Comments on: FactoryJoe: “I Represent Me”

By: Daro

Daro — Sun, 08 Jan 2006 04:23:02 +0000

Here in Japan people still often (although the trend is dying out) introdice themselves as (e.g.) “Mitsubishi’s Mr. Tanaka”. The intro overtly implies that that person takes his job seriously enough to summate his own identity. “I’m a Mitsubishi guy”, basically. It’s not as bad as you might think! It means products you buy are top quality, you go home each day with a sense of inner-satisfaction and high self-worth, you get paid about 2x what British residents get, and best of all – minimal bulsh1t office politics – leaving you to focus on the task you were hired for. Britain and especially the USA’s mantra of “No-one can know me; I’m a unique individual who cannot be defined in any way whatsoever”, is nice and idealistic an’ all, but it means dealing with personalities and workplace egos before you can get started on any damn thing…

By: Euan

Euan — Sun, 01 Jan 2006 14:57:52 +0000

I completely agree and in fact recently posted that offices, and by extension organisations, are increasingly bcomeing as much a liability as a benefit.

By: Ton Zijlstra

Ton Zijlstra — Sun, 01 Jan 2006 11:32:27 +0000

Hi Ben,
I think what Chris expresses marks the transition from a hierarchical view of an organisation to a networked view. In a network you not only represent me, if we work together, but I also represent you. Chris counterbalances the known view of employees representing the company they work for with the view of the company also being the sum of the individual indentities of its people. I’d say: we represent eachother. Blogged it at the link provided.