Corporate Culture

I feel like I might be too honest with people to work for a highly structured company when I graduate. It seems to me that the bureaucracy/nepotism/politics of most corporations make the environment such that stepping on toes is illegal and a good portion of your working life becomes saying the right things to the right people at the right times in order to get ahead or towing the company line even if you don't believe in it. This is no good because somewhere in my college career I became unable to bullshit with people in authority. If for some reason I find myself being dishonest with people I feel shitty about it, as if it's my job to be completely honest with whoever the other person may be. I also have a problem with unfairly addressing people's flaws to their face in an all too self righteous fashion.I don't trust myself to not slip and tell off a boss for being a tight ass or correct him for writing "there" instead of "their" or using an apostrophe at the wrong time.

The reason I say this is because the CEO at the company I work at recently approached my manager about the level of my voice when he says hello to me, and by "level of voice" I mean "disappearance of voice." Apparently he was a little bit perturbed when I failed to say hello to him not once but twice in the same night. I understand his philosophy of creating a friendly atmosphere where everyone says hello and knows everyone else's name (Cheers, Inc?), I just don't see the point in enforcing it with an iron fist, especially after just one incident. It just creates more and more anonymity until eventually everyone is scared shitless into never being genuine. Also, I should point out that I DID say hi. Both times. He's the fucking CEO, I'm not going to ignore him. I couldn't ignore him if I wanted to! Sure, it doesn't help that I hear horrible stories about this man which lead me to be less than chipper around him, but I hardly think that saying hello on any given night is something to be upset about at all or something to WASTE TIME talking to my manager about.

MORAL: Apparently there are some things at the professional level that are more important than DOING YOUR FUCKING JOB efficiently. There will be drama at the corporate level just like in high school.

People keep telling me "Tim, let it go, it's not a big deal, just say hi to him louder next time." Of course I'll say hi to him (hopefully he'll hear me this time) but the fact that it became an issue at all has me a little disappointed and a lot worried about having to work next year in a corporate culture with such fucked up priorities.