Second Negative

The Amazing Power Suit Effect

If you’re a Martha lover, forgive me for saying that I felt ill watching her “carefully choreographed” rally yesterday. I’m sure the employees of her company have been counting the seconds until her return. After all, she’s rumored to be such a nice person behind closed doors. Uh-huh.

There are probably people who plan carefully for the moment that they capture the attention of a company executive, in order to have their full arsenal of winning qualities on display. But most of us just try to get by without saying anything completely asinine. You do what you have to do, because that’s who you are. The guy who runs the TPS reports.

I worked for Prudential from 1996-1997 during my early college years in Austin. At some point near the end of my employment, the news came that our office would be closed and moved to Houston as part of a new super center. Since I was already moving to College Station, it didn’t really affect me, but many of the employees were in the middle of careers, not jobs. You might think that management would offer the courtesy of simply explaining what was going to happen, without attempting to be overly sympathetic (read: fake). But instead, the woman who ran the division showed up, called a staff meeting, and launched into a sob story about the closing, and how it upset her personally. You’d never know from her tears that she was the only person not actually losing her job. Most people were offended.

I think many people lose their ability to understand the common worker during their ascent to the top. It’s evident in the way they process information, in how they react to employees, and how employees react to them. Most interactions become soap opera, a game everybody is playing, but nobody is talking about. On occasion, the spectacle makes the nightly news.