| Flipping through TV channels can sometimes be inspiring |
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It's a standard guy thing cliché… television channel surfing. Such activity rarely leads to an epiphany (for the guy doing the surfing, anyway), but I'd like to tell you about just such an experience. It happened to me, remote in hand, while innocently flipping through the many boring channels on my cable TV. I chanced upon a television interview that was already well underway, and it was time to give my thumb a rest. The interviewee was dutifully relating the profound wisdom of putting a frog in a pan of water. "If you put a frog in a pan of boiling water, it will jump right out," a soft-spoken lady was saying. "But put it in a pan of cold water and gradually raise the temperature, and it'll just sit there until, well.. it's cooked!" With visions of frogs contentedly lounging in pans of water, I just had to stay tuned to this channel. Why, whole new vistas might be gained from such an interview. I had to see where this program would lead. That's how it happens," the woman went on, now a bit more somber. "Incrementally, gradually, and the next thing you know, they've got you working for them 24 by 7." "Aha! They must be talking about corporate America," I quickly surmised. That's pretty much it, isn't it? I myself have an intimate
familiarity with the new work ethic whereby anyone putting
in a mere 40 hours a week is deemed a pariah. The next thing
you know, 60 hours a week is an expectation. To really get
ahead these days, though, you'd better top that. I leaned
forward in my chair, listening to the interview more Then it happened. The serious young man, behind whose eyes we thousands were watching, came onto the screen, mike in hand to announce the inevitable station break… He would never know that his customary plea to stay tuned broke my chain of thought like the snapping trunk of an oak tree: "When we come back," he deftly encouraged, "we'll look at the mind control techniques these cults use to ensnare their victims." Suddenly, I dropped the remote as a thousand startled corporate frogs leapt out of a thousand clattering pans. "What? This program is about cults?" Now I'm not saying that working hard or long hours is a bad thing. Truly, those who are energized by their work, or confident that the rewards are worth enormous effort, are a big part of what makes the world go 'round. It's only when an expectation for endless toil, which is not usually productive by the way, is forced upon a worker from outside that things get dicey. And expectations soon become demands. Hmmm, what happens to those frogs after they're boiled, anyway? With water sloshed all over the kitchen stove of my imagination, I began to wonder what other similarities there might be between our brave new world of work and religious and other kinds of cults. While I wouldn't go so far as to characterize corporate America as dangerously authoritarian, I would say that we the people have a need to internalize our reasons for doing things in order to consider ourselves successful. What feels better? Accomplishing a long-standing personal goal or getting a "meets or exceeds expectations" on an annual review? While an "Atta boy!" always felt pretty good to me at the time it was given, it was the accomplishment of achieving some internalized goal that I remember most vividly. Strangely enough, some of my best work has been accomplished outside the bounds of any stated organizational objective, and done for reasons that were purely my own. To the mutual benefit of the company I was working for, I might add. Stark and Bainbridge's(1) sub-typology distinguishes among "audience cults" (members seek to receive information, e.g., through a lecture or tape series) "client cults" (members seek some specific benefit, e.g., spiritual guidance), and "cult movements" (organizations that demand a high level of commitment from members). Incidentally, the Stark and Bainbridge typology relates to their finding that cult membership increases as church membership decreases. Who working 60-hour weeks has time for church? Or lunch, for that matter? Rutgers University professor Benjamin Zablocki(2) says that a cult is "an ideological organization held together by charismatic relationships and demanding total commitment." According to Zablocki, cults are at high risk for becoming abusive to members, in part because members' become corrupted by the power they seek and are accorded. Personally, I wouldn't consider many corporate CEO's to be charismatic, but stories of their abuses abound. In my opinion, the all too common practice of slashing large numbers of jobs to reduce costs, while the presiding CEO walks away with untold spoils is abusive. Something about commitment being a two-way street comes to mind. If the notion of parallels between an imposed work ethic
and cultism doesn't hold water for you, I hope it's at least
been splashingly entertaining. Hey, is it getting warm in here?
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