Monday 21 June 2010

Corporate Development Part 143: Cute Questions Carry The Message

You know those quizzes they do in magazines: cute questions with cute answers? Well, try this one. The questions are real, and I wrote the answers more or less spontaneously.

How aware are you of your emotions?
Very. My feelings are me in the moment. I am one with what I feel

What am I feeling? (Name it in one word?
Everything

Why am I feeling that way?
Because I am connected to the world

How do I view myself?
Through a glass and darkly.

Do I get overwhelmed easily?
No.

Do I panic quickly?
At my age?

Do I tend to assume the worst?
No. It turns out far worse than I could ever have imagined.

How do I view the past / present / future?
I live in the day.

Do I spend time regretting the past?
No.

Do I worry about the future?
No. (I know I'm fucked)

How much time do I focus on the here and now?
All of it.

Do I take time to consider the bigger picture?
Your bigger picture or my bigger picture?

Do I take time to stand in someone else's shoes?
Mine fit just fine, thank you.

These questions were part of that Resilience course. WTF? When I started work, and senior managers were giants who bestrode the earth, anyone who tried to pass this twaddle off as serious training would have been dumped. Or sentenced to life in Records in Swansea.

I was okay. I've done the Steps and achieved enough spiritual progress and equanimity to recognise that when someone asks personal questions like these in a business context I am under no obligation to answer them truthfully. The guy I was working with was not okay. He was a tangle of hard emotions. What is he supposed to do with the feelings a question about regretting the past will raise? I know what it did to me and it would take me days to recover. How dare someone put together a course that sends many of those attending out into the world with stirred and shaken emotions?

Notice how the company's message gets carried even by this exercise? Would you ask me to consider the bigger picture if my views agreed with it? Why would I need to put myself in your shoes, unless you want me to change what I intend? Those questions are intended to remind you that the Corporation has its reasons that you wot not of and do not include you. The hits just keep coming.

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