The Slow and Painful Death of the Company Man

Confucius told us if we choose a job we love, then we will never have to work a day in our lives. While this saying is timeless, the Chinese philosopher lived about 2200 years before the inception of the modern corporate structure.

This was a time when wealth was strictly derived from labor rather than devotion to an incorporated entity. When people worked for someone rather than something. Way before yearly salaries, employee benefits, pensions, bonus incentive plans, and stock-based compensation.

Automation, delegation, reallocation, and even motivation can create significant wealth and worthy livelihoods. A man’s living can be rewarded by the corporation without any physical output; only time and loyalty are required. Rarely is compensation greater for the man with pure productive yield than for the man who has been at the firm the longest. He is the Company Man, and he does not simply work at the corporation; he lives it.

It goes well beyond income. The Company Man owes his entire life to the business. His healthcare, his retirement, all his travel expenses, and most of his social life. He may have a company car, use the company’s gym and cafeteria, wear the company’s brand on his clothes, and even donate to the company’s 501-c-3 subsidiary. Every single category on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is met by the corporation’s resources.

It does not matter what the Company Man does for work because he has done the same thing for decades. His occupation is an extension of his automatic reflexes. It’s like breathing or blinking. He has perfected the art of doing just enough while ensuring that his function is too difficult or costly to transfer to someone else. He is valuable, malleable, and irreplaceable.

Everyone knows this man as he works alongside us. He knows everyone and everything about the company. He complains about new software and sexual harassment trainings. He is suspiciously scared of auditors and consultants. He never seems stressed; he does his job without protest and always appears… happy.

Today Confucius would proclaim that we should choose a company we love, then we may never have to work at all.

This man is dying.

Yes, he is physically dying from too many cigarette breaks and complimentary office Dr. Peppers. He may even croak before he retires as a final tribute to the company, saving them millions in unclaimed pension annuities. But that is not the point.

The Company Man is also dying in a theoretical sense. Corporate loyalty is no longer rewarded like it used to be. Real wages are collapsing. Employee benefits are less attractive. The bonus pool is drying up. The company’s stock is falling, and the office Dr Peppers are no longer free.

The Company Man is now more incentivized to leave than he is to stay.

Inflation erodes everything. Not just the quality of products but also the quality of jobs and general compensation. The man who committed his life to the company now feels his devotion is falling on deaf ears. He may love the corporation, but the corporation has no love for him. It is but a soulless entity in pursuit of expanding profit. The Company Man will seek employment elsewhere or retire with his dignity… and his colossal pension.

Who will replace these titans of industry? Corporate America relies on the collective effort of Company Men more than it does Microsoft Excel. There are numerous manual processes performed by these individuals that are likely unknown to upper management. There is only so much that can be outsourced and automated. There are essential functions in business that must be executed by skilled professionals. Companies have been getting killed by turnover in departments that rely on a single individual doing the work of three people. It is not unusual to see businesses beg for these retirees to come back on retainer to train their shoddy replacement(s).

Therein lies the problem. The next generation of employees will never replace the Company Man because they are not compensated the same as their predecessors. Entry-level salaries are plunging relative to the cost of living. The Company Man was rewarded with a living and the satisfaction of all his needs, from biological (food and shelter) to self-actualization (personal growth and fulfillment). The incoming college graduate will barely get enough to survive.

Devotion to a faceless corporate brand must be warranted. The omnipotent corporation used to take care of its people, and thus it received justified piety. Younger generations do not want to live for their employer anymore, especially if they feel underappreciated. The desire for work/life balance is rooted in exploited labor. Productive capacities have risen without a comparable rise in wages.

Both parties are plagued with a sense of irrational entitlement. The employer feels entitled to undying loyalty without proper compensation, while the employee feels deserving of a greater lifestyle without putting forth the necessary work. They are conditioned to blame one another while the true culprit, currency debasement, continues unabated.

The culmination of this development is a loss of confidence in the corporate career. An individual's time becomes more valuable as the value of their labor is eroded by inflation. If careers in corporate America no longer yield a comfortable salary, then people will naturally choose to devote their time to other ventures. The postmodern economy is trending towards more contract labor, remote work, and departmental outsourcing. Artificial intelligence will accelerate this exodus from the common 9-5 office job. Corporations will simply employ fewer people.

AI is the final equalizer of capitalism. If every business has cheap access to the same intelligence software, it becomes difficult to distinguish proficiencies in operations. If all corporations have the same baseline efficiency in IT, accounting, distribution, litigation, and customer service, why bother hiring prominent talent in full-time positions?

The only value that people will bring to profit-seeking entities will be characteristics unique to humans like leadership, ingenuity, and true artisanship.

The Company Man is becoming a relic of the past as the economy evolves. We can no longer expect the corporation to satiate our every desire and set us up for retirement devoid of any work. The corporatized economy worked great until our collective consumption outpaced our productive output and exacerbated the effects of inflation. The salaried career mentality turned us into excellent consumers instead of creators.

The financial advantages produced by corporate subservience are way past their peak. It’s hard enough to acquire a decent job in the first place, but it’s now becoming less advantageous to stick around at the same company.

Loyalty is not rewarded, job security is scarce, and even the most specialized careers are at risk of technological supplantation. It is long overdue that we adjust our perception of stable occupations. We need to encourage skill sets that go beyond typical corporate departments. Universities should be fostering innovation and instructing the next generation to drive intrinsic value rather than shareholder value.

Jobs and their compensation are changing, so we need to adapt. Entrepreneurship and varied methods of acquiring income will be crucial in the new economy. The way we perceive work needs to progress from a means of earning a living to a holistic way of life. We do not have to be defined by “what we do.” We can learn to enjoy work for the sake of work. The timeless saying espoused by Confucius will become relevant again as we learn to love our labor.

The Company Man may die a slow, painful death, but his passion for work lives on as we shift our labor back to ourselves and the people we love.