The Corporate World

So you’re a high school student, going onto college, and you’re about to enter the workforce for the first time.  Or you’re a full time student, getting ready to graduate to your first desk job.  You know you’re ready for the work ahead of you, but you’re not quite sure what to expect.  I’ve taken the liberty tp prepare for you a list of things that you can expect in the corporate world.

You will waste a lot of time in meetings.

It’s true.  There are two main reasons that businesses have meetings, and either one of them are rarely successful.  One reason is to increase productivity, which is ironic because meetings cause workers to stop working and spend company hours sitting around talking.  While it is true that issues will be brought up, and discussed, rarely will these things be remembered outside of the meeting.  Within a few days, most everybody will have forgotten about how to improve upon the work that they do, and fall back into the routine that they had been in before.  Not to mention that most people, when put into a social situation like this, are reluctant to bring up any serious issues that they might have with management, while management usually will refuse to acknowledge these problems on their own, so meetings rarely tackle the REAL issues that they need to.

The second reason that businesses have meetings is to motivate employees.  Meetings are often filled with statistics and data to indicate prior successes, as well as rumors and hearsay about projects in the future.  Don’t be surprised to hear about “ongoing” negotiations in your meetings.  The keyword there is “ongoing’, because you’ll probably be hearing about it in future meetings as well!  Meetings are designed to get employees together and get them excited about working, which is fine until the buzz wears off after the meeting, and the employee is faced with the fact that he needs another reason to be motivated about the work he has, and now has less time to get it done!

Accountability is a rare thing

In the corporate world, success comes to people who blame others for their mistakes the most.  You might have been raised to believe that adults take responsiblity for their actions, but this couldn’t be further from the truth.  In the real world, adults squabble and blame each other for their mistakes.  The longer that someone has been at a company, and the higher their position is, the more likely they are to blame someone else for their mistakes.

The corporate world is rife with finger pointing, and very little is ever done to fix it.  You will begin to wish that people would simply man up to their faults, and admit it when they are wrong about something.  Eventually, you will come to the conclusion that if you wish to become successful like others have, you will need to adapt a selfish, child-like way of handling things too.

There is very little innovation

The truth is that you are probably a very intelligent person, and you probably have a lot of great ideas for how to improve the business you are joining.  It’s great that you have that kind of ambition, so make sure that you don’t get discouraged when you discover that the people you work with won’t care.

When you work in a corporation, things usually get done in very specific ways.  Trying to get them to change their ways is like pulling teeth, because if something gets done one way for long enough, then it will continue to get done that way, even if there’s a better way.  People who work at corporations usually don’t like to step outside of their comfort zone, and will refrain from taking a critical eye at the work that they do at all costs.

I don’t mean to discourage you from joining a corporation, and obviously, this doesn’t apply to every business, but this does apply to a lot of them.  If these sorts of things seem ridiculous to you, then you might consider starting your own business instead of joining an existing one.  If however, you want to become one of the millions of people who want to contribute nothing to society, and just spend a good chunk of their life in a building in exchange for a paycheck, then maybe you’ll learn to accept these things that I have mentioned.

I don’t have Game Show Network on my cable package, but as of this moment, I am strongly considering upgrading so that I can get it.  Game shows are a strong, guilty pleasure for me, and when I start watching them, I can’t get enough!  On the surface, it seems weird to want to watch a show where OTHER people are playing to win prizes, but there’s just so much more to these shows than meets the eye.  For simplicity’s sake, I’m going to refer to these shows as “Game Shows” in this article, but I’m well aware that they’re called “Quiz Shows” in some other countries.

Game shows are just fun to play along with!  It’s hard to accuse television of being an activity for dumb people when these shows are around to stimulate your brain, and dig into your memory, answering questions regarding topics you may not have thought about since High School!  A regular helping of Jeopardy! or Who Wants To Be A Millionaire is often a good way to keep your brain active, and if you’re taking notes on what you need to study up on, you’ve got a powerful way to keep your mind active!

I remember back in the day when the Game Show Network started running interactive games on their website.  You could play along with the show, in an online version of whatever game show was airing at the time.  They would even up the ante, and ask questions regarding the show itself.  Often times, this was a flawed concept, because most of the shows were reruns, and people who had seen them previously had an advantage.  I still remember thinking, however, that there was a lot of potential in the bridging of the TV screen and computer screen, because during commercial breaks, GSN would broadcast the current top scores for the online game.

However, sometimes Game Shows are just fun to watch.  My mom used to tell me how much she hates game shows, because she’s no good when it comes to playing along.  I explained to her that with game shows, you have a compelling story line.  You get to meet the characters, learn a little bit about them, and either cheer for their victory or their demise.  And unlike most of television, the good guys don’t always win.  You never know whether or not they’re going to accomplish their goals, so it’s unpredictable.  So you get to see an entire story play out in the span of about 30 minutes, or less depending on the format.  When I explained this to her, she simply stated that she had never thought of it that way.

You gotta hand it to a show that can stay on the air for 37 years, like The Price Is Right, 26 years like Wheel of Fortune, or even Jeopardy, which has been on the air for the majority of the past 45 years.  These are all KILLER runs for any show, and I’d venture a guess that these shows aren’t going anywhere anytime soon.  Shows that have long runs usually fizzle out because they don’t speak to multiple generations, but there’s something about a good game show that can bring together people of all ages and types.

It’s been said that the mark of a great game show is simplicity, and I have trouble arguing with that!  Shows like 1 vs. 100 come along all the time, which may be fun to watch, but just aren’t simple in their approach or design.  With the more successful game shows, you can very easily explain to someone what the show is about in a sentence or two.  Shows like Jeopardy, Wheel of Fortune, and The Price is Right have changed very little over the years, and remain as popular as ever.  These shows all have solid, simple foundations beneath them, with few bells and whistles added to them.

Like I said, I just don’t see Game Shows going out of style any time soon.  They’ve been around since the days of the radio, and are as old as mass media itself!  They’ll continue to be around as a way for people to seek their 15 minutes of fame, and as a way to keep the average television viewer’s brain from completely going squishy.  I truly hope that they’re around forever, because to me, they are a good thing to have around.