Corporate culture

Its been sometime I wrote here. Time is just running like hell. I dont know whether, I am busy or making myself busy. There is a subtle difference between those. I am busy is really being busy. Making myself busy is obligating myself with something everyday like checking mails, sending friend requests in network sites etc so that I luk busy. I hope writing blogs is excluded in that list :-) Off late I have been orkuting so much I am getting sick of it. Its boring after sometime when you repeatedly see messages like

"Hey I am so and so. Plz have friendship with me."

in almost all gals scrap books. (Btw my start line is different). Its funny when u see everybody is wanting to have friendship only with gals. No body touches my (s)crap book.

Damn. Give those pretty gals a break guys or atleast be bold and ask her for a date or say something different. Rather than starting with friendship, then messenger, mobile talks and crap. Trust me (with a little experience) you will never know a person unless otherwise u interact them in real. Dats purely my views.

I think I am deviating from my point. Back to corporate culture. This is how the story is (atleast in my case). They started outsourcing since cheap-any-time-available-boss-labourers are available in here. Since the compensation for a s/w engineering job is way too ahead of any other white-collar job, the companies want their labourers-turned-employees to work more than 10 hrs for a day. The employees find it difficult to work long, as the days pass by and continue exploring the net, have more (free) coffees, unlimited-cheap-corporate-mobile-talks etc, there by increasing the work hours. Some companies think just because an employee is inside the office in his cubicle, he is working hard. Its time companies see employees as people and not as resources. A corporate culture analogy I have found:

Let’s start with a cage containing five monkeys. Inside the cage, hang a banana on a string and place a set of stairs under it. Before long, a monkey will go to the stairs and start to climb towards the banana. As soon as he touches the stairs, spray all of the monkeys with cold water. After a while, another monkey makes an attempt with the same result - all the monkeys are sprayed with cold water. Pretty soon, when another monkey tries to climb the stairs, the other monkeys will try to prevent it. Now, turn off the cold water. Remove one monkey from the cage and replace it with a new one. The new monkey sees the banana and wants to climb the stairs. To his surprise and horror, all of the other monkeys attack him. After another attempt and attack, he knows that if he tries to climb the stairs, he will be assaulted. Next, remove another of the original five monkeys and replace it with a new one. The newcomer goes to the stairs and is attacked. Note that the previous newcomer takes part in the punishment with enthusiasm. Again, replace a third original monkey with a new one. The new one makes it to the stairs and is attacked as well. Two of the four monkeys that beat him have no idea why they were not permitted to climb the stairs, or why they are participating in the beating of the newest monkey.

After replacing the fourth and fifth original monkeys, all the monkeys that have been sprayed with cold water have been replaced. Nevertheless, no monkey ever again approaches the stairs. Why not? Because as far as they know that's the way it's always been around here and that's how company culture is formed, and that’s how you come about the smell of a place.
Every company has its smell. It’s the way it’s always been around there. Nobody can really explain why some things are the way they are anymore, it’s either that’s what management said, wants or expects. This subtly defines a culture for the organization. Imagine how the fifth monkey would have felt when it entered the cage, he’ll see opportunities all over the place in “banana’s untouched”, he’ll wonder in its mind why nobody is making use of those opportunities, he’ll also wonder how come the hostility when he tries to reach the banana. The other monkeys will attack it with glee, without having a clue why things are done that way. At that point, the one who can pick the smell of the place most is the new comer, but he/she looses the ability to see the difference in sometimes less than 3 months.


I was just wondering am I the 4th or the 5th monkey?