Corporate Junkies

Today on my train ride into work I got to see something I never see: blue collar workers.  I've been taking the Green Line "L" train to work because it's closer to the hotel Rick and I are staying at while our kitchen is re-done (upstairs neighbor, busted water heater, have insurance, long story - let's leave it at that). Because the Green Line travels East into downtown along more of the residential street route intead of directly down I-290, the way my usual Blue Line does, I am able to see people working. The Green Line passes all sorts of repair shops, factories, and warehouses where men in Carhartt overalls and steel toe boots plan out the day's work in wild hand gestures or over grease-stained clipboards. How revitalizing it can be to do something new and see something different. All I see riding the train down I-290 are other corporate junkies not lucky enough or smart enough to take public transport to work.  Some may think the term corporate junkie harsh. How dare I compare the white-collar, economy-driving, proud-parent-making, industry leaders of Chicago to common drug addicts?

Are we reallly that different? Most of us wish every day to be doing something more meaningful, more fulfilling than sitting behind a desk (or in a meeting) for 8+ hours trying to figure out new and better ways to fill the shareholders' 401(K) accounts. But we keep doing it each and every day. No matter how much we despise it - or ourselves - at the end of that eight hour day, we've become accustomed to what corporate life provides. We've done it so long we don't know anything else and most of us are just too scared to quit. What more than that can be said for your average, every day drug addict?  Do you think at the end of the day an alcohlic says - as they're coming off their bender - 'today felt really good. I'm glad I spent the past 8 hours polishing off more vodka than a Russian wedding reception."

There are still the social and health issues that come with actual drug addiction to which corporate addiction can't be compared, yet correlations exist. The stress that not only the job, but also the corporate environment has on a body can be similarly devastating as constant drug use.  And that's if everything is OK. Throw a neurotic boss, impossible client, or massive deadline into the mix and you're probably doing enough legal or illegal drugs on the side to be considered a true addict. Socially, corporate life is well accepted as compared to say - meth usage. But I'll tell you when in a social situation someone asks me about what I do for a living I'd almost rather be curled up in a closet boiling a spoon. Ok, now that is going too far. But the way "what do you do for a living" knocks the wind out of my sails can't be much different than what a meth addict feels when someone asks them what'd they do today ..."well I woke up around noon to find that I'd ground down the last of my teeth during the night then I spent the next 16 hours trying to find enough money to get high, getting high, then trying to find money again."  Ask me that same question on a Tuesday and if I feel like rehashing my despair I'll say something like,

"I snoozed my alarm for 45 minutes before convincing myself that I've taken enough mental health days this month, seriously considered finishing off the wine glass left from last night so I'd be aptly prepared to spend the day taking it up the rear from my clients while trying to respond to last week's emails and watching the ones from this week pile up. And I think my morning coffee substituted for any actual food throughout the day, but to tell you the truth I don't really remember because just like any other drug corporate life can make you forget to eat, yet not get hungry."

You see what I mean?  The similarities are uncanny. Others may argue that corporate life facilitates financial well-being while drug addiction destroys it. My counterpoint is that corporate life provides only a semblance of financial security. The steady income lulls us into a level of dependcy that keeps us coming back. How many of us spend money we don't have or do have but shouldn't spend because we tell ourselves we'll make it up next paycheck. Most of us - whether we realize it or not - are one pink slip or solemn call with HR away from destitution. Fearful of not being able to keep up our beyond-our-means lifestyles, we sucumb to the soul-numbing mediocracy that comes with being a corporate junkie.

Kudos to those that make it out and don't end up back; the restaurant or boutique owners, the art dealers, and antique shop keepers, the inventors and patent holders.  It's a fine line though because just like any other addiction it's hard to stay clean. The more successful you become once you're out, the closer you are to becoming your own corporation and creating the very prison that you tried so hard to break out of. We are a capitalist society, an open market.  Therefore, it is possible to become wildly rich and successful outside of corporate America, but it is almost impossible to do so without creating corporate junkies of your own.

So tell me, how is your addiction treating you? Do you work corporate, but insist you're not a junkie? Have you been there and broken free?  Like Scarface, did they drag you back? Please enlighten me...