Welcome to Another Day in the Life of Corporate Madness!

Starring Ford Motor Company in their latest 80s throwback reboot:
‘Frankie Goes to Dearborn – Two Tribes Go to War (Over a Cubicle, sorry stool)!’
🎶 ‘When two tribes go to war... it’s a badge swipe that they’re looking for!’

That’s right folks! Never mind the sales figures flatter than a pancake in a steamroller. Forget about quality numbers that would make even a Yugo blush. And product? What product? Oh, you mean the one that still doesn't work but looks great in a PowerPoint? Bravo! 👏

No no no what really matters now is whether you're passing the Badge Swipe Performance Review™️. That’s right, HR Karen and Executive Ken the Barbie-free edition are checking if your derrière made contact with a corporate chair on X number of days per week. Productivity? Innovation? Team morale? Irrelevant! It’s 1984 meets 2025, baby!

Because if you thought performance was about performance, surprise! It's about being seen in the building like it's Studio 54, but with less co----e and more passive-aggressive Slack messages.

You see, sycophantic LLs (that’s low-level leaders for those playing the home game) are now the badge police! Forget coaching, mentorship, or strategy they’re lurking by the turnstile like bouncers at a sad dance club, saying:
‘No swipey, no promo, baby!’ 🕺

Meanwhile, Karen from HR is sending out one more “RTO Reminder” with the tone of a Soviet-era memo: “Compliance is not optional. Resistance is futile. Forward Together.” (Only not too forward or you’ll get flagged for “poor workplace behavior.”)

So here’s a little message from the people in the trenches:
🗣️ “We’re not lazy we’re just tired of pretending badge swipes are KPIs!”
We’d love to make quality cars, meaningful improvements, and hey, maybe even enjoy our jobs again, but you’ve turned it into a Cold War of Cubicle Compliance.

So to Ken, Karen, and the Kool-Aid-chugging middle managers:

🖕 Relax.
Focus less on b-ms in seats and more on brains in gear.
Or keep driving this thing straight into the wall. Your choice.
But don’t act surprised when the people who actually care start walking.
Not to the office out the door.

Oops sorry!
That’s always been the plan, right? Attrition by design, force out the workers to cover for the epic failures of the Executives, McKinsey slide decks, and all those strategy/transformation/reboot/get-fit/disruption/buzzword salad consultants from Bellshill who still get paid obscene money for delivering sweet FA.

Welcome to Corporate Theatre, where the actors get fired and the playwrights get bonuses! 🎭

Comment! It's anonymous!

12 replies (most recent on top)

@19v

We've never recovered from highlighter-girls realizing they could get straight A's by religiously submitting daily, brain-rot slop work.

Every workplace issue: nanny HR, policies on policies, corporate "culture," endless nonsense meetings: all downstream of highlighter-girls.

HR Karen lol https://wordinblack.com/2024/04/do-you-know-how-to-deal-with-a-workplace-karen/

The company needs to be dissolved, to be honest. Then everybody gets zero RTOs.

true brilliance and accurate, too! 3 cheers!

The props are brilliant, the spotlight’s yours, and the metaphors? Chef’s kiss. But if we’re still workshopping Act I in the middle of Act IV, maybe it’s time to stop juggling flaming symbols and just say what’s on your mind. The wolves in HR have already taken their bows, the badge swipe bouncers are guarding the stage, and the Kool-Aid’s going flat. You’ve got the whole crowd’s attention—but are you after closure, clarity, or just a standing ovation? It doesn’t seem like you’re ready to close the curtain and take a bow.

very very cool. or not cool but your writing is cool.

It su-ks everywhere. Transaction in, get paid. I’d care more if the corporate world cared more, but it’s every dog for themselves right now. Pass on the rah-rahs otherwise.

Rest, vest and leave this mess. Even if the stock is dropping. The 2025 recall extravaganza will mean big cuts are in the works. Layoffs are coming and those that survive, be prepared for more corporate bullsh-t as a hopeless means to fix the problem.

Next time another stuffed shirt, overcompensated corporate clown is hired and given some big title role, ask yourself what the fu-k they are doing to fix recalls?

Switching from webex to slack to teams and creating uber confusing rqts in fede is not working. KPIs to measure this bullsh-t will not help.

A+, you perfectly described the dystopian world of Ford Motor Company.

Too funny and way too sad. Corp America is playing the same game everywhere like a bunch of mindless lemmings - well MBAs. Earn a billion today you better turn that into 2 billion tomorrow without providing any value for it. As far as being in your seat at the office, it's like Mardi Gras - show us your chest and we'll provide the worthless flashy beads that you can show all your co-workers. Too bad it'll only produce the same empty feeling that you've been played all for nothing. We've been forced into a dance-off against each other and for what? Again, nothing of substance.

As far as quality, you're correct. A relative recently bought a fully loaded new Explorer. Very flashy and stylish. It's experienced problems from the start. Sure, they keep fixing them but wasting time at the dealership shouldn't be part of the ownership plan. Sitting like a sick puppy in some mechanic's bay being worked on shouldn't be where your Ford Explorer spends its time.

So, seriously, what's the answer(s) to all of this? What's the fix?

Anyway, funny post.

+100 style points for the FGTH and "sweet FA" references

@OP TRUTH IN SARCASM. UNFORTUNATELY, well said. The whole point of working at Ford and regretfully other companies managed like they are, is to learn WHAT "NOT" TO DO!

Thread regarding Ford layoffs

Welcome to Another Day in the Life of Corporate Madness!

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