Corporate Ties by Ben Woods

Jason Harris has found the perfect job as a web developer with a Fortune 500 financial subsidiary. He meets his cool and quirky coworkers and even scores a date with an Indian princess/database administrator.

This lasts all of eight days. Due to “organizational restructuring,” the parent company announces that all employees at Jason's location are being relocated to corporate headquarters in another state.

Each person mulls the idea of exchanging a laid-back, business casual dress environment for a cafeteria, a fitness center, and a strangling — by a necktie (corporate attire only, please) and organizational bureaucracy.

The men and women in suits arrive to document the documents, proactivate the buzzwords, and cage the project managers.

Is the job really worth it? And why exactly do people give up their independence to become company drones?

 

Latest news

Mother's Day contest
May 10, 2012

Are you a working mother who is stuck in a cube all day? Do you know one who is? Sign up to win my books - yes, both Corporate Ties and The Developers - in the Mother's Day contest. Email me, "Like" the Corporate Ties Facebook page or "Like" this post on Facebook to be entered. Do this by Sunday and I'll select a winner early next week.

Baltimore indie bookstore carrying 'Corporate Ties'
May 7, 2012

The Book Escape in Federal Hill is now carrying Corporate Ties. I just noticed online that this store is selling a copy of The Developers for $5. That's a great deal (although I won't get a penny if someone purchases it).

Book now available at Carmichael's in Louisville
April 18, 2012

Corporate Ties has been available at any Barnes and Noble location for a while (although not necessarily stocked in the store). The good news is that Carmichael's, Louisville's oldest independent bookstore, now has copies at both of its locations.

Carmichael's is a great locally owned bookstore. I've made purchases there; I've been to events there; and I've had a book talk there as well. When you stop by, tell them I sent you!

About the author

Ben Woods, author of Corporate Ties

Ben Woods is a freelance writer who has written workplace- and humor-related articles for Belo Corporation and Scripps Interactive Newspaper Group websites, American City Business Journal newspapers and other technology and independent media websites. His first book, a tech-humor fiction novel titled "The Developers," delves into government conspiracy, online privacy and crazy people on the Internet.

He works in Baltimore as a web developer for AOL. During the past five years, he has held full-time computer programming positions with companies large and small, collected a stack of employee manuals and health insurance cards and worked with a litany of CEOs, PMPs, BBMs and A-HOLEs.

Woods (shown here while being suffocated with a necktie in the Amazon rainforest) has a journalism degree from Purdue University and is working on a master's degree in Professional Studies at Towson University in Baltimore.