: Reading Ursula K Le Guin and getting scammed
Midway through The Dispossessed, it occured to me that the Fortune 500 corporation is a social technology not unlike a utopian cult. A hierarchy of charismatic figureheads demands unconditional obediance from those beneath them, all under the flimsy premises of “growth” and “fairness” and “alignment.” Enforcers up and down the chain punish anyone who dares to point out the hypocrisy or shifts in direction. And yet it is painfully obvious to anyone on the outside that the real purpose of the system is to protect the fragile egos and obscure pet interests of those at the top.
You can choose to buy in, and maybe make some marginal gains, maybe even win … but doing so requires doing terrible indignities to your own mind, becoming a true believer despite your instincts to the contrary.
I uh, got a new job. I also got scammed. the new job comes with a pretty decent pay increase, but nothing compared to the job I almost got, at a very cool startup whose vision, technical approach, and team impressed me greatly. I did four rounds of interviews with them, the last of which felt more like an internal meeting than an interview. We were just talking shop, outlining the next phases of the project, solving a technical problem. The CTO took careful notes, said she would have next steps in my inbox soon.
Then the recruiter video called me the next day and said my position wasn’t planned after all. She made that oopsie face, the one that looks like an exaggerated pronunciation of the letter E, that you make when asking your BFF for forgiveness after eating their last piece of chocolate.
My position was never planned for. The company took advantage of me—got about a day’s worth of free consulting and technical answers to unblock them from their problem, then ghosted. A tough lesson learned the hard way.
Anyway, the new job should be a good change, but based on the humiliating experience above and other bullshit happening at my current job, I am going in with tightly limited enthusiasm. I’m not gonna be a true believer this time around or let it consume me. My goal with this job is to get paid, use all my vacation days, and work on every other aspect of my life.