Does the corporate world make you boring?
I was browsing a career-related internet forum a while back, and someone started a thread called "Which [degree type removed] program has the hottest girls". An MD commented on the thread saying "this is inappropriate" and the thread was removed shortly afterwards.
Obviously you have to carry yourself much differently in a corporate environment than you would with your closest friends. You have to smile cheesily, laugh at retarded jokes, be careful not to offend people, be politically correct, pretend like you give a shit, and never be anything more than mildly sarcastic. I have this theory that the longer one works in this environment, the more that he transforms into the archetypical humorless corporate drone with a commodity-like personality.
This actually kind of scares me. Is there any truth to this fear, or am I being irrational?
I joke a lot on this site, but I too have thought a lot about this. I love the term "commodity personality" btw. Would love to hear experienced peoples opinions. Do we all gravitate towards society's "norms" as we grow older and climb the corporate ladder?
Yes, it probably does to be honest. especially in IB where you literally have 0 time for socializing with people outside of work and are stuck executing excel functions for 95 hours a week.
Your environment does affect you but I believe in the end of the day, you always have a choice on the kind of person you want to be. Most importantly, you always have a choice to walk out from any situation that you don't want to be in. I think everyday is a struggle to remain faithful to who you want to be as a person.
And I don't think that we need to focus too much on being right or being good all the time. Sometimes, we fuck up. Sometimes we disappoint ourselves with our behaviors. The important thing is to keep moving forwards and to keep trying to be the kind of person we aspire to be.
I really like this.
This.
Plus, it's not like there's only one side to your personality. I mean, depending on whom I'm around, my personality changes a bit. In the end, I'm still me but I just show different aspects of my personality. And isn't this why fit matters when choosing where you work so that you can feel free to be yourself at work? At the end of the day, if you can live with who you are as a person, then nothing else matters.
I think one of the better things about finance is that you don't deal with quite as much of a corporate drone, happy camper mentality imposed by management.
People in finance can be a'holes, and there is a large degree of misery in the workplace (particularly at BBs). At least people don't generally expect you to pretend like it's fun. An analyst in my group left after their program ended and got reprimanded a few times at their next corporate job for not being a team player because they genuinely questioned some of the things their group was doing. You literally weren't able to question anything, and this was at a high profile and prestigious corp dev group. I personally couldn't deal with that.
I have plenty of issues with some of the bs that goes on in banking, but at least you are (mostly) able to express yourself/your opinions.
It all depends on the atmosphere you work in. Don't overlook this aspect when thinking long-term for a career. Granted, most people care about the experience and exit opps at a young age, but once you get past that and start thinking about settling in for a real career, atmosphere is everything. If you can't be yourself (your personality, type of humor) not only will people notice but you won't excel. One thing I am sure about, upper level management love young guys that can shoot the shit with them. Don't try to be so appropriate and work their personalities to your benefit (trust me, they have personalities).
This thread is money.
I think everything is a big, fat joke. Whenever I am in corpo-land I have to subdue this part of my personality. I hope it does not change who I am. That would be really sad.
You have to ask yourself if being a drone is the way to advance or if being a drone is the biggest negative in your career. Honestly, if you are at a company that doesn't have a drive to succeed and doesn't allow open discussion you just need to leave.
I mean look at the massive lay offs that come whenever a company misses earnings. Yah, there goes the drones who don't want to step on toes.
firstworldproblems
seriously though... my greatest fear is becoming boring.
Back in college, I was an artistic tattoo/piercing-covered metalhead. I haven't been to a moshpit in over 3 years (it used to be weekly).
A part of me regrets my career. A part of me wishes he could go back to college, stick with the compsci career track & join a game developer.
sigh depressing thread...
My MD's are actually pretty funny in general... these guys were all in the same shoes before
Based on my internship experience, people working in M&A are generally less boring that people working in Big4 advisory or in industrial companies. In my internship in a BB in London, one VP started singing "Vaffanculo" really loud every day at around 8am. Vaffanculo is Italian and means "Go fuck yourself".
This is just wrong. You can't put a ladder on how interesting people are. You could say the work is less interesting to certain people in certain departments, but you can have a group of A/P clerks at whatever F100 company you want doing mind-numbing work that are the best drinking buddies you'll ever find.
Yes it does. Sadly though many a times you know how and what you can do to change things and you can't.
dup
Sweeping generalization are of no interest to me. This thread is inappropriate.
Joking aside, the corporate world is what you make of it (useless aphorism, right?). There are so many options that relegating yourself to stuffy office stereotypes is a disservice to yourself. There are many nimble, intellectually stimulating places to work that you could easily avoid what you are talking about. But, that usually requires that you are intellectually stimulating and interesting yourself...
Honestly, if you have other things you are interested in outside of work, you can maintain some sanity.
I agree, though. Great topic, btw.
I have a friend who works in a mental ward and I can tell you that from the stories I've heard, there are tons of people there who are 1000x more interesting than your VP.
thank god where I work is nothing like that id go fkin nuts (and get fired soon lol)
political correctness will be the downfall of our society
Dear God, thank you for this post. I haven't been working long in the corporate world since graduating and the environment here is so fucking lame. The people are outstandingly fake and everyone I talk to keeps talking about what we're working on at work while at work. DONT FUCKING TALK TO ME ABOUT WORK, WHEN IM AT LUNCH OR OUTSIDE OF WORK.
J/K I had to
My pet peeve: people talking about Monday blues, Tuesday when is the weekend coming, Wednesday hump day, Thursday tomorrow is Friday, thank God it's Friday, blah blah blah I WORK SEVEN FUCKING DAYS A WEEK AT THREE JOBS BIOTCH, if you don't want to be here then get another job.
http://www.youtube.com/embed/kfVsfOSbJY0
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