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Corporate America

I'd never heard the word 'corporate' used in a casual elevator conversation with a perfect stranger. In fact I doubt I've heard it used in any casual non-political, non-economic conversation. It's like 'fiscal policy' or 'commodity futures' - words that belong to people far removed from the everyday life of the average citizen. I just don't do corporate. But then, there's always a first time.

It was sevenish, the end of a day's work and I had just walked into the apartment elevator, and had turned as one does, to face the door.

Then in walked a woman carrying about thirty wire coathangers with thirty items of plastic-protected newly-drycleaned garments hanging off them.

Knowing the cost of drycleaning in Manhattan, and feeling obliged to make smalltalk (we were the only ones in the elevator), I commented, "You must have spent hundreds of dollars getting that lot drycleaned!"

"Oh yes," she answered, "but I work in corporate and I have no time to clean and iron." This comment struck me as so American - on two counts.

The abbreviated American English - an American will readily drop the noun - using the adjective as the object of a sentence. The Columbia Guide to Standard American English acknowledges this, saying 'Making nouns of adjectives is easy in English: sick persons become the sick; homeless persons become the homeless; flighty persons become the flighty.' I've heard sentences like, 'I don't like hot', and I can't even conjugate the abreviated "Do you want on?" meaning, "Do you want to use the computer?"

And secondly ... her words were so American in their presumption that "it's all about me". Who did she think I worked for? Probably she did not think about me at all. But if she did, it wasn't about me being a member of the group who work in 'corporate'.

When I hear the word 'corporate' the first thing that comes to mind is the 'body corporate'. As my brother used to see an image of a car swerving out of control when he heard the word 'career'. But after my brief conversation with Ms Corporate, I started to look at myself through new eyes. For of course I too work for corporate America.

Those are my clothes on the drycleaning hanger with the plastic protector in the photo above.

The little red bag with the identification tag is what comes back from the drycleaners with your newly drycleaned clothes. You just have to pop soiled or creased clothes into the red bag, and drop it off with the doorman in the morning. The next day when you arrive back at the apartment building after work, the doorman with go to from the holding area and fetch your clothes, nicely wrapped with your now empty red bag hanging on yet another hanger, and had them to you as you get into the elevator.

So it seems I've not only become acclimated. I am also a member of corporate. I don't do vacations. I understand when the airline pilot announces that we will be landing momentarily. And seeing ads for Goodyear tires now looks normal.

I think I'll use American English in future when I call my friends in Australia. And if they complain, too bad. After all, it will be my dime.

Till next time,
Kate Juliff
New York
February 2006