Lessons from corporate

Corporate feels like a different universe all together. The rules and regulations of this universe do not apply to the corporate. The corporate acts on its own initiative. It has its own set of rules and regulations that can be modified as per the situations. Corporate can be extremely loving or brutal depending on which end of the spectrum you are on.

Corporate gives us a lot of life lessons. One such lesson that I learnt from corporate is to understand who are the real friends while who are pretending to be friends but really are not your friends.

I entered the corporate world at the age of 21. Having just completed the graduation which was not even a month ago when I already landed with a corporate job. As a sincere and over achieving student I decided that I am going to be a successful professional in the corporate world. At my first organisation I had colleagues who also were of my age and for all of us it was our first job. More than friends, all of us had become siblings. We had been very protective and carrying towards each other. I was fortunate enough to have met people who initially became friends and later became family. Yet this experience was not consistent.

When I changed my company and moved to another organisation it was my expectation that there as well I will meet good people who would become good friends. However there I saw the real colours of people and the reality of people in the corporate world. There people would smile on the face only to bad mouth about me on my back. They would speak to me very sweetly to understand more about the thoughts that I have about a particular person or a particular team. This was not to understand what my thoughts or feelings were. It felt more like a covert operation to gather information about the other person or other team from my perspective.

When I first realised that my words were used against me I became careful. I had learned my lesson to behave in the corporate world. I am not ashamed to admit that I decided to walk on the egg shells throughout my career based on that experience. And of course that decision really paid well.

After that any team or any organisation I worked with I realised that there are no real friends in the corporate. People try to be friends you so that they can take the advantage of you. People stay with you because it is beneficial to stay with you. People do not approach you because of your quality or intelligence but rather it is because of the contacts and influence that you may have.

In corporate I have often seen that people who have contacts with the higher management or those who can influence major decisions have along list of friends, minions, and followers. But these people quickly disappear at soon as the person loses there position, contacts or influence. Everything incorporate is purely calculative. However sometimes we do find gym in such pool of grifters.

My lesson from corporate is that be careful of everyone who approaches you in disguise of a friend because that person can be your potential enemy in the future. Also there are no permanent friends or enemies in the corporate world.