By Rawlins Gilliland, KERA 90.1 commentator
Dallas, TX –
The pandemic phenomenon of Corporate Amnesia once infected predominantly high-ranking professionals. Today, this virulent strain can incapacitate anyone - in worker bee cubicles or coveted corner offices. Everyone's vulnerable in the current career climate of out-of-sight, out-of-mind, out-sourced sensibilities. But those most susceptible to this disease are veterans of the Middle Aged Minefields, where one can become, overnight, branded no longer young enough, paid too highly, stale.
Early incubating conditions favorable to Corporate Amnesia include developed business relationships based on shared trust, reciprocal respect and ripened reputations. Ultimately, favors performed become favors earned, at which point, despite intervening healthy years, the onset can be sudden: a job is eliminated or some other sabotage ensues. Victims see ranks close around them, and upon finally leaving, realize, "They're no longer with the company" means "You're no longer with the program." In the final stages, all sense of prior connective tissue erodes. In other words, the memory of what one has done, and for whom, evaporates no less than with the aged parent who cannot recall which children are her own.
Corporate Amnesia helps explain how a company like United Airlines likens their former employee pensions to burdensome alimony for a dissolved marriage they no longer recognize. Being duped or dumped by a company culture, or disavowed by a President CEO for whom one worked tirelessly on his or her path to the top, is reminiscent of the proverbial spouse who helped put Dr. Tooth Magician through dental school, suddenly finding themselves replaced by the dental assistant. One learns the relationships were not about you, but about the company; as when one divorces, losing contact with your ex's relatives once the nuptials are nullified. The DNA chain snaps. Work histories morph into genetic orphans.
An otherwise na ve friend sneered at the "It's nothing personal" disclaimers heard from yesterday's institutional allies and former marketplace mentors. "No, Rawlins," she said, "I never worked outside the home. And yes, I understand that business is business and friendship is separate. But," she added, "friendship should ultimately account for something." Not so, once Corporate Amnesia attacks. When the illness takes over, the mean can justify your end. Corporate Amnesia castaways know that here, stem cell research holds no promise. Any hope for this illness will require ethics, character and loyalty. And there is hope. After hearing me refer in a recent commentary to a former high ranking employee living on the streets 25 years ago, Electronic Data Systems mobilized a search to find this man, to help him.
So, not all work-world disenfranchised are hostage to this non-remembrance of things past. But many are, and their contribution in real terms - late nights, long weeks, years of sacrifice for, and dedication to, mutual goals within a parent company - is the closest thing to "family" many people know. Those links, like those years, once gone, are not only irretrievable; there is insufficient time and energy to rebuild. Seeing members of one's former "family" slip into a quasi-Alzheimer's coma, sailing away into the long good-bye of Corporate Amnesia, cannot be seen merely in personal terms, but rather, as escalating evidence of an endemic American tragedy.
Rawlins Gilliland is a writer from Dallas. If you have opinions or rebuttals about this commentary, call (214) 740-9338 or email us.