I've come to a realization. Not earth-shattering, pretty obvious, actually. But in processing yesterday's all-too-typical staff meeting at work, I came to see how my control-freak fear-mongering boss resembles the miscreants who "run" (term applied loosely) our current government.
They say that just because you're paranoid, that doesn't mean people aren't following you. Surely the inverse must be at least partially true: just because people are following you, that doesn't mean you have to be paranoid.
My boss: paranoid. Me: I choose not to be. At least, not to an unhealthy degree...if I can help myself at all.
Last week, we had a staff meeting that, against norm, wasn't too painful. I even had the thought cross my mind, "you know, this staff meeting isn't as bad as usual." That thought was a poison pill, because the next topic on the agenda: Fear. Fear that every action we take is being watched. Fear that our fellow employees might turn us in if they suspect we do not live and breathe our corporation 24/7. Fear that one personal phone call (do not talk too long or too loud!), or leaving ten minutes early, printing too much or taking days off or bringing your kid to work or too much internet surfing -- any momentary lapse of being human might mean you're expendable.
I work for a major corporation in a depressed (boy, is it depressing) economy. I have to sit there day after day and listen to cliches and platitudes about competing in the marketplace, maintaining and increasing market share, preparing our company for future changes. They rattle their spears in downright Condi-esque imagery. Yet the changes described by our upper management pale compared those I read about in the the bonddad blog, clusterf**k nation, or here at dkos. They sound like they're talking in a bubble, circa 1975, or worse, like Tom Friedman on a Hitchens bender. I don't believe for a second that they know how bad things can get in this country before they get better.
I have learned my reality-based credentials in cynicism from the best minds in the liberal blogosphere. So when my immediate boss talks to us about the perilous state of our job security, it's not that I'm in denial that any of us, at any time, might be frog-marched out of our cushy corporate cubicles "for cause" in the same way that Mr. Bush can "disappear" any one of us as enemy combatants, just on say-so. I actually do believe that our company is one of the "good guys," better, more humane than our competitors who will do anything for profit. But times are tough, and fear can be contagious, insidious...and an excuse for those quaint out-dated practices of fair employment.
But for the last few months, during a space re-allocation, my small dept. shared close quarters with others in our larger division, and lo and behold, the coworkers that were supposedly marking demerits on us were actually shocked at what we have to put up with from our controlling, disrespecting and yes, paranoid boss. "We had no idea how badly he talks to you," they told us. "How, in front of everyone, he derides us as "unengaged employees. How he scrutinizes our every move, polices every page that comes off the printer." And, in return, we observed their own immediate boss -- how open he was, how he treated them like adults instead of like children who have to be supervised constantly. How he trusted them to know how professionals behave.
So now, after a day off reading blogs that, like dkos, are blocked now at work, I begin to see how insecure our boss feels, how he thinks he is nobly protecting our jobs by giving us ulcers, high blood pressure and emotional disorders.
I'm sure the neocons and the other authoritarian, republican types sincerely feel like they are protecting us from the big bad terrorists by stealing our civil liberties. I don't have handy the name of the general or military analyst who said this week that the job of leaders is to guide us away from fear, not more firmly into its grasp. No one ever said that there aren't real dangers out there, but the question is not whether fear is justifiable, but whether fear is our optimal response to danger, enabling us to overcome challenges rather than succumb to them.
By acting dickishly in general to all people, both above and below him on the corporate ladder, who's to say our boss is not attracting more negative attention to us than he is actually protecting our jobs by picking fights with upper management. Am I stretching the analogy too much by pointing out how the neocons, by picking fights and power struggles with the world, have made us less safe in Iraq and elsewhere?
I'm not saying we should take our jobs for granted and goof off, by any means. But our boss benefits by keeping us fearful, keeping our confidence (to apply for other positions) low, and thus trying to bolster his own insecurity by micro-managing every uncertainty inherent in worklife (or life). The job that is most in jeopardy, perhaps, is his own, because our discontent draws his performance reviews down, and a negative feedback loop of fear continues to hold us down.
When I look at the authoritarian protections of our Daddy Dearest Government, at the politics of control, conformity and intimidation that have put our democracy in peril, I have a little perspective on the corporate culture of managing by fear. It reminds me that I do have a choice: I choose not to let fear control me.
Am I wrong? Or am I just so consumed with Bush crime family politics that it colors my perceptions?