Pyramid Scheme

As we can see here- the higher up we go, the fuller of themselves people tend to get.

I have tried countless times to write on this topic. And coincidentally, I have failed an equal number of times. Maybe it is due to the very personally offensive nature of it; but I’ll finish it this time, that I assure you.

I was once in an organization, not by choice mind you, whose sole purpose seemed to me to be the containment of anyone who would be a menace to society.

Many of them, barring a few hidden gems, like the high (oh look, a pun!) they get from their positions and enjoys their self-inflated ego. The evidence lies in the fact that when the higher you climb up the organization chart, the more likely the people there would refuse to listen to you and the less likely they would be in touch with the sentiments on the ground.

I may not know a lot about leadership but “making my men shiver”, as how one of them reminisced his days, is an insult to that word.

Maybe all large organizations are just pyramid schemes of varying degrees of severity. But I doubt there would be one any worse than the one I had been to with those supposed role models.

When I was little, I always respected adults. I thought all of them, except a very few bad apples, were good people. Mature, honest, wise, responsible, upright…the very pillars of society.

Not anymore.

But after all that anger, I started to let go of any ill-feelings I have had of them. You know why?

It was because I started to feel sorry for them.

I felt sorry that they were already more than halfway into their graves and they had only accomplished so little in their lives.

I feel sorry that, at this age, they were reduced to bootlicking, demeaning your juniors or fishing for some sort of superficial respect from them.

But most of all, I felt sorry for them that when their time on Earth is up; they could never look me in the eye and tell me they are proud of what they have done, that they have genuinely made society a better place for the rest of us.

Some lessons you learn willingly, while some other lessons are forced down your throat. But whatever it is, I know what lesson my colleagues and I learnt during our stay there-

It was one of the quieter days as my friend and I sat on the tarmac, watching the planes fly by.

“You know, when you grow up and happen to land a managerial role, would you be a jerk like the rest of them? Because I know I could not bear to bring myself to do such a thing” I asked.

“Never” said my friend.

 

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