The truth is, business is competition. We need to own that. I’ve worked at a lot of places where paranoia is rampant, an unlocked desk drawer is an invitation to sabotage and the definition of a friend is someone who will stab you in the front. Moving our job-related striving and all of its attendant dramas to the scrutiny of a world stage can only keep us more honest. Of course, my wife thinks all of this competition and need for approbation is just a flimsy-stand in for not facing up to a need for love and a deep-rooted denial of separation anxiety. There’s some truth to that. My own mother told me I was a difficult birth because I just didn’t want to come out of the womb. And why would I? After all, I had my own swimming pool and food whenever I wanted. Plus free cable.
Yet, no matter what Freud or my darling spouse might say, it could be that the need for glory is genetically coded into our business DNA. From the first grade, when we got the blue ribbon for making the best ashtray, to my own much-prized Recruiter of the Year Trophy, a five-inch bronze statue of a well-dressed businessman with the dour expression of a Willy Loman in the third act of Death of a Salesman. The truth is we work hard, and we crave recognition for it. What’s wrong with that? Nothing! In my ideal world, we would all get the chance to compete among roaring onlookers, people chanting our names as our co-workers, doing the wave, urge us toward our goal of improving overall performance by the end of the fiscal year. Sure we’d drink it all in and smile in appreciation, but inside all we’d really be thinking about are the flood of lucrative endorsement deals that will soon be coming our way. Speaking of which, may I recommend Staples for all of your office supply needs?
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