I often hear about the complications of corporate drama.  It’s a complex network made up of chaos theory and…feelings.  These feelings and mixed up paradigms can make the work place a mess, then if you sprinkle that with some entitlement, it can bring an entire department down.

First let me address the topic of corporate entitlement.  Entitlement is a cancer that destroys productivity not just for the short term, but forever, if not remedied.  Ever seen those six county workers watching the ONE guy with a shovel?  I’m not a huge reality TV guy, but I was “fortunate” enough to catch one episode of the “The Apprentice” recently.  “Celebrity” Apprentice actually.  The one were Star Jones tells Meatloaf, “You have to come with my credentials, to get me to debate with you.”  Then she follows with, “I don’t owe you an argument, and I decline to give you one.”

My take on this is that Star Jones feels, for whatever reason, that she is better than Meatloaf.  Whether it is her educational background, or her quasi-celebrity status, I think she feels that her past accomplishments gives her entitlement to future respect.  Don’t get me wrong, she does deserve respect.  And Meatloaf is certainly giving it to her.  But her idea of respect in this moment is: don’t disagree with me, because my background is more relevant to this situation than yours.  Giving you respect does not mean that I have no valid argument.

Although this is just reality TV, a parallel form of entitlement exists within the corporate environment.

For example, time spent on the job often is interpreted as implied privilege.  Like in the county worker example, and I won’t say all, but some of these workers think that 10, 20, and 30 years gives them an exaggerated level of dueness, or tenure that gives them the right of dismissal protection.  Aside from the governmental positions, professionals within the corporate structure often have this same mindset.

If you stop working, if you stop learning, you die.  And if you’re “dead,” there will come a time when you are no longer needed.  Not at your job, not in your life.  The Greeks never wrote obituaries, they only asked one question when a man died, “Did he have passion?”  Passion should still exist despite your experience, your education, or your finances.

End the entitlement, and get to work.