reflections

It seems so long ago, but there was once a time when I was a true corporate worker: suited, booted, and driven by the businesses that I worked for. I rode the dotcom boom like a cowboy on a stallion!

I’ve never really understood the need for office politics though, and I remember spending a great deal of time biting my lip during executive board meetings, out of fear for saying something that would end up coming back to haunt me, and because it helped my career aspirations at the time to do so.

I certainly wasn’t prone to saying stupid things though, and I’d never have dreamt of stating facts that weren’t true - unlike some of my peers at the time. What I had was a tendency to ignore established office hierarchies, and a desire to tell people exactly what I thought of them.

Fortunately though, my anti-establishment comments ended up not mattering at all, like many of life’s little problems seem to do. The companies in question ended up being bought up for vast amounts of money, or (more often) they went gurgling down the drain - and I moved to much greener pastures.

I’ve learnt a lot since those days, and the connection between my mouth and my brain is now much more reliable. I don’t think that there’s much point in censoring myself though. As a Freelancer, there’s far fewer people to offend!

So which is worse: saying what you mean to somebody at the risk of offending them, or shutting-up for the sake of keeping the peace? I think that less damage is done by speaking your mind, than by clamping your jaw shut all day long. What about you?

Thanks to the following people for their valued comments on my recent posts: Damien King, Tara @ GDB, Paul B, Aaron, Vivienne Quek, Calvin Warr, Marc Rapp, Charity, Brad, LaurenMarie, Small Potato, Matt Foster, Asgeir, Lene, Scot Smith and Sunny @ HSO.

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