Wednesday, April 4, 2007

The Emporer is naked!

I've had more jobs in my life so far than I'd like to admit. Early on in my career, I attributed changing jobs to an on-going quest for career advancement. After all, in the circles that I traveled in back then, nearly all the people I knew were on the fast track to one place or another, and I wasn't about to be left behind.

But somewhere along the way, the train got derailed. The upward momentum I once had came to a screeching halt. The pressure became overwhelming and I stepped off the train, thinking I'd be able to get back on after taking some time out to rest. At the time I was working for a Fortune 100 corporation, earning a healthy almost-six-figure income, and I simply walked away.

Since then, I've had many jobs, some good, some not-so-good, and certainly none earning anywhere near what I'd been making before. But regardless of whether the company was large or small, white-collar or blue, there's a disturbing pattern I've noticed that is slowly (or perhaps not so slowly) driving me insane.

Simply put, it's a lack of integrity in the workplace, which by it's very nature transcends into personal character. Unlike so many Bill Clinton supporters who extolled the virtue of compartmentalization during the Lewinsky affair (pardon the pun, I couldn't resist), I cannot except the notion that one's professional character is separate and apart from who they are as a person. If you lie, cheat and steal from your employer, you're a liar, a cheat and thief, regardless of how decent you claim to be around your family and friends.

Wherever I've worked, if there's a department that's cooking the books, misappropriating corporate funds, fudging numbers or outright lying in order to appease a client, I end up working in it. I feel like that Peanuts cartoon character, with a cloud of corruption following me everywhere I go. I know I may sound histrionic, but I'm not making this up.

Early in my career, I worked for what was then one of the largest accounting firms in the country, who went belly-up for a host of racketeering and other assorted financial misdeeds, leaving 3,000 employees standing in the unemployment line the day before Thanksgiving. Another very major corporation I worked for ended up being fined millions (and I do mean millions) for unethical bookkeeping practices and other assorted irregularities. I left another firm when my largest client told me that the work my company was providing would very likely be material to a potential lawsuit and that I (me personally) needed to be prepared to testify to it's validity in a court of law. NOT!

I've come to accept the fact that there are unscrupulous people out there and that they can be found in every facet of life. But what I struggle with constantly is the apathy and appeasement that cause so many people to go along for the ride or to simply look the other way. I'm stunned at how many seemingly educated, intelligent and professional people are willing to ignore the fact that the Emporer is wearing no clothes. While everyone else is busy telling him how beautiful his robes are, I'm standing there screaming "BUT HE'S NAKED!!!!!!" Isn't it fascinating that the attitude that makes work life bearable for so many people is the same one that makes me want to implode.

I'm so tired of trying to do the right thing while surrounded by people who couldn't care less. It never ceases to amaze me how many people in leadership positions would rather stick their heads in the sand than acknowledge what's going on in their own shops. Perhaps that's because admitting there's a problem usually requires doing something about it.

Looking back, I'm beginning to understand now why I haven't been able to stay on a job for very long. Integrity is a core value of mine and when it's thrown to the wind, I feel an overwhelming sense of righteous indignation. I get anxious, I obsess over the indiscretions, becoming hypersensitive to how they manifest in the workplace, I get agitated and try to stir up the masses to do something - ANYTHING - to make it stop. When that doesn't happen, I get irritated, and then angry, and then depressed. Before I know it, insomnia settles in again. I don't want to go to sleep because that means I'll have to wake up in the morning and do it all over again. Finally, the very thought of going to work makes me physically ill. And if that wasn't bad enought, next comes the anxiety and stress of job-hunting, which is even less appealing to me than root canal surgery. Let me just say that I find the process of searching, applying and interviewing for a job to be one of the most dehumanizing and anxiety-ridden processes I've ever encountered... But, you guessed it. Thanks exactly what I'm doing right now.

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