Let's Get Brainwashed.

Not counting my part time jobs in high school and college, I joined the real workforce as a college graduate in 2000. Since there have been a lot of top 10 lists popping up on every topic for the last decade, I thought I'd put together a list for this blog: The Top 10 Brainwashing Moments of the 00s. Of course, this is a random list from my own experience. I am sure people have plenty of their own interesting stories. Here they are, in no real order:

1. Performance reviews
An annual review on my work performance was such a weird thing 10 years ago, and still is now. My previous job actually moved to quarterly reviews, which was a little excessive. The ambition is to try and gauge how well you worked and find places to improve, and places for you to grow. I've always had positive reviews, so I feel lucky. But so many of them were abstract and slightly uncomfortable conversations. I say uncomfortable because it's odd to have someone tell you how great you are at certain things, and then they throw in a seemingly random item for you to work on.

2 Brand training
If I were to rank these moments, this might be at the top of the list. My previous employer sponsored a two (or maybe it was three) day training session to understand their new-found brand message. At the end of the session, we had to write something on a piece of paper that we were "leaving behind," a kind of psychological issue that we were going to fix, then stand in front of the group, read it out loud, and throw the paper in a bin. It totally felt like we were a cult and giving ourselves over to our leaders. People said things like, "I will strive to be less mean to my customers," then toss their paper in the bin. I'm surprised the bin wasn't a cauldron. I can't remember what I said, but when I stood up there, I almost bolted. It was so frightening to stand up there, and it just felt so...wrong. Ugh. I said something generic to survive, but the memory of this event still haunts me.

3 Harassment training
Each year, I've had to take online courses in s-- harassment. I understand the need for it, but many times I felt the training was ridiculous, and not realistic at all. Instead of training to notice more subtle things, it had obvious, somewhat disturbing examples. The last one I took had something about a picture of a woman's face on a naked pregnant lady, posted above the copier. Isn't that a little much?

4 Announcements of changes to staff
Not tied to a specific event, any time there was a corporate announcement of bad news, they always made it sound slightly good. They spoke in major abstractions, often used the passive voice, and buried the point of the message within a long intro and positive conclusion that you didn't really know what just happened. Did they just say that this manager was moved off a project? Did they just say there's a hiring freeze? Did they just say that the bonuses will be smaller next year? It's a standard brainwashing tool that people have come to expect.

5 Japan trip
One year ago, I went to Japan to be a brainwashing trainer! I had been trained in problem solving, and was asked to assist in training an international group of employees. It was actually a really good experience. The people were friendly, and didn't take the training too seriously. Of course, what sounds good in theory doesn't always work out in practice, and seeing the others struggle with applying what we taught them made me realize how this 8-step program couldn't solve the worlds problems.

6 Certified training
Another top moment: I had to go to training for 5 months. Once a month, I was out of the office for a week to learn about statistics, problem solving, project managing, mistake proofing, and lots of other concepts that almost made my brain burst. What made it tolerable were the happy hours and my occasional visits to a nearby college campus to play piano. By the third month, I really really wanted to quit this corporate life and just hitchhike home. It was hard to make it through all of this training, but once again, I survived, and yeah, I learned a couple of things.

7 Newsletter writing
I was asked to write articles for a monthly newsletter. It was to help the department cope with the upcoming changes. My basic structure was: today you do it like this, and it's so difficult and time consuming! Tomorrow you'll do this, and it will be easy! I wrote articles for over a year, and then when the big change happened, I felt like I betrayed everyone. Everything now took three times as long, and there were so many problems that expected. I felt like a member of the brainwashers at this point. I had been telling them stuff to make them feel better, and I was wrong. I felt bad about this.

8 Presentation training
This event could fight to be the top moment of the decade. At the last minute, I was requested by the head of my department to take his place in a training class on presentations. They had already paid for his attendance, so rather than waste the money, they thought I could take his place. The others in the class were salespeople. The instructor sensed that I was a little shy, but on the brink of presentation greatness, so he picked on me. A LOT. At one point he called me up in front of the class and had me do so many things - I felt humiliated and degraded. He had me beat up a chair with a roll of paper, he had me yell at the other people in the class, he had me jumping up and down, saying the stupidest things. I almost cried. I felt like I was being hazed. And the best part was that all of this was videotaped. I still have the tape, but I have never watched it. I can't do it. After this, people in the class came up to me, because I was obviously shaken, and said that I did a good job, and then some of them talked to the instructor. He came by and apologized. I know it sounds kinda silly (he had be beating up a chair with a roll of paper - ha!), but in the moment I felt horrible. I even thought of complaining about him, because he obviously didn't know when to stop pushing, and basically pushed me over the edge. I wish I had turned on him and beat him up with the paper. You don't think of those things until later. There may have been more to this, but my mind has blocked it out. Ha - I've been brainwashed, so don't remember it other than how traumatic it was.

9 Project Coach
I was asked to coach several project teams. I ended up with some really sensitive folks, and there seemed to be a history with a few of them. Individually, they each would come to me and complain about the others. It was so frustrating to hear all their complaints, then see them fight when working together. I had to pull some corporate talk out to get them on track. I said things about teamwork, and the greater good. I can't believe I talked like that. Blah, it still has a bad taste in mouth.

10 Job applications & interviews
I tried to move away from my field and get a job that was more creative. Since I didn't have the direct experience, only "transferrable skills," I tried to sell myself in my cover letter. Oh, the brainwashing language I used in those letters. I tried to mix informal, fun language with professional. I don't think it worked. I did land a few interviews, but once it became apparent I didn't have the work experience they were looking for, they didn't listen. But see! The talk worked, to an extent. Of course when I try for a job in my field, I get it. So that's how after 8 years, I ended up in my new job.