The View from the Top

The last and most decisive divider between staff is based on caste, class and accelerated personal development – some are at the very top, and everyone else is not. The latter are the plebeians, a lovely term from ‘romantic’ times, used to describe the common people of Rome. The former are the alphas, ‘alpha’ being the first letter of the Greek alphabet, and a term synonymous with ‘greater than the rest’. 
For Plebs there is more to life than the mundane world of work and toil, there is a life out of work hours and that’s reason they work – to enjoy life. Their working attention span goes from 9am to 5pm. Unlike their counterparts in ancient Rome, moderns Plebs have choices, education (at a hefty price) and mobility; in the office they can move between professions and industries. These shifts may brighten their careers, but it is still the notion of a comfortable and hopefully satisfying life that makes them happy. Believe it or not, many people have no desire to be super successful, but they may work hard and play the system if they wish, and with a bit of luck and a lot of connections develop and elevate themselves to the position of Alpha.
Once you wipe away an Alpha’s veneer, you will find that they are not super successful. Alphas rule the world from privileged positions; they are at the top of the pyramid and abide by the ‘corporate management’ that controls the Plebs. Alphas use to be found amongst chiefdoms and royalty, but as revolutions spread, and globalised trade mushroomed, merchants and then the educated (MBAs) became the new breed of Alphas. They climbed the ranks of corporations and lifted each other higher and higher, until they all sat on the board of directors. These Alphas manage companies they don’t own, they set their own remuneration regardless of success or failure, they create or axe jobs, and are safe from plebeian angst and revolution by the laws of the land – which they can easily misconstrue in their own favour. Though there have been some spectacular Alpha falls, there are a great many out there who continue to ‘defraud the system’ as the majority of disgruntled Plebs interpret it, or just ‘serve the market’, as the many observant Alphas study it.
In every state, be it capitalist, market economy, social democratic, communist or despotic, there are the Alphas and the Plebs: the have-mores and having-less-and-lessers. Disparity between the two is a constant; each thinks the other has no idea what they’re doing. In this current period of globalisation (which is not a new phenomenon) and speedier communication, change is rapid: people and entities can alter mindsets and technology to meet demand. So if a company, like a state, is doing fine and all are happily remunerated and subdued by propaganda, what’s the use in creating an uprising or revolution? Particularly when the majority have no desire for change? There will always be a quiet understanding and thus harmony between the Plebs and the Alphas until change from the outside environment affects the inside environment. And yet even though everything seems peaceful, beneath the calm surface is a murky undertow where The Art of Office War rages. This is the control, threat, execution, and/or bluffing of knowledge.