Are corporate offices like nightclubs?

Obviously corporate offices are not like nightclubs to the diminishing numbers of male cubicle monkeys or the cleaning and clerical staff. However, it occurs to me that to corporate men higher up the hierarchy and young females said to be employed in corporate administration and management, the office serves a function equivalent to an exclusive nightclub. It is said that the reason telecommuting has not replaced the corporate office is that people miss the social interaction. I think this is true but doesn't go far enough. Aside from providing an excuse to hand out paychecks, the social interaction is the whole purpose of the existence of corporate offices, with anything else that gets accomplished being entirely incidental.  

The population dynamics of corporate offices are trending towards those of nightclubs, with females constituting a majority at the lower levels. As with nightclubs, there is a dress code to get in. Females dress sexily in the latest fashions carefully fix their make up and spend the day bantering with their female friends, preening and vying for the attention of the resident alpha males. The men spend their day establishing their place the hierarchy with various posturing displays and impressing the females. As well as wearing tight clothing, the females will earn their keep and status by giving out the odd blow job.

To the females the corporation is essentially a way to extend their teenaged years, taking the place of husbands and families. Their "work" days are the equivalent of clubbing, going out to dinner on the company account is the equivalent of going on a date, and going to corporate retreats and fucking guys a few rungs up the ladder is the equivalent of going on a honeymoon or romantic weekend. Their fellow corporate whores become the equivalent of their family and community. Since like all lower animals, females cannot distinguish between an exaggerated facsimile of what they are instinctually suited for and the real thing, females will become emotionally invested in this absurd set up the way they would in a real functional community, and will gush about how fabulous it all is.

I did notice at my previous job that women ended up shaping the layout of the office. The idea was to have an "open" office where "everyone can share ideas". So they bought short cubicle walls and eliminated everyone's privacy. Of course this is stupid in practice because voices carry far so if anyone talks it cancels out the thoughts of everyone else. The women were the biggest talkers and this environment enabled them to talk more. I think it did carry similarities of a club in that sense.

The main activity in corporations is corporate politics.  The main goal of every manager is to bully those under him into submission.  (Though this isn't as necessary for women under him who are naturally submissive to authority.)  So the open cubicle structure serves managers just as much as it does women, because it facilitates bullying and micromanagement.  Of course productivity is basically irrelevant in corporate offices.

The best book on employment in corporations is Corporate Confidential written by a woman because only a woman could accurately describe something so absurd without recognizing the absurdity.  Drealm, I suggest you add this book to your reading list because you really haven't experienced corporate America.  And for some balance, you could also read Dilbert.

This didn't happen at my job, yet. I feel that's only because of the stress and importance of my job, though. It is, thankfully, male-dominated in an androcentric field, and women doing any of that would result in catastrophic loss (through the job; not a threat to women). No government will shell out billions just so women can have fun. I don't care how feminist a country is. One of the reasons I may actually stay in this field for a good while.

A Sleeping Revolutionary wrote

No government will shell out billions just so women can have fun.

That is what Western regimes do. Although I guess it is not just about letting women have fun. Destroying society, subjugating men and profiting the elite also come into it.

Cornfed wrote

A Sleeping Revolutionary wrote

No government will shell out billions just so women can have fun.

That is what Western regimes do. Although I guess it is not just about letting women have fun. Destroying society, subjugating men and profiting the elite also come into it.

Incorrect. They sellout, but only so much. Who do you think allows this to occur? The ones at the top. Who are men. They'll cap this thing when it gets too hot. You think they're going to let women run entire nations into the Earth? Right. Even in my current job and sector alone it's still 81% male, despite the calls for 40% of women to be represented in ALL work force fields. Because they know that if you allow women to contaminate my men, it'll affect other sectors and fields and hurry the collapse.

A Sleeping Revolutionary wrote

Incorrect. They sellout, but only so much. Who do you think allows this to occur? The ones at the top. Who are men. They'll cap this thing when it gets too hot. You think they're going to let women run entire nations into the Earth?

Of course not. It is not even theoretically possible for females to run anything because females are incapable of having original thoughts and just do what the men in charge tell them. Obviously the men in charge don't care about the females and are just pushing their own agenda. They do seem to be prepared to feminize, and hence ruin, entire critical industries in pursuit of that agenda though.

Drealm wrote

I did notice at my previous job that women ended up shaping the layout of the office. The idea was to have an "open" office where "everyone can share ideas". So they bought short cubicle walls and eliminated everyone's privacy. Of course this is stupid in practice because voices carry far so if anyone talks it cancels out the thoughts of everyone else. The women were the biggest talkers and this environment enabled them to talk more. I think it did carry similarities of a club in that sense.

Seems the US is lagging behind here. In Norway cubicles have been eliminated, and the latest trend is to have a floor filled with strewn-out unassigned desks. So you have to start every day by finding a new desk and setting up your stuff there, and your every movement throughout the day is monitored by your coworkers (and managers). Of course this is for "flexibility" and "improving communication" etc.

But I don't get why shareholders tolerate this situation. Why is productivity considered irrelevant? Wouldn't the company make more money if employees were allowed to be productive?

Johannes wrote

But I don't get why shareholders tolerate this situation. Why is productivity considered irrelevant? Wouldn't the company make more money if employees were allowed to be productive?

Shareholders are far removed from these details.  You might argue that the profit motive itself should encourage productivity.  The problem with this argument is the question of the profit motive for who?  A corporation is a group of individuals.  In modern culture, groups can't function effectively because there is no loyalty to anything.  Every individual is only interested in themselves.  Each individual can make more for themselves by acting as a parasite than by acting in the interest of the corporation.  This applies equally to the CEO and to the lowest employee.

The biggest fear of any middle manager is that someone under him will embarrass him.  This is why middle managers ruthlessly eliminate anyone with real brains or competence under them, because such a person is threat.  Cubicles and other dysfunctional work environments also help protect middle managers from the threat of embarrassing competence of an underling.

It's worth reading The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism which basically argues that productive free market economies came into existence and were based on Protestant ethics.  I agree with this.  I don't think any functional economic system can work without strong morality.  So I disagree with people like Ayn Rand and the Objectivists who believe that a free market economy based on selfishness can work.

Johannes wrote

But I don't get why shareholders tolerate this situation. Why is productivity considered irrelevant? Wouldn't the company make more money if employees were allowed to be productive?

Large corporations have large numbers of shareholders, many of who are only temporary shareholders or may not even know they are shareholders due to owning shares indirectly through pension funds and such. It is therefore all but impossible for them to co-operate to get anything done. In theory the directors represent their interests, but generally the directors come from the same class of people as the senior management, are effectively appointed by the CEO and are there to get benefits that the management can give such as service contracts and the use of offshore bank accounts. It seems to me that the reason most corporations can start up and stay afloat is that the banksters give them credit to buy up to efforts of actual productive people. The corporation continues to expand, not through profits being re-invested in the business but though increasing credit facilities. Once of a certain size they benefit from economies of scale, especially the effective regulatory and interest rate apartheid favoring the big guys. The management can then proceed to artificially inflate apparent profits with creative accounting in order to justify themselves remorselessly looting everything. If they do this so much that the corporation is bankrupted, this is no problem as they can just move on to another one. Corporate senior management is essentially a hereditary priestly/noble class. Hence many corporate offices are there for the purpose of quasi-religious S&M type rituals, rather than being places of business as such.