Are most jobs corporate cults?

I think about this every time I drive past a Chic-fil-A.

What is the difference between a cult and some jobs?

When I left my full-time job working as a PTA, I was burned out. The benefits were getting smaller, the pay lower, the workload was getting bigger and there were more and more rules that needed to be followed to do the same exact job I had been doing for nearly 20 years.

One of my biggest job peeves is around the idea of Workplace Productivity.

Because of insurance changes and lobbying, it was no longer in my scope of practice to perform some activities. I even trained nurses to do certain jobs that I had done for many years but was no longer allowed to do at that facility. It is very frustrating to be told you can no longer perform a task because you’re not qualified, but they need you to train someone new to do it for the first time because they are somehow more qualified than you now.

It was soul-sucking and made me hate getting up and going in every day. Which was unfortunate because the actual performance of the job was still great. Physical Therapy is a rewarding activity. You get to impact lives in a positive way and help someone move from injured to healing on a daily basis. That part was overshadowed by the corporate BS that was always hanging over your shoulder, watching you like a storm cloud.

But I suppose that is how the world turns sometimes…

After quitting that last job, I looked back and realized I had been a cog in the machine for that company. One of the many worker bees that went about my day, taking orders and following the company straight into hell.

Jobs Are Not Meant To Be Everything To Us

This is why I tell people to stop trying to find their passion before they switch careers!

A job is sometimes JUST A JOB.

A way to make money so you can pay your bills and buy food. Then you go out and find your passion on your off time.

This concept that you need to find fulfillment in your work is a BIG FAT LIE that we’ve been spoon-fed. Companies need us to believe this lie so we commit to them and look to them to provide a sense of meaning.

This happiness, this sense of meaning is not going to come from an outside source. It’s a losing game we play when we look to others to fill our core.

Let me make a list of how cults and jobs are the same: (of course not all jobs)

1.) Love Bombing

Jobs and cults woo us with money, perks, and incentives to get us committed to them. Come work for us… We’ll be like a family… We’ll take retreats… You can get a ham for Christmas…

It’s all meant to hook you because once they hook you, they can then begin the brainwashing with… orientation.

Orientation is where you learn the company policies and taglines. How they want you to speak, dress, act, and company policies you should adopt as your own.

This is what makes me think of Chic-fil-A. You roll up to their drive-through and it is nothing but teeth and wide smiles and pleasant tones. I bet they are nice to work at, but I get the creeps sometimes from it. The same way I got the creeps from that 19 Kids and Counting show.

The amount of control that goes into reputation/image generation is astounding.

2.) Leverage

They have the goods on you. Yearly reports do more than summarize your performance. They are a track record of what you did right and wrong. In the corporate world, this can be a dealbreaker for promotions, raises, and even when looking for a new job. Often, your new employer will reach out to get a reference from an old company and they could potentially keep you from getting that new position.

I had this attempted by an old boss. After I quit that company, my new place of employment called my last 3 workplaces for references. The only one that gave a poor review was the one that I had just quit. I had reported a fellow employee and director for insurance fraud and they were not happy with me about it. Their attempts to sabotage did not work because there were other former employees at my new location and they had similar experiences with that boss and knew of the fraud as well. The new company was used to getting negative reviews given to them that did not line up with accounts from other prior places of employment.

The majority of the time this threat is not said outright. It’s an implied message. You are aware of it without it being spelled out directly. This is a coercive control tactic.

3.)Moving Goal Posts

Yearly performance reviews also keep you moving toward a goal that you aren’t 100% sure about. What are they looking for this year? What do they consider an important factor? Is it getting along with co-workers? Working in teams? Volunteering for committees? Productivity? Sales? Overtime? Customer reviews?

How do you know where or what the target is?

The goalpost is always moving. This is meant to keep you unsettled and looking to gain approval from the company.

4.) Messages From The Leader

The President/ CEO/ Board/ Founder whomever it is, is the person at the top who hands out mandates and messages that everyone must follow. Their word is the new law.

If you don’t like it you may get reprimanded and put on notice and can be told to leave the company, but you lose everything you invested into it. Time at level, insurance, benefits, co-workers, company perks, etc.. Like being shunned.

5.) Uniforms

Business casual, scrubs, company logos, power suits, color-coordinated outfits, etc… you get it. You can tell a lot about who has what role and level of importance by what they are wearing.

In cults, the leaders look like leaders and the followers look like followers. The same goes for the corporate world, leaders and workers look different even to the untrained eye.

It’s a simple caste system that works. If you have any questions about where you stand in corporate society, just look down and see what you’re wearing.

6.) Proselytizing

Spread the word! Tell your friends! Promote the business! Preach our message!

However you phrase it, it’s no different than the way a cult goes out and recruits new followers.

It’s all about the image and gathering new people.

You’ll hear catchphrases thrown out that are more for show than for effect like:

• green initiative
• Pride
• sustainability
• philanthropic
• inclusivity
• award-winning
• family-friendly
• blue collar
• support the veterans

These things all sound amazing. They are amazing if they are true, but many times they are only thrown around on special months or days. It’s not the way the company does business for the long haul. Using keywords to trick people into thinking you are doing good in the world is not the same as actually going out and doing good. The good is done to the bottom line of the company, the same way cult leaders profit from pretending to do good with their campaigns.

To Sum It Up

Again, a job is a job.

If we get lucky and our job has meaning to us, that’s great. But more often than not, a job is simply to supply us with money and other resources so we can go out and find happiness elsewhere.

Many corporations would like to be the Gods in our world if they could so we could worship them and give our lives to their causes.