Have You Become a Corporate Drone?

Have you become a corporate drone? Peruse this list to find out.

Corporate drone: A mindless robot for the corporation. Someone who has “sold out”. Goes along with all management initiatives and enjoys repeating corporate “jokes” like “is it Friday yet”, and “didn’t you get the memo about the red shirt”. (Urban dictionary)

You may be a corporate drone if …

• At your last family reunion, you wanted to have an emergency meeting about their brand equity.
• You account for your tuition as a capital expenditure instead of an expense.
• You ask the car salesman if the car comes with a whiteboard and Internet connection.
• You ask the waiter what the restaurant’s core competencies are.
• You believe the best tables and graphs take an hour to comprehend.
• You believe you never have any problems in your life, just “issues” and “improvement opportunities.”
• You calculate your own personal cost of capital.
• You can explain to somebody the difference between “re-engineering”, “down-sizing”, “right-sizing”, and “firingpeople’s asses.”
• You actually believe this explanation
• You talk to the waiter about process flow when dinner arrives late
• You can spell “paradigm.”
• You actually know what a paradigm is.
• You can use the term “value-added” without falling down laughing.
• You celebrate your wedding anniversary by conducting a performance review.
• You decide to re-org your family into a “team-based organization.”
• You end every argument by saying “let’s talk about this off-line”.
• You explain to your bank manager that you prefer to think of yourself as “highly leveraged” as opposed to “in debt.”
• You give constructive feedback to your cat.
• You insist that you do some more market research before you and your spouse produce another child.
• You like both types of sandwiches: ham and turkey.
• You refer to dating as test marketing.
• You refer to your previous life as “my sunk costs.”
• You refer to your significant other as “my co-CEO.”
• You start to feel sorry for Dilbert’s boss.
• You talk to the waiter about process flow when dinner arrives late.
• You think that it’s actually efficient to write a ten page presentation with six other people you don’t know.
• You understand your airline’s fare structure.
• You open Powerpoint to note your secretary’s private phone number
• You write executive summaries on your love letters.
• Your “deliverable” for Sunday evening is clean laundry and paid bills.
• Your Valentine’s Day cards have bullet points.
• You’re so tired you now answer the phone, “Hell.”
• Your friends call to ask how you’ve been, and you immediately scream, “Get off my back, b!?@!”
• Your garbage can IS your “in” box.
• You wake up to discover your bed is on fire, but go back to sleep because you just don’t care.
• You have so much on your mind, you’ve forgotten how to pee.
• Visions of the upcoming weekend help you make it through Monday.
• You don’t set your alarm anymore cause you know the pager will go off before the alarm does.
• You leave for a party and instinctively bring your ID badge.
• Your Day Timer exploded a week ago.
• You think about how relaxing it would be if you were in jail.

And finally…. you may be a corporate drone if

• You sit in your cube and think up lists like this!

Thanks to this site for the humor. I dug around for an author to credit, but I couldn’t find one. If it’s you, please let us know. Unless you’re like a VP of something, in which case you should probably keep your mouth shut.

Image Credit: txd, Flickr