Anatomy of Evil by Brian Pinkerton Page A

personal agenda based on fear or greed or both. You will know your place and like it.”
    Amy’s smile had entirely evaporated.
    â€œWhat’s wrong?” said Carol. “Don’t lose that smile. When you enter these walls, no matter how else you may feel, you smile. If someone says something wrong and idiotic, you smile. When others talk over you at meetings to render you inconsequential, you smile. If someone robs you of your weekend and personal plans with insane demands, you smile. When you get reamed in a room full of people to make someone else look big, you smile. You smile until your face hurts and your head wants to explode. Smile and the company will smile back, but don’t trust anyone because they are all out to get you. Your colleagues will be passive aggressive, looking to undermine you at every turn. Your managers will grab credit for your success and push down the blame for their mistakes. The executives are out of touch and clueless and their ignorance is lethal. They are gullible to the devious, suckers for glib self-promoters, unable to sort fact from fiction and unwilling to take the time to listen . That’s because they are too absorbed in their own fat heads, convinced every random brain fart is a nugget of gold. If something works, they will break it. They are determined to throw a monkey wrench into a well-oiled machine because at least it shows they are making a contribution. They do not want to be inconvenienced by high standards. They want one thing: obedient servants. You will spend your life here with one goal: to become the person that other people want you to be. Your tombstone will read: I did what they told me . You will begin dying the day you start your job here. Your first week will feel like a month. Everything will be big and new and scary, moving in slow motion, consuming your senses. Then the newness wears off, like fresh fruit turned rotten. You will settle into a routine that blurs the days together into an endless smear. You will go cold and then you will go numb. You will live on a treadmill of tedium. The years will shoot by like days. You will sacrifice everything for this job. Your health, your family, your sanity. You will breathe your pain like oxygen. Not even sleep is safe. This place will invade your dreams. You will compulsively check your emails and phone messages every ten minutes. You’ll find something new to stir you up every time. This company will keep you on a very short leash. The demands will crush you. The pressure will squeeze you. The rewards will be modest, just enough to keep you coming back for more, a gold-covered lock on a rusty cage. You will get old here, you will get fat and tired and joyless, performing your duties for your corporate master until one day you completely lose your identity, your individuality, your hopes and dreams. You will become nothing more than a piece of office furniture, a benign object that serves a function but will be replaced when it breaks and you will break , you will crumble, you will want to rip out your hair and gouge out your eyes and pound on your lifeless heart and beg for a second chance to live because you will have thrown it all down a sewer hole of rats and rabies and excrement. You will regret this day until your last dying breath, the day you entered the belly of the beast and lost your soul .”
    Amy fled the room, crying.
    Carol returned to her cubicle. On the way, she passed Diane’s office. Diane looked up from her papers and asked, “How did it go? I hope you didn’t make her do all the talking.”
    â€œIt was fine,” said Carol in a flat tone. “It was good. Everything’s good. Happy Monday!”
    Diane nodded and returned her attention to her spreadsheets. “Yes. Happy Monday,” she muttered.
    Carol returned to her desk. She sat down and opened a file drawer. She dug around for a moment until she found what she was looking for: the