How mother and daughter manage the fear driven corporate world.

. My daughter is entering a world that is new to her; the corporate world and boy is she learning. It moves me deeply to witness her innocence and total bewilderment at it all. It rocks me to my core, to see her discover the levels of incongruency and manipulation that exist, to see through her innocent eyes just how ugly and inhumane the world of work has become.

The precarious bridge between the two different worlds, one driven by fear and the other coming from love.

I am very grateful that my beautiful, generous, bright eyed and bushy tailed daughter is turning to me for guidance to make sense of this new world.

I am grateful that recently I’ve gotten a real sense of knowing just how different the world can be, so I do feel I have something of value to offer her and to guide her with.
And I am forever grateful for the movie ‘The Secret’ and the wide spread popularity of the Law of Attraction.
These new concepts and explanations on living have totally intrigued my daughter. They also gave us an aligned way of looking at what is happening to her at present and they provide insight into how she can deal with it all in a very different way.
She knows that if she is not careful she will end up living like most people in the finance world; wealthy but fearful and with a huge loss of inner self worth.

When my daughter started work 6 months ago with brilliant University results under her belt, she was ready to conquer the world. She was excited and full of possibilities.
Having been chosen out of 700 candidates, she was repeatedly told how grateful she should be for being handpicked for this Graduate Program in Finance.
At first she was, however she was smart enough NOT to underestimate her own contribution and knew that they should be grateful that they had her.
I inwardly cheered; “Great start, keep your self worth alive. Go my Girl. Go.”

However it didn’t take long for her enthusiasm to wane in this new world. It was ruled by fear and it was determined to turn bright, young people, who were full of promise into submissive corporate citizens who were easy to manipulate.

I felt sad and relieved about what was happening to my daughter in her early days in the world of work.
As a mother, I felt sad because I didn’t like seeing my daughter so confused, so upset and angry and yet as a woman I was relieved that this was happening while she still had gusto and honest, innocent views. It meant that she still had a chance not to succumb to becoming a fearful corporate puppet.

So what exactly are we dealing with here?

Having been welcomed aboard with lots of promises and hoopla, it was interesting to see how quickly they showed their true colors.
My daughter was barely into her first day, when she was abruptly informed that her internship had changed. Due to the recession, budgets had been cut.
So instead of receiving the full training program that she’d applied for, she would now be placed in departments who were short staffed and needed an extra hand.
My daughter was reasonable and could accept that cuts in her expensive training program needed to be made but; “Hmmm”. How could she contribute in this highly specialized field without training?

She’d also was slightly taken back by the offhanded way the news had initially been broken to her. She was now getting a much lesser deal than the one she’d been expecting and hired to do and there was no mention about that side of the coin. Despite this she was still hopeful that she could make it work.
She would soon find out just how naive that thinking was.
I noticed that I had to watch my own cynical thoughts about hierarchical corporates and their bullying ways though.
I had to fight the urge to tell her that her positive thoughts were fruitless and I so wanted to prepare her for upsets and hurts. Instead I worked hard on keeping my mouth shut and I congratulated her on her observations and optimism.

In the first few months her initial thought on training was confirmed.
Staff levels were cut and of course nobody had time to train her. As a result there was nothing for her to sink her teeth into and her Program Manager obviously didn’t know what to do with her.
After months of drifting she’d had enough, she was ready to take control of her destiny and she did.
She looked around and organized her own placement where she was welcomed.
She was so proud that she’d succeeded to create her first win/win in this unfriendly environment. She’d found a department that was prepared to invest in her.
When she told me this news, I too shared her pride and she thought that her Program Manager would too.

Wrong! He wasn’t pleased at all. He told her that she was not to do things behind his back and referred once more to the fact she should be grateful to have a job and to stop being so demanding.
Huh? What?
He’d let her drift for months, not allowing her to contribute anything and now this reaction?
My daughter’s take on it was that she’d demanded nothing. All she had done was find work to make herself useful.

When she told me the whole story I heard her doubts creeping in though. Her manager’s reaction had taken her totally by surprise. She now questioned herself. Did she do something wrong?
She asked me what this continuous reminder to be grateful was all about.
Grateful for what?
And why?
She was very willing to put the required effort in, if they would only let her.
Through our talks she began to see that taking initiative and creating possibilities was NOT what they appreciated, especially from their new graduates, no matter how bright they were.
Even when it was a win/win for both, it was not necessarily seen that way if it didn’t fit a manager’s agenda, whatever his agenda might be.

As said I realized I had some work to do here and I noticed that I had the confidence to do it.
The main thing was to have her realize that she had done nothing wrong; she had only asserted her basic human right to look after her own interest as well as theirs, even if this corporate manager didn’t agree. And it was becoming very clear that he didn’t.
We’d assure each other over an over again that this was her future and that she did not have to accept a boring program that would jeopardize her chances to grow and learn, she still had a choice.

This reassurance became vital as the Program Manager became quite aggressive when feeling progressively out-maneuvered.
Every time she presented a new idea to him on how she could make her program a win/win, instead of congratulating her and embracing her excitement, his behavior became more and more threatening.
In the end he resorted to overtly bullying tactics.
He forbid her to talk to department managers and he made it clear that he still was the one who did her performance review, even if she worked under other managers. Talk about resorting to threats so that she’d fearfully comply!

Had I been a fearful mother, I would have told her to sit tight and remain quietly submissive. I’d have had her end up on the road to nothing.
So it took some doing on my part to ensure that her self esteem remained strong. And I made sure that her eyes were wide open to what was happening.
It took alot of effort to keep reminding her that the world is still her oyster and that she ain’t seen nothin’ yet.
And it took lots of energy to encourage her to NOT settle for less and to keep looking for opportunities, even if she was threatened by hierarchy all around her.

Here’s why?
Did she feel manipulated by being made to feel grateful for a non existent internship program? Sure she did.
Did she feel threatened by their suggestion that they could make getting another job in finance hard if she didn’t play ball?  Of course she did, she felt confused about how much power they actually had to hinder her career.
Did she feel she had no choice and was no longer in charge of her own destiny?
You bet she did!

So was it checkmate; GAME OVER?
Was this the end of my daughter’s career in Finance?

It came close.
The game is still being played.
And we still have our trump card.

The one thing they didn’t consider was us; a mother’s and her daughter’s enquiring minds. Minds that will not be bullied by corporate bashings and fear mongers. Minds that are finding other explanations and ways the world can work.
So my daughter’s eyes are still wide open, she still has a fresh new way of looking at things.
The world is her oyster and together we are not allowing fear to take it from her.
I do believe that we are winning.
She is not outmaneuvered yet.
She and I are all for playing the game called ‘Winning at Business without Losing Yourself’ as Alan Webber describes in his book Rules of Thumb.
She and I are all for ‘Winning at Life without Losing Yourself’ and we are working hard on that too.
Can I hear you cheering us on??????