Bill, thank you, as well. Life is always more complicated than any model I make or story I tell. And I’ve been told I have a nasty tendency to oversimplify in the interest of telling a good story, which exacerbates the effect.

There was a beautiful article I read in IEEE Spectrum or some such magazine way back when… The author suggested that, in any population of any size, there is a ratio (called phi I think) that defines the number of stupid people in the group. 100 Nobel Prize winners–when put in a group phi of them will be stupid. 100 IT guys–same thing. 100 golfers–same thing. I wish I could find that article. It was formative. Partly because it was wickedly funny and partly because it so accurately described our own prejudicial thought processes regarding the label “stupid”.

In any case, I’d say the IT guy was unimaginative but not oppressive–this was definitely a case of uninformed orders from on high.

However, we somehow addressed the problem and it somehow went away somehow and the demo was saved.

Was the IT guy who locked down the network an “Executive”? Was he acting under bad, dumb, Dilbertesque, top-down, MBA-tainted orders? Or was he just as stupid, and empowered to share that stupidity, just like would be if he were an independent contractor you asked to manage your coworking LAN?

I’m concerned that the implication of the post (and increasingly your tenor) is that corporate worklife makes people stupid and oppressive.

Trust me: those of us who are independents are perfectly able to be stupid and repressive in kind. Many of the worst old-school obstacles in our town are independents and contract predators, playing the golfing realtor set for funding and hogging all the resources and PR mindshare. They’re not employees, either, and they don’t run in corporate packs. They’re just independent powerful idiots, making their mess in the world.

So, please: just take a moment to hesitate. Sometimes life’s a little more complicated than we want to assume.

Bandit - we love you.

Cali Ressler and Jody Thompson
Creators of the Results-Only Work Environment (ROWE)
Authors of the forthcoming book “Why Work Sucks and How to Fix It”

Port-blocking avoidance is, as you say trivial. Beyond trivial. Layer 7 analysis is what the grownups are doing.

Sorry that you have to deal with idiots like that.

Thanks for the comment!

One thing to take comfort in is that much like oppressive systems in history, people will not tolerate it for long.

I’ve had long conversations with fellow employees 20 years my senior (I’m 40) who are nearing retirement (and are glad about it). They tell first hand stories of the slow erosion of the relationship between employer and employee.

My own theory is that after mergers and fierce global competition, corporate leadership has grown further - physically, emotionally, and economically - from their rank and file flock.

It loosely reminds me of the French crown ignoring the powder keg that was brewing right under their noses in the early 1780’s.

Close a port here and there, throw in some over the top network and security monitoring. Put people in a state of mind where they feel like their job is in jeopardy if they take so much as a personal phone call.

All while the executives take home record setting bonuses and jet off to Cancun for a corporate retreat.

Let them eat cake.

When does the uprising against the corporate oppressor begin? Or has it already started with the growth of freelancing coupled with co-work?