sure what I'll do next. I do know that corporate dronery is out of the question.

I witnessed so much ridiculous behavior (from men and women) in the 2 years I worked at that company. If this thread needs a bump some time I could regale everyone with tales of emasculation and stupid criminal behavior.

Post: #19

There's so much bullshit I've seen in the corporate office.

One thing I noticed is how high-performing workers will subsidize their low-performing colleagues. Everyone gets 40 hours a week to work, but the better workers will produce multiples the output of the other employees. The problem is no matter how much better you are than everyone else, your salary won't go above some number that likely isn't even be twice as much as the worst employee.

Once I figured that out, I stopped working hard. I would work one or two hours a day and still produce the same as everyone else.

I can handle working in an office if that was the only thing, but there were a thousand little things that added up to make it intolerable. Quitting that job was the best thing I've ever done.

Post: #20

One of my favorites has always been the gamma rules lawyer.

You know the one: that passive-aggressive guy who won't do any simple thing you ask of him without demanding detailed explanations of each hairsplitting task involved and specific justifications for why each needs to be done. And when you oblige him, he'll nitpick each explanation and justification to death. And then demand a charge code to cover his work on whatever simple thing he was asked to do in the first place, work he hasn't done because he's been rules-lawyering to avoid doing it. All with a smarmy, smarter-than-thou, I'm-so-clever attitude as if he's putting one over on you and you don't even realize it. But you do, and so does everyone else, and you all secretly loathe him without him even realizing it - because when he starts in, everyone knows that when he finally wears you down with this crap, you'll end up asking one of them to do it instead.

Supervised one of these guys for three years, and not only can I not remember a single thing he actually accomplished, I can't even remember what his responsibility was supposed to be.

Post: #21

(05-22-2017 10:13 PM)Corollary Wrote:  ...One thing I noticed is how high-performing workers will subsidize their low-performing colleagues. Everyone gets 40 hours a week to work, but the better workers will produce multiples the output of the other employees. The problem is no matter how much better you are than everyone else, your salary won't go above some number that likely isn't even be twice as much as the worst employee...

Used to work for a big corporation. After I quit, my former boss explained to me how the annual review system actually worked. The corporation basically assigns to each group (say, 75-100 people) a certain distribution of ratings that can be awarded: 1 A, 3 Bs, 5 Ds, and the rest Cs by default (if anyone merits an E they get dumped on to another group or let go at the first layoff opportunity).

In this group, you may have 8-10 managers coordinating the reviews of their underlings. Which pits them against each other in competing for the one A and three Bs. If your manager happens to be conflict- or competition-avoidant, guess what? You never get promotions and you get cost-of-living raises no matter what you do or how well you do it.

There is no meaningful feedback from the system, because the "rankings" are bogus. There is no incentive in the system, because that A and those Bs are not going to be awarded to the highest performer but to the highest-performing underlings of the most aggressively rank-seeking manager.

Yet even knowing this, employees pretty much waste two months out of every year spending all day every day filling in their performance appraisals and wordsmithing their accounting of what they did during the year and kissing up fellow employees to get positive inputs for their peer evaluations. Work comes to a complete halt during the review period, and stress levels go through the roof. For nothing of substance.

Post: #22

(05-21-2017 10:14 AM)This Is Trouble Wrote:  70-80% of all corporate jobs are just trying to look busy.

I reckon most people could get all their tasks done in 2 hours.

But naw, they need to, "See you at your desk" 8 hours a day. Nonsense.

Fuckin' A!

Started a job two weeks ago. "CEO" hired me because of my "corporate experience". Nigga was going to get a lot of construction contracts and needed someone that knew how to handle fast growth. There are 3 partners, 5 office employees including me, and about 300 field employees. One of the partners hired 2 of his kids. There's this old lady that doesn't know shit about computers, and complained about everything/one all the time. The checks are now green instead of blue. She complained her homepage is now blank instead of Yahoo for two hours.

First Week:
I knew it was bad when the 75 year old female office manager had me do payroll going through things line by line with a ruler when you could do it on Excel (Filtering employees, hiding laborers who didn't work, autosum for total hours work per project). She took 2 hours with that shit, I did it in 45 mins. Bitch took 2 hours to type checks, I did it in 20 mins. Lady wanted me to print two copies of every document for safekeeping...yet she couldn't find shit when asked. At some points she would tell me not to start on some work, wait an hour "downtime", then complain I was behind. Either way, I pretended to do things her way.

Second Week:
My assistant quit, she just stopped showing up to work. I heard the girl before me did the same. Old Lady she keep giving me inaccurate info for my reports, telling me to do something only to bitch why I did it later in the day (or the opposite, tell me why I didn't do something), and ask me questions with the wrong lingo. Wednesday she tells me not to do something because I need to take lunch, so I take it and try to start doing it.....only for her to tell me to do it tomorrow because "you won't have enough time". I start the following day, and finish in record time. She makes a huge drama out of typing "DFW" instead of "Dallas".

CEO pulls me to his 8x8 office on Friday after staying late and tells me that things aren't off to a good start between Old Lady and I. Apparently I haven't been doing things that she's told me to do. Told him about her bait and switching, showed him the emails....and he's like "Well I don't want to lose her, she's used to her ways. I don't want change and want to keep things the same. Since your assistant left, how about you take her position at (20% pay cut, I already had mediocre pay but it was better than no job)."

I replied with: "The entire reason your biz won't grow is because you have these byzantine processes from the 90s. You hired me to update your processes. I'll think about your offer and let you know". We shook hands and I packed my stuff. I knew that if the lady didn't like me then...she wouldn't like me in the future. Never called him.

My point is, had everything be conducted via Excel or some other program ......company could have been easily ran by 2 part time workers. Instead this woman was clocking in 60 hours and racking OT. Either way, I'm wasn't trying to rock the boat. If I'm working I want to work smart so I can get shit done. Staring at spreadsheets with a ruler drives me insane. My point is, I wanted to see what I could remove so I could finish early and fuck around the computer with online courses or side biz. I'm down for downtime, I was going to rack up OT as well to pad my paycheck. The partner that hired his kids was against it because we had to "share" hours. Fuck that nigga, he can fire his daughter and free up some hours.

Rant over.

Post: #23

Recently, my all-male department for the first time had got a female candidate for a job interview. Our field is so at the frontier of technologies that we have hardly had any female applying let alone getting through to the interview, so the sexless beta nerds were very excited at the prospect of being near a woman day in day out. I thought the resume was rather underwhelming compared to the other 3 male candidates so I was sure she'd never get the job.

On the interview day, Caitlyn Jenner doppelganger walked in, and shattered the hearts and loins of our poor nerds. Yes, the first "female" that ever made it to the interview round in our department is a dude in a dress, and very obviously so.

Glad to say that Caitlyn didn't get the job, and the nerds on the panel were even much more strongly against it than I was.

Post: #24

(05-23-2017 12:34 AM)Alsos Wrote:  

(05-22-2017 10:13 PM)Corollary Wrote:  ...One thing I noticed is how high-performing workers will subsidize their low-performing colleagues. Everyone gets 40 hours a week to work, but the better workers will produce multiples the output of the other employees. The problem is no matter how much better you are than everyone else, your salary won't go above some number that likely isn't even be twice as much as the worst employee...

Used to work for a big corporation. After I quit, my former boss explained to me how the annual review system actually worked. The corporation basically assigns to each group (say, 75-100 people) a certain distribution of ratings that can be awarded: 1 A, 3 Bs, 5 Ds, and the rest Cs by default (if anyone merits an E they get dumped on to another group or let go at the first layoff opportunity).

In this group, you may have 8-10 managers coordinating the reviews of their underlings. Which pits them against each other in competing for the one A and three Bs. If your manager happens to be conflict- or competition-avoidant, guess what? You never get promotions and you get cost-of-living raises no matter what you do or how well you do it.

There is no meaningful feedback from the system, because the "rankings" are bogus. There is no incentive in the system, because that A and those Bs are not going to be awarded to the highest performer but to the highest-performing underlings of the most aggressively rank-seeking manager.

Yet even knowing this, employees pretty much waste two months out of every year spending all day every day filling in their performance appraisals and wordsmithing their accounting of what they did during the year and kissing up fellow employees to get positive inputs for their peer evaluations. Work comes to a complete halt during the review period, and stress levels go through the roof. For nothing of substance.

This sounds like it could have been going on with my reviews. Both times I went in for my annual review my boss had nothing but good things to say about me, but I still received an average score. In my mind, an average score means room for improvement, but with no negative feedback from my boss, what was I supposed to improve?

I quickly realized though it was typical corporate bullshit, and I didn't see the need in trying to figure out how to overcome it.

Post: #25

It sounds like he's working for Amazon. The only time I've heard good things about them in regards to MBA hiring is from recruiters( as reliable as Army recruiters) or people talking about how great they are for finding other jobs later.