I’ve been out of the working world for some time now, but I still remember the stomach-clenching realization that my employer was going to be “doing some fun activities” at an upcoming company event/meeting/recognitions/celebrations It was always just like the meme about the extrovert “persuading” the introvert to come out:
I’m told it’s even worse in the non-productive sector of the economy, as Fortissax explains:
If you’ve only worked trades, or unskilled labour your whole life you’d be inclined to thinking that humiliation rituals and childish games are unique to retail jobs like Walmart, where in morning huddles they make their minimum wage employees dance in place to celebrate how well their team did in last week’s sales, or survey results. I want you to know that in Very Serious Jobs™️ like NGOs, government, finance, and banking, white collar salary workers who work for some of the biggest and oldest corporations in Canada have to play stupid little games, and all the men have to fake enthusiasm for getting to know employees they don’t give a shit about outside of work, mostly to appease women in their 30s and 40s. They all have annual or bi-annual celebrations they’ll call “balls” or “galas” where the corporation spends an exorbitant amount of money on a semi formal event and a three and a half star deal, usually at some mid-high tier hotel. They do this so they can justify low balling you and not raising your salary. The women in particular are completely mesmerized as they dress up to relive prom night one more time, every year, where they can win fake little awards for being good little cogs scoring their arbitrary KPIs and survey goals, getting to strut up onto a stage in a dress and claim up a plastic trophy or framed certificate to be mounted on a wall, a gold star for whose it and who cares metric that nobody knows or gives a fuck about. You can make six figures or just under it and you’re still subject to participatory humiliation rituals.
