Steppin' Up

There is a price to pay for doing a good job at work. Sometimes it's the longer hours or the derisive sniping of peers. Other times it's the weight of carrying home the extra ink on the paycheck or moving into a higher bracket of beer brand purchase. It's the Great American Work Ethic, and it just might raise its ugly head in a cubicle or corner office near you.

Everyone remembers their days in the trenches at work. For me, I did credit card collections straight out of college. I was young, stupid, and in desperate need of beer money. Some people couldn't hack it, and it was a grind. The reward was a monthly incentive that kept your appetite whetted until the following month where you could break your back for the chance of a heavily-taxed monthly bonus. But, life isn't always so colorful under the rainbow. Pretty soon, you start thinking of a career - maybe with that very same company that waved that bonus in front of your snout like a sadistic seal trainer. Maybe, just maybe, there was a place for you...in management.

The very thought is both exhilarating and frightening - kind of like a blind date that your friend sets you up with without the words "...but, he/she has a great personality." Do you have the onions to make it in management? Will you be friendly and loved by your people, who have everything from screen savers to bobble head dolls to wood carvings at their desks - all in your likeness? Or will you be the cold, calculating, miserable piece of dry rot so bent on bullying your charges into submission that Ebenezer Scrooge himself would say, "Dude, chill!" These are the very same people who pulled off their masks upon promotion to reveal the sinister, bile-spewing insect they hid so well when they were taking their lunch breaks with you. Either that, or they wore their boss's ass like a clown's nose. It always amazed me that these people, who have achieved such lofty positions with the company, are so utterly blind, deaf and dumb to these scheming weasels when they promote them that The Who hasn't written a rock opera about them (for those of you reaching for a sip of Diet Coke or Fuze, I am referencing The Who's rock opera, "Tommy" about a blind, deaf, and dumb boy who...um, nevermind).

However, not all promotions to management are to manage others. Let's face it, there are people out there who do a great job but just don't want to deal with the administrative hassles of having people report to them. People calling in sick, hung over, or dead, juggling vacation schedules, dealing with errors in paychecks, and about a billion other things to turn you into a raging alcoholic. I've managed people before, and it's quite rewarding when you can help people achieve things they never thought they would be able to achieve, but I prefer to squat in my own machine-gun nest with my peers in a staff position.

Which finally brings me to the point of this whole thingamabob.

The people in the trenches are THE most important people in the company - an ANY company, for that matter. Without the worker bees, there ain't no honey for the hive, and no honey means no end-of-year bonus. I work in what passes as a city in this shoe box of a state and I have to park in a garage that my company generously pays for, which is nice. However, with growth in the company comes growth in the garage, which means that the staff-level dingbats like me were bumped from the Ferris Wheel. My company was good enough to find the closest available parking garage for me and my 30-some-odd fellow emigrants and pay for parking there. They considered distance, safety and availability, all of which were fine by me - until I went there this morning.

First of all, this garage is so far away, that I had to clone myself and set up a relay team every quarter mile. It's uphill the ENTIRE way from the garage to my office, which should provide hours of laughter when the snow is up to my honey sack. I had to hire out a team of Sherpas to help me scale the 45-degree angle of the road outside the garage. I saw mountain goats taking the gondola to the top of the hill. And on those days when it's cold, windy and rainy? Forget about it. I'll have to leave for work at 7:00 - P.M., that is, the previous night, to get there in time for work the next day. By the time I'd get there, I would have written a journal and sold the rights, missed several class reunions, and have a ZZ Top beard. I should have been suspicious when I saw a dozen hospitality tents set up from the garage to the office. So, someone slapped a number on my back, splashed Gatorade in my face and called a paramedic to shadow my every step. Wait, it gets better. The old garage had a very sensible layout. It was circular; you drove the loop and if it was packed, you took the ONE ramp to the next level and so on. This new place is the latest in Dada architecture. It's like M. C. Escher had a particularly horrifying nightmare and drew up the layout of this place. Ramps criss-cross into oblivion, levels change from 2 to 3 without actually going up or down a ramp, elevator or set of stairs, and your car magically disappears and reappears like those cheap hidden coin boxes your cousin used to play with all the time. A toddler walking through the marketplace in Bangladesh working on a Rubik's Cube would have an easier time navigating his way through the crowd than I would if I parked in the first spot on the other side of the guard-arm.

Which brings me to the safety issue. I am not saying it's a bad neighborhood. I am sure that plenty of decent, honest, God-fearing people know someone who has survived going through this neighborhood in a police escort. It's Autumn now, so it is getting dark earlier - and it's really dark on that street. Remember how it was like fumbling for that light switch in the basement when you were a kid? Try fumbling for that light switch for several blocks, where the only light is reflected off the cold steel of a switchblade or a gun. I guess it's all an incentive for everyone to get into shape - or increase attrition.

So, remember, when you're moving up that corporate ladder, know the risks of success.

And watch your step.