One of my Wharton friends on Facebook recently created a group called “Future Trophy Wife Recruiters.” Aside from the other obvious issues I have with this group which I will address in a later post, what caught my attention was the comment he had made:
"Let's face it...
Guys: we aren't planning on working 100 hours a week for a faceless corporation so that we can go home and sleep next to Rosie O'Donnell or Cousin It.
Ladies: You didn't spend all those hours in the gym and years trying to look good so that you can drive a fucking Kia to go shopping at Old Navy.
We have a taste for the finer things in life."
Since I know him, I do admit this post did make me chuckle. More importantly, it got me to ask myself a few questions:
- Is Wharton really evil (joke)? More broadly, is Corporate America really evil? Are we living in a vicious cycle where we are never satisfied with our current state of being and always demanding more power, money, and social status?
- Why are we obsessed with being thin?
More to come on these two topics...
technorati tags: corporate america, power, money, social status, appearance, obsession, thinness
Comments (2)
Some of the best things in this world, in my opinion, are those which we appreciate for their intrinsic value to the world, and not what we believe they may signify to others. If Corporate America is your symbol for those who I will politely call "those Wharton guys" (and we all know who "those Wharton guys" are), then to some extent I tend to agree. I frankly find a lot lacking in their world view. That said, I think there are enough examples of people in the business world who have avoided all that to make me a little less uneasy.
A role model of mine is a man named Chris Hohn. He runs the Children's Investment Fund, a hedge fund managing 3.8bn pounds. Over 1% of the fund's assets each year are handed over to charity. I believe he was the single most generous philanthropist in the UK, yet no one knows who he is, and he talks to no one.
Posted by Dan | January 7, 2007 12:56 AM
Dan,
Thanks for your comments. I appreciate them!
I'd say on the whole I'm definitely pro-capitalism / new businesses, just in terms of economic expansion and technology innovation. I just think that sometimes we are so focused or so "trapped" so to speak in this rapidly changing world that there are some things that we tend to forget, those with intrinsic value as you mention.
Jing
Posted by Jing | January 7, 2007 5:06 PM