the man in the gray flannel cubicle

a. and i recently finished "the man in the gray flannel suit," a post-world war II novel about the rapid ascent in american society of what another author called "the organization man" -- the tendency for otherwise sane men to sacrifice individuality to the needs of the modern american corporation.

tom rath finds himself in a job he mildly detests, coming home to a house he's with which he is dissatisfied, and a wife who years to move up in the world. their neighborhood, she notes, is the kind that some people aspire to, and that others see as a necessary stop on the way to better places. they live with and around couples who hold martini-soaked parties to celebrate raises -- and it's always the men who get raises, because the women stay home and raise children -- and no doubt cover up all sorts of misery and heartache with the accoutrements of modern materalistic life.

tom decides to take a job at a large corporation and realizes he's not happy being one of the lifeless clones, the men who all wear the same gray flannel suit (de rigeur uniform that it is) when he finds himself flashing back to his days in italy and the pacific in the war.

the book turns out to be far more of a sentimental slog through one man's encounter with the ultimate ironic happy ending; in the end, everything (and i do mean everything) works out for him, without him having to do much to make it happen.

the title seems to speak to something that the book doesn't really address: the mind-crushing uniformity of the modern corporation. what kind of person, one wonders, can handle -- even thrive in -- such an environment?

**

turns out one of my team members ... we'll call him k. (and if you know who i'm talking about, k. makes a lot of sense) ... is leaving SuitWorld™ in a few weeks.

i won't get into the many reasons he's stated for leaving, because i'm not him, i'm liable to put words in his mouth and anyway, it's not much that i haven't said in this space before. suffice it to say that the rigidity, acute planning by management of our time and the overall direction of our team just doesn't fit his personality.

k. and i were chatting not long after i found out. i said that (paraphrasing) of all the people on our team, i thought i would be the one to say "take this job and shove it" for the reasons described above. but it was k. who did it first, and did it rather quietly (i might add).

it told me more about myself than about k., because ... well ... maybe i can put up with the BS described above. and that's not how i've pictured myself. maybe i like bitching and moaning about it, but won't do anything to fix the problem, because it's easier and more fun to whine than to work for change. maybe, all things considered, i'm more of the man in the gray flannel cubicle than i first thought.