by Bob Totterer

Created on: December 17, 2008

It is a consuming passion for professional people (particularly males) in their mid-life years. It drives them to be ruthless, self-serving and suspicious of those around them. No, I'm not talking about running for Congress. This is the less-important, though profoundly more brutal, dog-eat-dog world of corporate mobility.

It begins in your early twenties. It heightens in intensity in your thirties and forties. I'm talking about climbing the ladder to success. And you must climb, mustn't you? It's the rules. If you are one of those odd people that happen to like what they do for a living and struggle to find something to write in the "goals and aspirations" section of their annual review, you become a threat to the entire corporate structure. Can't have a guy like that clogging up the matrix, no sir. So get with the program, buddy.

Having settled that, let's take a hard look at the ladder. You can find plenty of advice and instruction on how to climb it, but nothing that will tell you what to do once you get there. In fact, you are not even told what's up there in the first place. Well, as a public service, here it is: there's nothing at the top of the ladder but a long drop. That sounds pretty cynical, doesn't it? Let's put you on a hypothetical ladder and see what happens.

Entry level: here's where you can punch the clock, joke with your coworkers and go out for a handy six afterwards. You never have more than twenty bucks in your pocket, but you're having a great time.

Then you land that first big job. They give you the Yuppie Starter Kit: email, business cards and a necktie. You're 24 and you're making a LOT more money, so you propose to that chick that looks like a super model. After six years of night school you finish your degree and move into middle management. You also move into a new neighborhood with a mortgage the size of the national debt. It's okay; they're considering you for a staff position - which you get eight years later.

Your forties come and go. Your kids come and go. You sell the big house and buy a condo at a country club, a timeshare and a boat. After a couple of years, the super model runs off with Young Guy and sues you for the condo, the time share, the boat, your 401K and any profit you might realize from selling your body to science. You drink yourself into a clinic, lose your job and all your yuppie "friends".

So here you are, 58 years old, sitting out in front of a stranger's house with a pizza sign on your car. These days you never have more than twenty bucks in your pocket, but you're having a great time and hey - YOU'RE BACK !

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