Under the thumb

For a country founded on independence, America's slouching toward subservience.

I had a little reminder last week of exactly why I was such a terrible management consultant. For those new in town: I joined McKinsey’s New York City office in 2007 in an ill-fated career switch, having figured it was simultaneously way cheaper and potentially way more lucrative than going back to school to become, say, an architect or industrial designer. Ah, the paths not taken.

Anyway, I was a pretty uniquely bad consultant, and lasted a couple of years before fleeing back to the warm embrace of writing and editing. The problem wasn’t that I wasn’t smart enough or that I didn’t understand the job (I think). It was that I was a 34-year-old ex-journalist, and it was absolutely excruciating to sit in nondescript meeting rooms in suburban New Jersey with bright-eyed and irrationally peppy 22-year-old business analysts working on Excel spreadsheets until midnight.

There was also another problem: the so-called “reward” of fleeting recognition was nowhere near enough to endure late nights with takeout food and tales of Harvard derring-do to keep me warm. Colleagues would get unreasonably excited about the prospect of, say, a meeting with anyone with the word “chief” in their title. Chief Marketing Officer? A small squeal. Chief Financial Officer? Time to buy a new outfit. Chief Executive Officer? Smelling salts, stat.

Having been a journalist and foreign correspondent for a dozen years and met, interviewed, and rolled my eyes at CEOs, prime ministers, prime movers, and prima donnas, it all seemed … a little pathetic, if I’m honest. And I was reminded of it last week when I was told something I was writing for a client was apparently going to be read by the global CEO. I was supposed to be simultaneously excited, flattered, and maybe intimidated. Instead, while it was nice to know it would actually be read, the general reaction was … meh.

There’s a few big things at work here. Yes, I’m a cynical, slightly jaded ex-journalist—is there any other kind? But journalists do live pretty interesting lives and get to meet a lot of powerful people. That not only numbs you to the thrill, but the fact you’re largely hoping to stick it to these same powerful people also makes you way less impressed by them. In fact, exposure makes you realize they’re generally just as insecure, needy, and weird as the rest of us, if not more so (ahem … Elon Musk).

Second, the Australian tall poppy syndrome is very real, and it fosters a general belief that no one—no one—is better than anyone else. Some have more money, sure. Others have higher profile jobs. But we all enter and exit the world the same way, our shit all stinks, and since everyone has a role in making the world tick, who cares if you’re a CEO or a cashier? What matters is whether you’re a nice, decent, kind, humane person. In my experience, for what it’s worth, I’ll back the cashier on that front.

The final thing is, conversely and perversely, very American. This is a country, you may recall, that fought a Revolutionary War to ditch British rule and, by extension, the British monarchy. And what has it done with this freedom? Created a head of state infinitely more powerful than the kings and queens it loathed, become increasingly obsessed with the same British monarchy it fought so hard to be rid of, and become a society that seems more and more subservient.

Exhibit A is the utterly bizarre deference Americans show people in authority. Can anyone mount anything resembling a serious defense of calling ex-presidents “Mr. President”? These are—as I say until I’m blue in the face—our employees. They work for the American people. They are elected to the job of being president and, once they’re done, they’re done. So, it’s Bill. George. Barack. Don/Donald/Doofus/Douchebag. Even more weirdly, Americans persist in doing this for pretty much everyone. Former governors are “governor” in perpetuity. Football coaches who have been in the commentary box for decades are “coach.” It makes no sense.*

Exhibit B is the British monarchy and its odd hold on the American people. In Australia, you get used to the bizarre fixation with the royal family but, in our defense, the monarch is still our head of state (don’t get me started). Americans died to get rid of King George III. And yet today, it’s wall-to-wall coverage when Meghan Markle goes grocery shopping, let alone when it’s revealed King Charles has cancer. This country’s obsession with the British royal family is beyond weird but, then again, it’s also spent more than 200 years trying to create its own monarchy through the veneration of the office of the presidency (and, more lately, Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce). I guess you can take the king out of the republic, but you can’t take the republic out of the desire to be ruled over.

Which gets to the final point, and why last week reminded me of the old days. We all work for someone, whether it’s a boss, a client that pays the bills, consumers who buy your product, or an electorate that decides whether you get or keep your job. That’s how the system works, and it’s a fair trade if you get to work with nice people and do interesting stuff that’s stimulating and appreciated. But I know so many people for whom it’s just not a fair trade—they’re utterly miserable, and have just reached a point of servile acceptance.

It’s hard not to think this is something of a default state: democracy is a historically new concept, after all, and maybe it’s just easier to be ruled over? Take a look at polling for Trump, who’s made no secret of his authoritarian ambitions. In this land that expended blood and tears for its independence and the right to determine its own destiny, it’s only taken a couple of hundreds years to slouch back toward a monarchy under another name. We can only hope that name isn’t King Douchebag.

* And don’t try the “respect” argument. You can respect someone without referring to them by the name of a job they held 30 years ago. For what it’s worth, I have the same eye-rolling annoyance with people who insist on using “Dr.” or some other prefix out of context, as though that has any relevance to a restaurant or hotel reservation.

Note: The photo illustration accompanying this post is from The Globe and Mail; source image from Reuters/iStock.

A note about whatever this is …

After writing a few thousand articles for newspapers and magazines, I spent a long time trying a bunch of other stuff. I guess I figured what came (relatively) easily must by definition be less valuable, so I wandered in the corporate wilderness, becoming increasingly frustrated and doing work that felt increasingly lousy.

Sometimes with age comes wisdom, and I’ve realized finding something (relatively) easy ain’t a bad thing. So, this is a space where I’m resurrecting writing for myself, on topics weird and wild and wonderful.

Posts will appear when the mood takes me, but I do try to be consistently inconsistent—sometimes it’ll be a couple of days between drinks; sometimes a week. But if you subscribe, you’ll get a email letting you know I’m ranting. Again.