Letters from the Equator

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Originally uploaded by iiruseva.

I haven’t been in the workforce all that long - at least not as long as my parents have, and they’re still adamant on not retiring so soon. But I don’t think I need to be working for someone else any longer to realize that there’s no such thing as a corporate ladder.

It’s a myth. The only people who believe in it are people who think bosses know what they’re doing and that what they’re doing is the best thing that has been conceived by man.

Ladders are invented by people who need a sense of comfort and belonging, and a simple way to understand how to communicate - up, down, or sideways.

In recent times, it has been increasingly difficult to navigate the ladder, because it has been beaten out of shape by all sorts of powers, mostly consisting of customers.

This is because customers don’t give two hoots about the ladder. All they want is someone to talk to, so that something can get done, and get done well, preferably.

It is extremely frustrating to customers who need to communicate with companies, only to find that they have to navigate this proverbial ladder, beginning from the customer service representative, all the way up to the CEO.

My point is this - if someone at the “CEO level” is present at the customer service center, and someone at the “customer service level” is present at the CEO office, all contributing at equally dynamic positions for the customer, things can be accomplished a lot better.

I am not debunking the fact that there needs to be lines of functional and organizational authority. All I’m saying is that people too often get comforted by its perceived structure.

And as long as this myth persists, customers will continue to suffer.

Categorized as life/work