Before I delve into my cocaine era, I thought I would take this opportunity to spread some of my vast knowledge and experience to those of you sweating through college to get that degree in business so you can be somebody in corporate America. Yes, you need that degree. No one will hire you without it so study hard. Here is the kicker, once you have spent, or your family has spent, or you have borrowed the $100,000 or so dollars it takes to achieve your diploma, you will be hired at an entry level position. You will not make enough money to survive on your own and all the information you digested in college will be useless. It might all be helpful in theory but every corporation has their own way of doing business. You will spend the first year or two in your entry level position unlearning all the knowledge you are possibly still paying for. I KNOW! Welcome to the real world.
Also, you will discover that most of what you need to be a suck-cess is to have the basic ability to express yourself in both spoken and written form. You must also learn all the intricate workings of who is who and always, always, cover your ass with them. Volunteer to take on projects and make sure everyone knows what role you are playing in said project because your immediate boss will hijack your work if it is good. Why? Because your immediate boss is middle management which is like teaching kindergarten and holding state secrets. Their job is on the line every time you make a mistake SO they might as well take the credit when you do something brilliant
Middle Management is what you long to do until you get there. You have no idea what it is like to try to explain to someone that they really should bathe because their co-workers are complaining that their feet smell. And that conversation about NOT looking like you might be a hooker on your lunch hour. Those are fun too. People whine because they shouldn't be in trouble for not doing their job, their job is hard because Bobby is sooooo cute that he is a distraction. Then you have to tell Bobby that while is cute, and a distraction, he should not remove his shoes to clip his toenails at his desk. Cute does not equal smart. My favorite was explaining to a customer that our employee didn't mean to say that the customer was "too f**king stupid to read an invoice and we really appreciate your business".
SEXUAL HARASSMENT. You will have a seminar in this subject, I promise. Let me tell you why. When I started working in the eighties there was no such thing. Men felt that anything in a skirt was fair game for, well, harassing. Let me say here and now I am a very average woman. Average height, average weight, average looking...nothing special. No man has ever tripped on his own feet as I approached because my beauty was blinding. No man has ever rushed to help me start my broken down car or pick up anything I dropped or put a tourniquet on a spewing artery. AVERAGE. However, I could not BELIEVE the number of men who thought nothing of placing their hands on my body. One day I was at the copier when suddenly my ass was attacked from behind by two very strong hands. I whipped around and discovered one the heads of a department rubbing his little head and telling me how sweet my ass was. "Yes", "nice to meet you". I said.
I had an employee leave to take a job in an industry he really wanted to work in, music. He had been a purger on the file project and I thought of him like a little brother. He came to my office to hug me goodbye and put his hand between my legs from behind and helped himself to a handful of me. "You aren't an employee here anymore", I said, "so pretty sure I can slap you". "Hey, I just always wanted to do that". Oh, well excuse me.
Had a sales rep ask me to write him a story about how I would seduce him. He wanted it to be very explicit. Really? "First, I would get your pants off and then I would pay homage to Lorena Bobbett..."
One of our Controllers always planned a summer event at a location with a pool. He sat in the shade and watched the bobbing of the boobage in the water all day.
There was one man in our building that only the uninformed women would ride in an elevator with. Guys, looking a woman up and down while licking your lips might work in the vast collection of porn you must own but really it screams, "RAPE", in the real world.
I had two new hire boys, at least ten years younger than little ole me, tell me I had been voted the woman whose underwear they would most like to smell. Ah, I was soooooo... disgusted. I asked if could please have their sweat socks after they worked out. REALLY? Grrrrr.
So business majors and new hires while you are sitting in your sexual harassment seminar trying not to giggle and titter at the naughty words remember your fore bearers brought us to this. You will not believe the videos you have to watch or the role playing you have to participate in. And yes, chances are whoever is teaching your seminar is having an affair with someone in the building.
And for everything you have to do that seems superflous and ridiculous and should be common sense, thank a lawyer. Corporate busniess is about money and not getting sued.
So, little business majors, study, learn, party, because there will be no time to party once you are working and earning very little money. They want blood, and loyalty and your soul until your position is eliminated. OH, and vacations are not three months. They are one, or if you are lucky, two weeks a year.
You're Welcome.
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