"I was not cut out to be a worker, I'll tell you right now. I feel physically inadequate. I,I... My whole life, I've never... I've NEVER been able to lift more than ten times my body weight."
-Z
Antz
1998
The first ten minutes of this movie is like watching reality corporate television. Well, I don't think that is really a concept yet, but, I am thinking about branding it. Anyways, Antz is a cartoon, but is its a rhetorical masterpiece. I love the idea that colony in an antz world, is similar to the word corporation in the business world.
Are individual contributors invincible?
The greatest thing about this opening scene is it starts with Z the ant on a therapist chair. He's talking about his childhood, his insignificance in the workplace and his separation from the other antz in the colony. Z is a distraught employee. Unsatisfied, overzealous and charming. Z is just like many in corporations today; just a number.
As the camera angle shifts to the view of the colony the production line is visible, the job descriptions are identified, the system is in fact a machine. Before a machine based on talent and now a machine based on numbers and coverage. It is fascinating.
As Z is handpicked into a role of "ball roller", he jumps on board with a gazillion of his colleagues and creates this large demolition ball using their ant bodies as the vice. As Z's job is to hold on to the string that is actually him holding the ball, he lets go and states... "Yes, yes, I understand, I dropped the ball".
I never thought a film with ants or even animation can take me to a different understanding of the business world; but it did. Reward and praise is few short in some businesses, replacability and specialization is more realistic.
You are an individual, you can be replaced.
So what makes an employee valuable? Is it their diversity? Is it their experience? Perhaps it is their drive or their ability to take risks. Either way, one mistake and you become the corporations nightmare. Each time I look at myself and my job performance I measure it as if it were my own business. I might be the rare few that take my job to that extreme, but, I am always trying to be that ideal employee.
The question is... is it being noticed?
"I'm supposed to do everything for the colony. What about my needs?" -Z
Many times employees feel like statistics. The top of the scale is outweighed by the star performers and the bottom of the scale is those who are waiting to be let go or reassigned to another role. Knowing that each corporation has a different hierarchy of decision making, makes it relevant that each individual should have their own hierarchy of job commitment.
Jobs are rarely tangible. Jobs are necessary for ones life to flourish and maintain a lifestyle. However, is job satisfaction ranked higher than customer satisfaction these days? Are people afraid to say they are unhappy in the workplace?
Like an ant, the order and command is similar in many corporations. You are in a task orientated role. Maybe one that wasn't necessarily the one you signed up for, but, perhaps the one you were placed into. You can either make the best of it, or you can simply wait for the decision to let you go to make the worst of you.
You may feel outnumbered in your job, you may feel exceptionally needed in your job, but for those who don't know the difference just yet, and those that will continue to shape the corporations, make it a point to know your employees. Spending that extra time each day might teach you something new about them. It might improve how you operate your business with others.
Management has taken a new role these days. The concept of wearing "multiple hats" has also taking a new turn. But, what scares me is the less face to face interaction. With everything automated, from email, to IM, to facebook and twitter and podcasts, have we become a less social society?
I guess in a few years talking to someone face to face might actually be the new way to study communication.
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bobbot
Alpha Whiskey
Gary Gladstone
fingerlakeswanderer
Dennis Knight
Gabby Fox
Salon.com
Comments
This sounds like an interesting/funny movie.
Screw the Pats.lol
Actually, I bet you would some of them.
HA.
i'm now involved in the grand opening of Zeus Digital Cinemas (first digital theater in Virginia) ... 10 screens of which 2 are 3D ... it all starts this Friday, the 8th ... been working 14 to 16 hours a day this week ... what if we aren't ready ? ... "i don't think i can take that kind of rejection" - Rex (Toy Story) ... lew