Jan 15, 2009

Moving...again


I joined JCPenney in the summer of 2005. I'd spent the previous 10 years working for various apparel related companies in and around New York city.

The companies I'd worked for prior to JCP were all much smaller family owned operations. I'd always preferred the smaller companies for reasons including accessibility of senior management and owners, the fact that people were more than just assets and the fact that it was much easier to impact your assigned area.

Somehow I found myself in 2005 craving the "stability" of a much larger established company.

Tomorrow I'll be moving my office for the 6th time in my 3.5 years at JCP. Six times I've had to pack up my papers, nicknacks and photos in a corporately approved moving box and hope that the contracted moving company will successfully have found my new location the next day.

Six times people in offices I've never visited have looked at a revised seating plan and somehow reached the conclusion that me sitting anywhere from 30 feet away to in a completely different part of the building, would be good for business. Six times myself and my colleagues have been reduced to dots on paper and shuffled around in a sort of weird game that will ultimately lead to selling more socks.

It is and always has been my major issue with corporate America. People aren't people, they're assets, they're tools, they're dots on paper.

Something to be said for working for those smaller guys.

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