Why should executives be enthusiastic?
Why should executives be enthusiastic? They don't care about anything but the bottom line. If making enough money to pay investors dividends and finance executive yachts and golden parachutes is all that life in a big corporation is about, why should they be happy? As our politicians, other government officials, and the media tell over and over again every day, "the real world is a dangerous place. Everything you do and everywhere you go and everyone you're related to or otherwise associated with puts your life in danger, so surrender your civil rights and political freedoms to the FBI, CIA, ATF, TSA, and other Homeland Security goons in exchange for a false sense of security as we spy on you day and night." Corporations use the same strategy: doom and gloom and "Your Job Is at Risk" if you screw up because there are thousands of unemployed out there who can do just what you do. Don't become one of them. From what I've been reading over the past twenty-five years or so, only small start-ups and maybe now Google are "fun" places to work.
Enthusiasm comes at the beginning. When everything becomes routinized, it disappears. Look at any revolutionary movement, look at any new wave of evangelical religiosity. Only the first few generations of "believers" are enthusiastic, and then the fire disappears. It's like love and marriage. Why do so many marriages end in abject failure and misery for the couple? It's just another day, it's just another day.
Corporate life is boring. That's why I work for myself and that's why I work alone. It's not just another day. Every day is a new day. I have no investors to pay off, only a family to support. When life is about survival, one has to be enthusiastic or else one dies. Corporate life is not about survival, it's about keeping one's job in order to pay off the mortgage and finance the rest of one's obligatory unsustainable debts. It's not about satisfying your own physical and emotional needs but about guaranteeing them for the corporate masters and their underwriters.
