It’s unclear if the notion of working for money always entailed that, in order to get said money, part of your job would be to endure limitless amounts of verbal abuse. Sure, that was fine for slavery, you know, building pyramids with chains around your hands and legs. But one would think that in an evolved state of humanity, verbal abuse might have gone the way of the dodo.
Not so. In fact, it has only become more undercutting and latently detectable in the place we call the cube. In addition to the sexual harassment manual that gets passed out upon being hired, corporations should also consider drafting a manual on how to interpret levels of verbal abuse and react appropriately to each tier (e.g. ice bath or horizontal cutting–or both at the same time). It’s almost worse when the tongue lashings are subtle in vitriol, because you can’t prove them to anyone other than yourself–making it all the more psychological. Am I crazy or have I become too insensitive as a result of working in Midtown? You’ll never know for sure.