Anonymous wrote:I would love to know what PPs feel they can't be candid about.
My experience is that when people say they can't be as candid as they'd like, the things they wish they could say are pretty inappropriate. If being your authentic self means being rude, ageist, dismissive of others, etc., or talking national politics at work, please continue to keep the quiet parts quiet.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not OP but I think some people are missing the gist of what OP is trying to say. It’s not about being allowed to be an oddball or being quirky or being disagreeable.

It’s more macro. Maybe the entire premise of the companies product line is flawed, or your company acquired another and it’s a complete dog and dragging your company down the drain, or you pretend your product is actually good for people when it’s not. And no one can actually say these macro things out loud. You have to pretend to celebrate someone hitting a sales goal when the entire company is on a slow death march, or sit in product roadmap meetings to a product that users don’t actually use or pretend that it’s cool that the company keeps making money hand over fist when you recognize from the inside that it’s a monopoly. A lot of corporate America is like this. Think: big tech, insurance companies, healthcare, oil and gas.

Everyone keeps up the facade for the paycheck or the status. Many of them believe the lie they are telling to themselves about what their jobs or their companies actually do.

If you have been in senior roles in corporate America for multiple decades this is what it’s like - not everywhere but most.

I’been in senior roles at F 500. If and when it gets to the point where you are operating under false pretenses more often than not, it’s time to get out. Before that though, as I rose in corporations, I learned that my view of a thing may not be the only view or the right view of a thing. For example, an acquisition’s product line may be a quality assurance nightmare, but leadership didn’t buy the company for that product. They bought it for the IP. Or the talent that would take another 20 months to build the team, and the product is being dropped eventually, in the meantime we need to complete the integration. Or another example, we are going to buy an entire business and pay a guzzillion bucks in legal fees but the long term ROI is that it get us into the Cyber market fast. In the meantime the Legal team is burning the midnight oil. I could come up with a few other examples, but that’s all to say, there are layers to every business transaction, approach, viewpoint, angle, etc and you may not know them outright, but you could if you asked more questions, and definitely you need to start understanding the nuances of business as you keep rising in your career There is a macro to your definition of macro.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I relate completely, OP!!

To help people understand-for me the problem is having to actively participate in validating an alternate reality that I know is false, but I cannot say it’s false and keep my job. Like having to pretend to believe things that any idiot could know are false. It rots my soul and makes me feel like a bad person.

op - yesssss.

I'll give some more examples: at my work, barely anyone makes small talk ever or laughs or shares something funny or personal that happened to them (not in a forced way, just like human connection. All talk time is used for business but if you are on 7 hours of calls a day I start to sort of unravel - I need to like, feel like a human being for a second.
I could give more examples, but that's a huge one.

Have you never had a real job, like a busy retail job where you have to work with people from all walks of life and have a constant stream of customers? Or a demanding technical or manual job where actual productive work is required for 7 hours?

7 hours, that’s not even the full day? You want to treat your job like a hobby, where you can hang with friends and “unravel”? Let your DH be the breadwinner and you get a hobby job like a photo studio.

Anonymous wrote:Not OP but I think some people are missing the gist of what OP is trying to say. It’s not about being allowed to be an oddball or being quirky or being disagreeable.

It’s more macro. Maybe the entire premise of the companies product line is flawed, or your company acquired another and it’s a complete dog and dragging your company down the drain, or you pretend your product is actually good for people when it’s not. And no one can actually say these macro things out loud. You have to pretend to celebrate someone hitting a sales goal when the entire company is on a slow death march, or sit in product roadmap meetings to a product that users don’t actually use or pretend that it’s cool that the company keeps making money hand over fist when you recognize from the inside that it’s a monopoly. A lot of corporate America is like this. Think: big tech, insurance companies, healthcare, oil and gas.

Everyone keeps up the facade for the paycheck or the status. Many of them believe the lie they are telling to themselves about what their jobs or their companies actually do.

If you have been in senior roles in corporate America for multiple decades this is what it’s like - not everywhere but most.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I relate completely, OP!!

To help people understand-for me the problem is having to actively participate in validating an alternate reality that I know is false, but I cannot say it’s false and keep my job. Like having to pretend to believe things that any idiot could know are false. It rots my soul and makes me feel like a bad person.

op - yesssss.

I'll give some more examples: at my work, barely anyone makes small talk ever or laughs or shares something funny or personal that happened to them (not in a forced way, just like human connection. All talk time is used for business but if you are on 7 hours of calls a day I start to sort of unravel - I need to like, feel like a human being for a second.
I could give more examples, but that's a huge one.

Anonymous wrote:Not OP but I think some people are missing the gist of what OP is trying to say. It’s not about being allowed to be an oddball or being quirky or being disagreeable.

It’s more macro. Maybe the entire premise of the companies product line is flawed, or your company acquired another and it’s a complete dog and dragging your company down the drain, or you pretend your product is actually good for people when it’s not. And no one can actually say these macro things out loud. You have to pretend to celebrate someone hitting a sales goal when the entire company is on a slow death march, or sit in product roadmap meetings to a product that users don’t actually use or pretend that it’s cool that the company keeps making money hand over fist when you recognize from the inside that it’s a monopoly. A lot of corporate America is like this. Think: big tech, insurance companies, healthcare, oil and gas.

Everyone keeps up the facade for the paycheck or the status. Many of them believe the lie they are telling to themselves about what their jobs or their companies actually do.

If you have been in senior roles in corporate America for multiple decades this is what it’s like - not everywhere but most.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I relate completely, OP!!

To help people understand-for me the problem is having to actively participate in validating an alternate reality that I know is false, but I cannot say it’s false and keep my job. Like having to pretend to believe things that any idiot could know are false. It rots my soul and makes me feel like a bad person.

op - yesssss.

I'll give some more examples: at my work, barely anyone makes small talk ever or laughs or shares something funny or personal that happened to them (not in a forced way, just like human connection. All talk time is used for business but if you are on 7 hours of calls a day I start to sort of unravel - I need to like, feel like a human being for a second.
I could give more examples, but that's a huge one.

Anonymous wrote:I relate completely, OP!!

To help people understand-for me the problem is having to actively participate in validating an alternate reality that I know is false, but I cannot say it’s false and keep my job. Like having to pretend to believe things that any idiot could know are false. It rots my soul and makes me feel like a bad person.

Anonymous wrote:I relate completely, OP!!

To help people understand-for me the problem is having to actively participate in validating an alternate reality that I know is false, but I cannot say it’s false and keep my job. Like having to pretend to believe things that any idiot could know are false. It rots my soul and makes me feel like a bad person.

Anonymous wrote:I relate completely, OP!!

To help people understand-for me the problem is having to actively participate in validating an alternate reality that I know is false, but I cannot say it’s false and keep my job. Like having to pretend to believe things that any idiot could know are false. It rots my soul and makes me feel like a bad person.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Absolutely relate to this. 20 years in corporate America climbing that ladder. Just took a voluntary buyout. Not sure what’s next but I have time to figure it out.

Zoom is a big part of it. It’s awful for so many reasons.

For me a big part of it was not being able to say what I wanted to say or what the obvious elephant in the room was. I know how to behave in a corporate setting (see: moving up that ladder!) but the disconnect between the reality and the narrow window of how we were expected to act or what our role was (I also used to think of the play analogy all the time) was really getting to me. I felt it in my throat sometimes - like all the words and feelings just sitting there stuck and unable to get out. I am not sure if it’s inevitable or if I wasn’t cut out for senior level roles. I am capable of doing the work and playing there politics but behaving in the environment was affecting me more than I wanted it to.

Not sure the solution but I know exactly what you mean. I think if you are smart and you see this clearly, it’s hard to unsee.

I feel your pain, it must be absolute torture to sit at a desk all day in an air-conditioned office or home, looking at the monitor and acting politely with people on the screen the screen while making nearly $1 million. True hardship.