Corporate America. It's a world of opportunity, IPOs, board meetings, conference calls, cubicles and water coolers. It's a place where you don't call someone up, you 'reach out to them' or 'shoot them an email.' Companies aren't 'cool about letting you leave early for a dentist appointment,' they are helping you 'achieve work-life balance.' Acronyms even become prevalent enough to make you think twice about what USA means.
Just shy of a year into my career (what?!), I'm still not sure what to make of this army of 8-5ers we call the middle-upper class and the Man that employs them. I have felt the security of working for a giant in the middle of an economic downturn. I have enjoyed the corporate discounts, the Marriott points, and obscene allotment for out-of-town meals. I have also felt to groan at the relative insignificance of my employ, and the hopeless attempt of executives to really engage their employees in some new company plan (or 'journey'), to increase profits and make themselves...er, the company, a LOT more money! Hooray! I have come to understand, and sometimes appreciate, things like commercials and sit-coms depicting the Man's world in all its enslaving or pompous glory. I understand better my father's stresses, NEED for vacation, and oft voiced envy for a life occupied with schooling.
As increasingly cynical as I may be, though, I know I should not complain. As much as the Man takes, and would take if I let him, he compensates me well, and I'm beginning to believe that I actually am getting some good experience being so recently out of college.
I am even beginning to defend the stereotypes...
Airports collect people from all walks of life, making it great for those who like watching people. I suppose everyone who has gone to an airport enjoys to some degree the live candid shots of the old couple struggling to hear each other, or the innocence of an excited child. My least favorite category has always been the fast walking, hands-free phoning, computer-bag-and-overnight-case-wheeling business traveler. They tend to look above it all, pouring over reports or making notes on a legal pad, sitting cross-legged a few seats from anyone else. They are too busy and important to strike up any kind of 'hot enough for ya?,' or 'how bout them Cubs' kind of conversation, but keep to their smug selves as they make their next million. In short, they embody the Man himself.
Having traveled for business purposes a time or two in the last 11 months, though, I have begun to empathize with those smugly sons of the Man. If you have joined me in my eye rolling and 'pffff' mentality, please continue reading.
I recently traveled to Cleveland for training. After learning how to better maintain the bottom of the totem pole, I was shuttled to the airport. I had changed into jeans and flip-flops to shed any affiliation with business (which, I concede, is not always an option) and sat, reading a book, at the gate. As my eyes grew a bit heavy and my focus began to evaporate, I put my book down and took a look around, from person to person...
Those socks are PERFECT with those shorts, man..awesome...
How is she pushing that stroller with one hand? I try that with a grocery cart and I'm buying a new door for somebody...Gotta respect the mama...
Hey buddy, how bout finishing that pizza sauce on your cheek? Almost got it...c'mon...you can do it...ok, that's kind of a long time for your tongue to be out in public like that...that's it, the napkin...
Then I saw him. Probably 35 or 40, maybe 6'1", jet black hair, and a nice suit, sitting alone, absorbed with his phone conversation, no smile on his face.
pffff
I saw others too. One was talking to a co-worker about his interns, and the other expressed her limit of how much she could take of them.
PFFFF!
When the muffled announcement that we were allowed to board sounded among the din in the terminal, I made my way to my seat. A short flight meant a small plane, just three seats to a row, one on one side, two on the other. Our man in the suit sat across from me. After take-off I decided to find out about this guy, see if he was the smug businessman I took him for. To break the ice, I grabbed the section of my complementary Wall Street Journal least likely to confuse the heck out of me, and offered the rest to him.
"Need something to read?" I asked him. He thanked me and accepted
Of course you do.
A little bit later I decided I might have to be a little bold if I wanted to get anywhere. I wanted to find out why the suit.
"You have a meeting when you land?" I asked.
He smiled. "No, I just like to travel light. Makes it easier just to wear [the suit on the plane], you know?"
Understandable I guess. I've done that while traveling before. Maybe he's a regular dude.
He went on to explain that he's a co-founder of a multi-million dollar pharmaceutical company, on his way to Washington DC to meet with the FDA. They were a couple years out from an IPO, he said.
pffff
We continued talking, however. The Suit (we'll call him John) was down to earth. He moved here from Armenia with his family when he was 15, grew up in Northern Virginia, went to Georgetown, and worked for the National Cancer Institute before founding his company. He's running his second Chicago marathon later this year, to boot. John's voice was soft, but kinda cool in a Don Corleone way, and the purpose of his trip became the focal point of our conversation.
His meeting with the FDA the next day had nothing to do with his big-shot IPO. He was actually negotiating the approval for a drug that treats pancreatic cancer. His work at the National Cancer Institute had dealt a lot with altering genes (he explained it a bit differently, but that's all I can really say for sure). John has developed a vaccine that he thinks (along with others in the scientific community - it won an award) will really make some noise on the cancer-curing front. Here's why:
All mammals, other than humans and most primates, have a gene called alphaGal (the real name is huger) in their cells. Humans and primates fiercely reject anything with alphaGal in it. "A pig kidney was transplanted into a baboon, and it was jelly in an hour," he told me. I guess that means our immune response is pretty strong. So what John and staff did was genetically engineer cancer cells to include alphaGal and put it into a vaccine. When you are injected with the vaccine, your body destroys the cancer cells when it detects the alphaGal, but builds anti-bodies based on eliminating the cancer cell. Next time your body sees a cancer cell, it knows just what to do with it.
Another drug his company is developing is equally ingenious. The reason a female's body doesn't destroy a fetus, which is half foreign to her body (ask your parents), is because of a gene in the fetus called IDO (again, the real name is big), which deprives the white blood cells attacking it of an essential amino acid our bodies to not produce, tryptophan. White blood cells are useless without tryptophan, making the fetus invincible to the body's immune system. Cancer cells have IDO too. They found that supplying white blood cells with triptophan greatly increases their chances of beating cancer, especially if it is in league with chemotherapy.
The drugs are still in testing, but they have worked on mice and are in the testing phases on humans. He was pretty excited about it. So was I, by the time we landed. He gave me his card and told me to email him so we could keep in touch.
I'll admit it. I was impressed, and a little bit ashamed. John was down to earth, dedicated to his work, and far from smug. I think he will not mind the pay-day he may get if these drugs are successful, and he is definitely concerned with running a business, but he is, first and foremost, a scientist. He is doing something incredibly important, and I can't help but wish him the absolute best.
I will not say that there aren't corporate phonies out there, with their pin-striped shirts and cuff links, who really avoid all the vacationing or blue-collar travelers, and use a knife and fork to eat their toast in the morning. I'm sure there are executives and not-so-executives that accumulate a strong sense of entitlement over their careers. I have no doubt those guys exist in varying degrees, inspiring loathing in the lower floors of office buildings everywhere.
In general, however, we should be a bit more careful. Maybe we are too often fooled by the suit and Blackberry. Chances are that the Blackberry is paid for, and you probably wouldn't turn down a free Blackberry either. Maybe they are making notes for a meeting they didn't prepare for because they were coaching their daughter's soccer team. Maybe they are just 'packing light.' You never know, they may even be finding a cure for cancer.
