Life with Mr. Twimble

I've spoken a fair bit lately about maintaining an identity in the face of impersonal corporate expectations. It is an irony how conformity is the standard driving all behavior - yet if one does actually conform to the extent that is seemingly demanded, the individual gains nothing but ridicule. Our heroes, both in real life and in imagination, are ones who did not conform. The ones who do are considered ordinary, if not downright pitiable.

It is ironic, though, that we often attempt to carve out a unique position for ourselves simply by taking conformant behavior to another level. The management track may be more challenging, but it is hardly unique. To gain notice by "standing out", as the "Lieutenant Picard" of my previous posting was encouraged to do, is not so impressive when it is merely part of what is expected.

I sometimes wonder if a lot of people fall into a rut not because they are unassertive, but simply because they see no real winning at these games. Those who work successfully in the corporate world seem as inevitably headed to obscurity as the less successful. Few corporate bosses, and pretty much no one in middle management, will ever be the subject of an essay in a school, or the object of admiration on a child's bedroom poster. At the end of a career, the more successful people might end up with a better pension and a more expensive gold watch. Yet, it's still just a pension and a gold watch.

It may be best just to laugh at it all. Consider Mr. Twimble, the happy underachiever in the musical comedy How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. He stays at his decades-long held job in the mail room, refusing to try anything different, reveling in the routine of his life without complaint. The protagonist of the story, J. Pierpont Finch, is intrigued by his attitude. In their song "The Company Way", Twimble explains:

TWIMBLE:
I play it the company way -
Wherever the company puts me, there I'll stay.

FINCH:
But what is your point -

TWIMBLE:
I have no point of view.

FINCH:
Supposing the company thinks -

TWIMBLE:
I think so, too!

Later in the song:

FINCH:
If they want brilliant thinking
From employees -

TWIMBLE:
That is no concern of mine.

FINCH:
Suppose a man of genius
Makes suggestions -

TWIMBLE:
Watch that genius get suggested to resign!

One cannot take this very seriously. This show and the eponymous book that was its inspiration were meant as satire, debuting in 1961 and 1952 respectively, squarely in that same "Age of Admin." that C.S. Lewis cited (see my earlier post). In this show, we are made to laugh at the foolish and myopic attitudes of business people, which were very much in cultural evidence at the time. Mr. Twimble is meant as a caricature, and it works well, as the did the entire show, which won the 1962 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

We would not be laughing, though, if Mr. Twimble didn't draw a little empathy from us. We have seen Mr. Twimble in various forms throughout our lives, and there is a little Twimble in all of us. Sooner or later, perhaps not quite so soon as Mr. Twimble did, it may make sense to jump off the ladder. The success we have reached may have been worth the trying so far - but it's up to each one of us to decide when we've tried enough.