Category: corporate hell

Was J-School Worth It?

On By esbrathIn corporate hell, cubicle farm, Gypsy living, My RV rocks, unemployment lineLeave a comment

Interesting HuffPo piece to mention: dude writes about getting a journalism school – or, j-school – master’s degree and whether or not it’s worth it.

I read it, thought it was okay, if a bit short of much more than personal stuff, and then started thinking.

“Sooo, am I glad I got my j-school master’s?” I asked myself.

Well, let’s see – there’s the stuff in the piece, and its comments, about going to this or that school and therefore having connections. Yeah, I got connections, lots of ‘em, with my fancy Syracuse University S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications piece o’ paper, which currently resides in storage, incidentally, along with the equally schmancy BFA from SFAI.

Thing is, the news industry has changed so much – far worse than anyone could’ve imagined – that if I’d ever gone to school, undergraduate, graduate or otherwise, with the thought of the big bucks shining in me peepers, I obviously got it very wrong. Continue reading “Was J-School Worth It?” →

Adventures in Managerial Animosity, Part I

On By esbrathIn corporate hell, cubicle farm, evil boss, schizophrenic boss, unemployment lineLeave a comment

It probably sounds weird. In fact, it’s pretty much straight up sexism I’m talking ’bout here. Because either way, no matter which way you shake it, 99.9 percent of the time, I just can’t stand working for a female boss.I apologized…

I know, I know! I can hear my fellow feminists, gasping in shock and shrieking that I am a traitor to my kind; Benedict Arnold to the estrogen army’s equality-focused grrl power cause.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m not some uterus hating suit chaser, nor do I believe a woman’s “place” is anywhere – house, office, the freakin’ fields of Iraq, I don’t care. I only know what’s right for my life.

But what I do believe, without a doubt, is that from the time we’re old enough to tie our pink-trimmed, cartoon character bearing, sparkly, light up shoes, we’re well on the way to growing into fingernail-wielding, back stabbing, catty-with-a-capital-C bitches.

Granted, not everyone turns out that way. There are plenty of women out there who make the 9-5 grind the challenging-in-a-good-way, collaborative, worthwhile experience it should be.

But some chickies take the mean girl trajectory all. the. way.

Continue reading “Adventures in Managerial Animosity, Part I” →

Scorched Cubicle Campaign

On By esbrathIn corporate hell, overbearing boss, suicide by paper cutLeave a comment

It is a scorched cubicle campaign. Herman Miller ergonomic chairs scattered across the great gray expanse, smoke wafting up from the stain proof fabric.

I’ve been working as a corporate shill for nearly two years and have witnessed the kind of business decisions that even The Office would take offense at. But “CorporaCo’s” latest antics have brought the paper-pushing circus to a new low.

I have no one to blame it on but the Tsumommy. She waddled into our sorry lives, and the department’s top job, a few months ago, knit discount rack suit clinging to every lump of sedentary flesh. So far she has left confusion and destruction in her wake.

She has little more than the perfunctory bachelor’s-level education, but somehow she’s been granted the decision-making key to the highest level in our cube-rat lives. And like the kind of meddling mother who will read her child’s diary with the justification that she’s the boss and therefore can do whatever she wants, she does just that. Anything and everything on or near any desk is hers to rifle through as she feels fit. Not even the Blackberry is sacred: dare use it in her presence and she’ll grab it out of your hands. God forbid you’re writing about her…

I thought I was selling my soul by taking the corporate job… I was wrong. It was merely marinating.

©2007 SoftPretzelLove.