I Cannot Handle Corporate Life

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I have come to accept that.

I have a Ph.D. in a science and have worked for almost 14 years in an industrial setting, which has had its good moments, but seems to be bleaker with each passing year. I have published in referreed technical journals, co-authored an advanced textbook, and gotten awards for my contributions to company projects.

So what all is happening? I think the rot is setting in to hi tech (and most all of the corporate sector) with the need to satisfy investor rate of return. It's no longer good enough that the company turn a profit - it needs certain margins, or projects are cut, along with the staff. This puts everyone on edge, with the ensuing Machiavellian dynamics. We are governed by Gantt charts, and fingers are pointed when deadlines are missed.

My experience and credentials have lead to me taking on more of a managerial lead role. Truth is, I cannot stand the thought of another meeting, another instance of needing to suck up to a marketing lowlife, or engineering director without a true engineering background. Recently I was in a postion of putting 'band aids' on a lousy old project that really should be killed off. Although my work was "ok" , it did not 'sparkle' and I did not have the right personality for the position. During the course of the last 10 months I made every effort to get allied with projects that would have sparked more interest, only to be deflected back to the b.s.. One week after upper management seriously considered killing the old legacy project (which they should have done), I was let go under the guise of performance issues (the truth is that there is probably an underlying business reason).

I have used the time since to work at home on the computer, doing the type of thing I like, and which could have been used to advantage for my old employer. I am working in the wee hours of the morning, sipping coffee, and being 100% more productive than I was back in the old battleground. The work is relevant to my profession, and stimulating, the downside being that I am not drawing a paycheck. Still I maintain the glimmer of hope that I could work this way for pay. After 3-4 years of trying to find the 'right' corporate setting, I realize it is futile and I am going to need to find another more satisfying mode of operation.

Has anyone been through this before? If you can relate to any of this I'd love to hear your thoughts and suggestions.

(Edited because I'm obsessive)

I worked for 30 years, most for lawyers and some for corporations. They're both hell. You owe yourself a huge pat on the back for having survived that long and accomplishing so much.

The thing about corporations is the problem about lies. That (I think) is why I couldn't get with office politics - I couldn't figure out which lies were obligatory and which weren't. I was set up to take a fall on the workload and then let go, sound familiar?

If I had the whole thing to do again, I'd get a night shift job with invisibility, meaning no responsibility. Night shift has less office politics and less Type A's. But you're so highly qualified, there must be a job for you working from home.

That would mean becoming a consultant? You could write yourself up - this website will write up a cv really well, and you can do it for free, but you can't copy it - I was impressed with it

http://www.handsoncv.co.uk/#

Did I get a job this way? No, I crashed and I'm on disability. But if you're still standing ...

I do some work on a volunteer basis through this organization -
http://www.volunteermatch.org/

It's very satisfying work and I wonder if looking it over might give you ideas about what sorts of enterprises need IT help. I think if they knew that you're out there with all that talent and experience, they be sending paid work your way.

Good luck and keep us posted.

After recieving a BA on psych and Women studies,no further money for grad school and personal issues with many of the current belief systems(read illogical and delusional)concepts currently masquarading as "science" in these fields...I am now,fully qualified to change diapers and clean toilets and scoop doggie poo(my current field of indeaver)At 43,I find this a little discouraging but I have avoided the office politics and having to wear panty hose.Unfortunatly, I havn't managed to avoid incompetent management or illogical and counter-productive tasks.That appears to be to ingrained in society to magically be avoided in work situations.Just look at how they run the government....rewarding incompetence and appointing the incompitent appears to be part of the decline of western civilization.

On the brighter side(sort of),I have recently found a new trend that may hold some potential for aspies.I believe you can find more info by goggeling NPR(National public Radio)and then doing a search on...."crowdsourcing".This is a relatively new concept to me.Evidently,it involves companies possing a "problem" and asking for anyone on the internet to solve it for a specific amount of money.You dont have to have any degree or credentials to "try" to solve the problem.The down side of this is that companies are doing this to....wait for it.....save money by not having to hire emplyees and pay them medical and other benifits and save money on their "bottom lines".ie...profit margins that get averaged into the profitability of a stock.....course you know more about that then a psych major who scoops doggie poo for a less then $10.oo an hour,lol.

Check this out as a possible opption and let us know if it seems like a good idea for aspies.I dont have the business sense for this but it seemed interesting for the few minutes I caught on NPR.

Thanks to both of you for replying. I'm not on any sort of disability, but I was let go and will have to convince the unemployment insurance commission that there was underlying b.s. involved in my dismissal. That's step one.

In some sense I am pleased to finally realize, deep inside myself, that the rat race is impossible. I used to think I could mold it, or dodge the bullets Neo-like, in the Matrix. Now I harbor no illusions.

Consulting might be a good way to go - work at home, on things you like, with some control over the outcome.

Getting part-time work in a different atmosphere might be a way to tide me over and give me some joy. I love cats, and would jump at the chance to help them somehow, even at subsistence wage for awhile.

Just my $0.02 now. I'll check in here periodically and let you know how it goes.

I am actually going through some of these issues at the moment. I am currently working on a project that is being grossly mismanaged, and morale is not very good. It was recently suggested to me to try for a job at head office. It would have been better pay, a "nicer" title, and possibly more stimulating. However it would also entail the "head office culture" - meetings, bum-kissing, uncomfortable corporate attire, an extra hour and a half travel, longer hours. In the end I didn't go for it, as my stress levels are already high.

Sorry , this isn't answering your question.

You sound as if you are very qualified and intelligent, so consultancy, where you are your own boss, and work your own hours would be good. Also, I don't know how well it would work in your circumstances, but if you can get into temp or contract work it could be better, as you would not have to deal with all the corporate b*****t.

Good Luck!

Opal, what you wrote is incredibly relevant. I think it's good that you were able to say 'hold on, this isn't for me' and deflect the pain before it gets too much. I think I have reached that stage, and hope that I can find some satisfaction in KNOWING, once and for all, that it is a dead end. Had I tried to hang on, I would have gone to an early grave, I am sure.

The truth is I could deal with the meetings and the ass-kissing if that was ALL I had to do. In my case, there is an incredible amount of technical work (programming, analysis, theory) that has to be generated. When I am worn down from the interactions in meetings, etc, there is no energy left in me for what I really like. This sort of thing is increasingly common in hi tech.

Sadly.

To make a long story short, I am in the process of escaping from academia because of the problems there. Most notably, at least in my field, is academics tend to have egos which are much bigger than their actually knowledge and skill base. To make matters worse, many of these people have little, if any, managerial skills, but they seem to be completely blind to this fact. For instance, I have sat through numerous meetings that have gone on for two to three hours, but which only contained about 15 minutes worth of real information. Yet these folks view these meetings as important, useful discussions. They're a bunch of "articulate incompetents,” to steal Bennett Goodspeed's phrase.

(My background is in social science research, and an additional factor is I have come to the depressing conclusion that the field is more dogmatism and sophistry than science. But that is another long story.)

There is a need for some of my analytic skills in certain areas in the private sector, and so I considered pursuing that. Ultimately, however, I have come to accept that I just can not fake it on a prolonged basis anymore (if I ever could). I am simply too exhausted and I can not face sitting through anymore boring, useless meetings, or having to deal with arrogant pricks who want their egos stroked.

Similar to Claradoon's suggestion, I have started to look for some sort of drone job, working on the night shift. My hope is that such work will not involve long, pointless meetings, kissing the behinds of egotistical jerks, office politics, etc. The pay will not be very good, but at this point I just want to earn enough to cover food and rent, and maybe save a little on the side. My biggest concern is that it will mean the end of my research interests. I am hoping it will leave me with enough time and energy to work on a research project that I am very interested in, but which I have not been able to do much with since graduating. I am not optimistic on this front, which raises the unpleasant, existential question, is surviving just for the sake of surviving really living?

There is one cautionary note I should mention for anyone else considering a similar work strategy. A fair amount of research shows that working nights --or even worse, rotating shifts-- is correlated with various negative health outcomes. In a sense, working nights is slow suicide, but if I had to stay in my current job for the rest of my life, I would end up blowing my brains out.

I go to bed right after dinner and wake up at 2-4 AM depending. I'm not sure if that's night shift - here in my condo - but the wee morning hours are my favorite. I wake up and attack some research problems I have had in the back of my brain, using books and resources I bought over the years and never got into.

As thing have transpired over the last week, I have put a few feelers out about resumes, but was not actively looking. My contacts at the old company are pretty disgruntled. Some, including ones that are more resilient than I with all the interpersonal bs, are ready to throw in the towel too. That says something.

I have seriously considered getting part time work tending bar (did that before), working in retail (entertainment, DVDs, etc) since I have relevant experience and expertise. Not wealth producing, but bill paying.

Since starting this thread, I have come to realize that we are not so alone or disparate in our professional needs. It boils down to how to implement a framework in which we can muddle through, or do even better than that.

Some people wonder why I didn't become an "eternal student" and instead took my chances working outside the field I studied (psychology). When the star student of my honours class was also the girlfriend of the professor and it was made so hard that fewer than 25% of the class passed, I got very cheesed off.

It's true about there being very big egos in academia and it's even worse in some ways when funding is short because then there will be a lot of backstabbing and such. I would have kind of liked to try a bachelor degree in town planning but was pretty much burnt out by the end of 4th year anyway.

It took 6 months to find a base level clerk job in the public service. I've been there for years but because I'm not a "crawler" but instead a quiet achiever, I'm still at quite a low level. Still, there is less pressure that way.

I'm fairly well convinced that corporate life is bullshite. I mean, why do they waste so much time on meetings when it would be more productive to just get in and do whatever has to be done?

Yuck, retail. You can't live on what retail pays. Not to mention the confrontations and disrespect.

I came to the same conclusion last year. I had the worst meltdown of my life while working for a corporation. I realized I couldn't handle it in addition to being ideologically opposed to everything corporations stand for. What to do?

First, I accepted and even reveled in temp jobs. The temporary status gave me the mindset not to care about the company. I only watched out for myself. I went into every assignment with the goal of improving my job skills or my coping capabilities then getting out. It paid the bills and -- well before it got too much -- I had a week or two off to recover. The only resposibility is to yourself. If anyone treats you with disrespect, you walk or ask for something else. You have little invested in the endeavor.

I now have a permanent night shift job (11PM-7AM). Due to the hours and skill level required, I am fairly compensated and have job security. I no longer have to deal with insulting comments, slights at lunch, or social encounters with management. I read, do my work, and communicate by e-mail. I'm under the radar and lovin' it!

Downsides: getting enough sleep is a challenge, especially during the summer. It's difficult to enjoy nights out because of the sleep schedule and the time I need to be in the office. The sleep issues take more of a toll on my body and mind.

I have been working the overnight shift for the past 14 years and loving it.There is much less "drama" becuae there are fewer people.They are desperate in mnay fields to find people to work this shift,so they tend to appriciate you(or at least fake it)as they are afraid to lose an overnight worker.They tolerated my "ecentricities" and I did well because I dont require someone standing over me to get my work done.It usually has several hours of "downtime",when the work is done,in which you can read or work on the computer in special interest.I get off work between 8 or 9am,when trafic is lighter and I can make my appointments for medical/dental or do shopping when everone else is at work.

I did have some advantage in that I have always been nocturnal.Generally going to bed at 4am and waking around noon.I "lightproofed" my bedroom,refuse any disturbances or phone calls in daytime.I dont know if I could do this kind of work if it was a cognitive type job but I mostly work "menial" jobs,blessfuly mindless work that allows me to function on muscle memory of my tasks while my mind wonders were it will.I am more tired(jet lag)on my days off,but I know if I worked a 9-5 job,I would probably feel the same sort of burnout on the weekends and after I come home from work day,as that shift was very draining to me with all the social interactions.The jobs I have had(social service related,working with ADD and DD residential settings and now at "petsHotel",required no degree)and average pay in US is around $10.oo an hour,not leaving much money to save for retirement but enough to live on if you are as "frugal" as I am(not liking to leave the house helps,lol.)


I think you could find better paying jobs working these hours with a year or two of heath tech training.I have been considering training to work in a "sleep clinic",a field that will grow as the population grows older an more people need DX for sleep apnia.
I would also like to work with autistic kids but not sure if I can find an over night shift doing this,most of them seem to get thrown in with DD clients,and 4 years in that field caused burn out(not due to the clients but the incompetent staff and managment,guess that is any where,but it was beyond pathetic in this field).We do still have a few factory jobs but they dont pay as well as before they shipped most of them over seas(as we have to compete with people making a dollar a day).There are also many "stocking and recieving" jobs that are overnight but I'm not sure what they pay(and I have always been afraid of working that shift as there are often other people there...I need to work alone.)