Corporate Blasphemy

I broke down this morning. I cried in the toilet. So what? I came to a point where I seriously can't take my job anymore. I thought staying there for a year or two would get me used to the fact that I'll be working for people, play by their own rules, eat and drink when they think I'm allowed to, sit with people I never chose and have to hear all about their stories, become sociable to be able to mingle and avoid social neglection, etc.. Fact is that it's been three years now, and it's getting worse.

I thank god for the fact that I work in a good company, and the people I work with are some of the best people I met in this country. The conditions I work in are some of the most prosperous ever, I'm given the freedom to come a little bit late in the morning and take enough time to enjoy my lunch, instead of having to be punctual in time. Better yet, my company actually has clubs, I recently was the one who launched the photography club, which was added to the existing sports club, alongside with the current activities such as the bake sale, recycling projects, internal newspaper, etc.. But in the end, this is as far as a company can do, reality is much broader than just this.

Nothing happens by accident.

I was reached out just today, among the misery I was feeling, by one of the kindest friends I ever had, and to my surprise we haven't even grown up together, better yet he's much younger than me. He instantly felt it was something with my job. Once I told him and let it out, the littlest feeling of regret hit me. I suddenly remembered where how worked, and the conditions he's forced to live and work by over there.

"I desperately want a solution
Friends tell me to be grateful that I have a job at a time like this
as if I'm at fault for feeling the way I do. It's just not worth it. they suck my soul for 9 hours, for what ? 550$.
I'm better off working in a dekken or driving a service car and earn the same
I don't want to see fluorescent light. Manipulative bosses. Tons of papers. Tons of people shouting their lungs at me."

He broke my heart, left me speechless. I didn't know what to say, it's right when they say "once you see other people's problems, yours seem to fade away". He was totally right, if it weren't for the type of life he's living, he would've easily lived off something he loved, something that would make his life richer by the day. On the contrary, he finds himself forced to fake sickness only to avoid going to work and being bullied both physically and emotionally. How sick is that?

People are ready to do whatever it takes to make more money, waste a numerous amount of weekends away from their families, hang up on their loved ones, lie and cheat, make up instantaneous fake rules that would straighten their mistakes, all in the sake of cashing in more money that would be eventually spent on earthly material desires, instead of the benefit of all and the good will that goes with it.

I spent too much time in corporate systems to know that this is not my place. I wonder most of the times what would be the reason behind this obviously uncontrollable urge to leave, the itch to find my place, the constant discomfort I live with each and every single day. I try to teach myself some discipline and rules to abide by until the day I leave this whole thing and find myself doing the things that make me genuinely happy. The treehouse design is already there, I'm simply waiting for that tiny piece of land I'd be having anywhere around the world, where building a treehouse is the most feasible.

During last year's TEDxBeirut's main event at UNESCO center, a new saying was unconsciously engraved in my heart, said by the renowned Dr. Charles El Achi, director of the NASA propulsion laboratory, a man who worked a lot in his lifetime, when said the following: "Do what you love, and you'll never be working". I adore that, and I think everyone needs to be given the chance to choose whatever they would love to be doing and spending their time and energy on.

one of the things you learn in companies, loving Saturday and Sunday all while hating Mondays (?!)

I have nothing but total resentment to the rules imposed by the standardized corporate systems onto their employees. I still remember that time in my first job where I was told that Thursday was the casual day (Thursday is weekend in KSA). Couldn't wait till my first Thursday there to wear my shorts for work. Everybody were bedazzled thinking I was lunatic, I really didn't understand them: When did shorts stop being casual no more? Or that time I was given the meeting room because the desk I was using needed to be emptied for its original occupant is back from his vacation (yes, I was a temporary tenant). I actually refused to go up to my "office" and stayed in the lobby, that was until I got my own desk, well after apparently forcing the whole department to move to the new building.

I simply hate being employed, it's never gonna work. My job's taking away everything I ever loved to do. Gaming, reading, writing, photography, bike riding, well basically everything. I demand freedom, can't wait till the day I have my own treehouse and live by photography and travel where I decided what weekend is and what work days are, where I get to pick my employer and how wealthy I want to live at. Isn't it too weird how hard for me it is to find another job in engineering whether in Lebanon or abroad, all while at the same time I'm experiencing a rush period in photography, and i'm being praised basically everywhere I shoot?