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Philosophy
Challenge Ended
Survival
How do you make it in a corporate world?
Ended February 13, 2024 • 5 Entries • Created by AJAY9979
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Survival
How do you make it in a corporate world?
Profile avatar image for beatricegomes
beatricegomes in Philosophy

Carbon Piles With Anxiety

I used to say I'd never be one of those desk monkeys shuffling papers around for 40 hours each week. I was right back then. I never did do that. No, instead I sit at a laptop for 50–60 hours each week. Progress is truly inspiring, isn't it?

I used to want to be an artist. Then I found out how hard I'd have to work at my second and third jobs just to support my art career. Instead, I went into advertising. I work really hard to bring to life the campaigns you actively try to block out.

I'm sensitive, you see. It's not just the money. I can't handle my creative work being criticized too harshly. I don't want to see my ideas get killed and over-sanitized into tasteless oblivion. I just wanted to be given the space to think creatively, given the environment in which overthinking was not just encouraged but rewarded.

Then I found the world of strategy, and I dove in with the methodical yet whirlwind nature it required of me. You see, my memory is fleeting but my mind's an incurable overthinker. I write everything down, agonize over it, review and rewrite, and share my good work with the team. They just see that final cut and get to skip past the stages where I'm pulling my hair out and wondering how I'm ever going to finish the task in front of me.

It's tough. It's a lot of hours to spend with your brain sprinting on a treadmill. So I just write it all down. I write down what I want to remember, what I need to save, what I hope to pass on. I think I finally found my place in this big information machine that our society is dedicated to running.

I don't beat myself up when I don't have the answers. I just know I have to start looking for them — or for someone with them. We're all just a bunch of carbon piles with anxiety crashing into each other and trying to sound smart. The only thing that expects you to be a genius is your own intolerable ego. So throw it out the window.

Yes, we're all such important people in our blazers and pencil skirts. We all decided to sell pieces of our lives and souls to the same buyer, and that's about all we need to have in common. We don't have to be tied by some cultish mission or deep life purpose.

The next time you're driven mad by anxiety at a spreadsheet or slide deck, take a deep breath and remember this quote by Kurt Vonnegut:

“We are here on Earth to fart around, and don’t let anybody tell you any different.”

Challenge
Survival
How do you make it in a corporate world?
Profile avatar image for SharondaBriggs
SharondaBriggs in Philosophy

Routine

Early to rise

Rocks in my eyes

Suite and tie

Time goes by

Coffee brewing

Breakfast stewing

Lunch bag

Hair swag

Warming the car

Job is not far

Away we go

Traffic is slow

Stocks will boom

Meetings on zoom

Paycheck done

Time to run

Heading home

Check my phone

Soup and bread

Early to bed

Bath and movie

This day was groovy.

Challenge
Survival
How do you make it in a corporate world?
Profile avatar image for MxVister
MxVister in Philosophy

zoning out

Through halls of school, we’re prepared for our future. ‘Go to a good college to get a good job’ or something like that. Even while scrolling through my phone with my piles of homework out sprawled before me, ads never go away. A cute toy, a fun new book. It all adds to the same place, money- and a job.

So I have to click click and clack on keys in cubical boring my mind out. I look left- look right. Up down all around and then the kids songs I was told about. God was here and there and everywhere all over and watching you. But had I been good? Would He judge- be disappointed. Like a disappointed parental figure- my parents. My brother in college. Oh he was always the best student. Way better than me. I was the failure, huh? By no means bad but by no means good. So that leaves me stuck

back in the chair. At a work place I doubt I could name off the top of my head.

Clear as it was I wasn’t built for this. I wasn't a bad student but by no means good. I was always told I couldn’t know discipline if it hit me in the face.

Hit me in the face

I felt like hitting my face

Banging my head against the desk- the wall- collapse fall fall fall deep into sleep

Far more fun than this

I was lazier than a sloth. Couldn’t focus to save my life.

How could I sustain, live. Fun

All the fun stuff I saw I wanted I worked for but I didn’t in the end I couldn’t hold anything down anything. Money and corporation leaked in every corner dripped like a bad ooze

Adapt or die out

I wish i could adapt

Challenge
Survival
How do you make it in a corporate world?
Profile avatar image for 7v7
7v7 in Philosophy

The Run

The heat

so easily throws us

off

our game

(prey)

it's like

the difference between

diarrhea

and

constipation

(none)

01.25.2024

Corporate world survival challenge @AJAY9979