The Corporate Life

Last week I learned that the company I have worked for since March (Company A) will be purchased in the coming months by gigantic Company B. Today, in addition to providing us with some really nice bagels and fruit for breakfast, Company B bussed us to the swanky Bellevue Westin for a little rah-rah and some free lunch. And a benefits discussion. The light fixtures in the Westin’s grand ballroom are at once amusing and extremely distracting- they are basically large circles of glass globs suspended on wires, like luminous water balloons dangling from the ceiling. For the first part of the day, we sat at long tables draped with black cloths, with notepads, pens, and water at each seat, and every so often a cosmo glass full of tiny, delicious foil-wrapped fruit candies. Which I totally meant to pour some of into my purse before we left, and forgot. Damn!

Of course, we opened with a video, showing headline after headline (after headline) of the acquisition, backed by rousing rock-n-roll. Newspapers and websites all around the world are covering this acquisition! And Company B has a really on-the-ball public information department! Then the video switched to scenes that I assumed were meant to represent the many industries that use our products, which included astronauts, oil wells, and people scurrying around the sidewalk, maybe in the financial district? Then, more astronauts.

When the CEO of Company A addressed us on the phone, his slides flashing on the big screen offered a perfect opportunity to play “a picture is worth a thousand words,” wherein you attempt to identify the real message of the slide by studying the seemingly random photo that always seems to go along with the bullets. “What drove the decision?” asks the slide. And the picture answers, “A view of the blue sky from within a small grove of tall trees.” “We wanted to be a billion dollar business,” says the slide. “I wanted to be a shiny, mirrored-glass skyscraper, seen from below at a sharp angle,” says the picture. “What does this mean for the company?” asks the slide. “Why, it means a beautiful suspension bridge, dramatically lit, in the rosy dusk,” says the picture. Or dawn. Whichever. “What does this mean for you?” asks the slide. “It’s a two-lane highway, stretching toward the horizon,” says the picture. The “Opportunities at Company B” slide declares, in the photo, that I could join the cast of yet another L&O spin off. And “Our Rewards” are that we get to sit around a glass table and smile for a camera that is directly over our heads. Cheese!

The free lunch was, I must say, delectable. They had some kind of marinated grilled veggie antipasto that could have been improved only if the people ahead of me in the buffet line hadn’t taken all the eggplant slices before I got up there. I am still a little jittery from my flourless chocolate something or other and cup of decaf. I confess a weakness for sitting in giant hotel ballrooms and eating some tasty trifle accompanied by coffee that has been carefully poured into my tiny hotel coffee cup by a uniformed banquet server. Dessert just tastes a little sweeter under these conditions.

After lunch was the benefits discussion, led by an HR manager from Company B, who was in general quite likable except for his unfortunate over-use of the phrase “at this point in time.” I had the guy next to me ask whether Company B covers maternity leave as short term disability (Company A does not). He said Company B gives you 100% pay for six weeks if you have a baby. Sweet! Not that this information is any more relevant to me (at this point in time) than it was to my seat neighbor, though he did get a laugh by asking the question.

Weirdly, none of the seven hundred questions we lobbed at the boogie woogie bugle boy concerned stock options. Back in the day, tech people considered stock options to be part of their entitlement in life. Free coffee! Subsidized soda machines! Stock options and lots of them. Now, there seems to be a don’t ask, don’t tell attitude emerging about stock options. Company A gave me exactly zero options when I started here (but I was loathe to say anything as they came miraculously close to matching my previous salary). What will you do for me, Company B? Make me love you. I’m just saying. Oh, and thanks for the lunch.