This web page contains two complementary essays. In order to understand
The Corporate Asylum both essays should be read. The order in which you
read them does not matter.
Re: The Asylum | Re: The Other Asylum
Re: The Asylum
by The Inmate
No doubt you think, gentlemen, that I want to amuse you. You are mistaken in that, too. I am not at all such a merry person as you imagine . . .Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes From the Underground
I am The Inmate. I work in The Asylum. You probably do too. I have spent seventeen years here. Once, in a bold move contrary to the rules and regulations of this madhouse, I lived for a year on the outside. It was a great time for me, but I had to return. Necessity: good pasta, imported beer. My present confinement has lasted well over a decade.
The Asylum is a tall, massive, rectangular building with shiny tinted windows. Identical maple trees line identical concrete sidewalks lined by identical benches where identical pigeons defecate identically. A vast sea of grass, synthetically fertilized and cut so methodically that it never changes color or length, surrounds The Asylum like an uninhabited desert. An inmate recently received electric shock therapy for planting bougainvillea and palm trees in random clusters. He had failed to heed The Asylum's memo: "Planting should be done in rows. The stimulation of nonlinear thought patterns through chaotic, autonomous planting undermines the goals of boredom and monotony which we try so hard to achieve here in The Asylum."
Inmates enter and exit The Asylum through one set of immense double-glass doors with stainless steel handles. The exits are unmarked. Travel between the thousands and thousands of floors is accomplished on a myriad of elevators or on stairs, if one has the time, but few inmates do. Some floors, it is rumored, keep plants that require water and wardens who do too. Currently, I work in The Asylum's mail room, so I get around. We're on the 48th floor in suite 4812.
The laughter in The Asylum is deep, long and loud, but it always contains some irony, some bite, some absurdity disallowing that laughter be only that. We laugh at the wardens when they give their speeches or when we have our annual psychological evaluations, but we are insulted too. They treat us like children. They think we're insane.
Most of us came to The Asylum for necessities: a roof over our heads, a chance to contribute, a desire to be needed, a warm fire, friendships. We came seeking asylum. Our yearnings are simple: we want to choose where to put our shoes, when to comb our hair, what to eat for lunch. On the 89th floor a desk was unbolted from the floor and moved by an inmate to face a window. No forms. No protocol. No permission. It saved money and time. How innovative! How daring! My floor would have scheduled that inmate for weekly psychiatric evaluations for doing such a thing.
When the inmates criticize The Asylum, and they often do, the wardens defer to Mission Statements and Asylum Policy: "Inmate suggestions will be accepted on form 367-A2 and must be filled out legibly and given to your immediate warden. Failure to use form 367-A2 must be reported by the immediate warden on form 873-X9." By deferring to manuals, rules and regulations the wardens talk the same, look the same, act the same. "That is a great suggestion," a warden will say, "and something we definitely need to look into." We are treated like chess pieces: attacked or defended; traded or sacrificed for the sake of a king. This is no chess game.
We want bread and wine not crackers and grape juice. When we're ready, we'll leave The Asylum for good. For now, we just want to go home for the weekend.
I checked into The Asylum hopeful, but I have become a cynic. In the beginning it seemed like a quaint place. It's not. The plants are plastic, the flowers are fake and the furniture is cheap, strictly utilitarian. Many wardens, who appear cordial and concerned, are, behind that facade, otherwise occupied--with promotions, Asylum politics, financial gain. It is mostly an illusion here--an invented, purchased image.
New inmates are told that the food is great and forced to eat it so quickly they have no time to evaluate its nutritional content. Initially, I admit, it smelled decent, it looked good on the plate--presentation is extremely important here--but its chewy texture made it irksome to swallow and the large quantities I ate never fully satisfied me even after a second or third helping. I was constantly sick. It became obvious the food contained fillers. Later I learned the medication was not medication at all, but placebos and sleeping pills. I stopped eating. I threw the pills away.
Out of necessity I mixed my own medication and cooked my own food often using recipes left behind by dead inmates. I smuggled in these illegal documents with the help of former inmates who, like me, are also troubled about the state of The Asylum.
So now I have a dream: I want to begin distribution to all inmates in The Asylum. Some say it is a ridiculous dream, but then, I am a ridiculous man. I am The Inmate.
©2004 The Corporate Asylum all rights reserved
Re: The Other Asylum
by The Inmate
For the body is not one member, but many.
Paul, I Corinthians 12:14
I am The Inmate. I work in the asylum--the corporate asylum. You probably do too. This asylum is the antithesis of The Asylum. It is asylum as body. Corpus means body. Corporate literally means to make into a body.
Those who are a part of the body accept both responsibility and advantage. The responsibility is to fulfill their obligations as part of the organization(like an organ in a body): the eyes must have clear vision, the heart must be strong, the stomach must digest, the ears must hear.
The advantage received is synergy: the whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts and, therefore, the parts share in the advantages of that wholeness. This is asylum as refuge, as sanctuary, as security and as shelter. The collective power and mental capacity of the corporation (corpora is the plural of corpus) is greater than any of its individuals.
That is how the corporation should work. When it does not you get The Asylum. When it does you get asylum. What most inmates and wardens get is a compromise between the two. The balances often tilt toward The Asylum, but it does not negate many of the advantages received by being part of a corporation. If the scales are weighted too much on the side of The Asylum it will be necessary to throw things on them to tip them back toward asylum. This can include refusing overtime, securing a significant amount of autonomy and enjoying intrinsically valuable pursuits outside of work. In so doing one receives from the corporation as many benefits as possible. Employees must, to some degree, mold their own destiny by taking advantage of the corporation in the same way that it takes advantage of them. It is a symbiotic relationship.
There are three kinds of jobs in the world: those that feed the soul, those that are indifferent to the soul and those that starve the soul. Jobs in the first two categories can descend into the latter for a number of reasons: too much demand of time and energy, overbearing bureaucracy, incompetent managers and inept workers. Jobs that starve the soul can ascend into the first two if these circumstances are not prevalent along with adequate economic compensation.
In The Need for Roots Simone Weil wrote, "Every one knows that there are forms of cruelty which can injure a man's life without injuring his body. They are such as deprive him of a certain form of food necessary to the life of the soul." Know when to get out. Know when to stay in. Weil goes on to list fourteen needs of the soul many of which apply to a healthy corporation: "Order," "Liberty," "Obedience," "Responsibility," "Equality," "Hierarchism," "Honour," "Punishment," "Freedom of Opinion," "Security," "Risk," "Private Property," "Collective Property" and "Truth." When these characteristics are prevalent in a company it is a corporate asylum, a place where employees are comfortable, content and challenged--a body of safety and refuge.
How does the corporation as asylum manifest itself in the workplace? Robert Levering in A Great Place to Work offers these characteristics: it is a friendly environment, management and workers mix "naturally," "informally chatting with others--is an accepted part of everyday life," no politics, "fair pay and and benefits," "commitment to job security," flexible hours, vacated positions are filled from within, distinctions between management and workers are minimized, access to information, "right to confront those in authority" and all employees share the rewards of the business.
There must be humor. As a delivery guy I go to many different businesses. Very often I see cartoons and funny quotes about work posted in mailrooms, delivery docks, coffee rooms and lunch rooms. My colleagues and I are constantly laughing, cracking jokes, making fun of corporate decisions and even ourselves. I have no doubt that management often makes fun of us. This is normal. It is a healthy aspect of the work environment.
The good corporation allows criticism. I have written many letters and published a small paper that was often critical of our company(that paper, The INMATE, is really where this web site has its roots). Writing the letters and the paper contributed to forming my opinions about corporations, business and work. The corporation allowed me to have my say, even if nothing happened.
Autonomy is also necessary. When management attempts to control every detail of employees' jobs they take away much of the satisfaction that those jobs potentially contain. Employees are in the best position to make decisions about the jobs they do. This is common sense. Managing should be more about staying out of the way, about securing the freedom necessary for employees to make their jobs more efficient and productive, than about giving orders or exhibiting "leadership qualities" obtained from the latest business guru's book.
When a corporation incorporates these qualities it can be and is in many cases a tolerable or even enjoyable place to work. There are many benefits that corporations provide for their employees and this should not be forgotten even in the midst of criticizing them.
The Corporate Asylum can also be The Corporate Asylum. Our real work is to cultivate contentment between those extremes.
works cited:©2004 The Corporate Asylum all rights reservedLevering, Robert, A Great Place to Work: What Makes Some Employers So Good ( And Most So Bad), Random House, New York, 1988, pp. 4-15, 203
Weil, Simone, The Need for Roots: Prelude to a Declaration of Duties towards Mankind, preface by T.S. Eliot, Routledge, New York, N.Y., 1995, pg. 7.
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