5 Benefits of the Great Exodus

It's been almost a month since the great exodus and I've already discovered 5 great benefits. I'm sure I'll discover more in due time.

1. No more open cubicle environment - in this day of swine flu and other highly contagious illnesses, I'm so happy that I no longer sit in a cubicle environment where germs lurk ever so freely, looking for some innocent person to pounce on. Actually the germs in and of themselves are not to blame, it's those unsavory co-workers who refuse to cover their mouths when they cough, who lick their finger to separate papers and hand one off to you (oh gosh, I HATE that) or use the same piece of tissue to wipe/blow their nose all throughout the day.
2. No more potlucks - unfortunately I'm not one who enjoys potlucks in a large group setting. I apologize if I offend anyone, but holiday potlucks are not my cup of tea. Usually I'm the one at the potluck looking for the items that were purchased and not made. I became potluck shy when I first observed ADULTS who would use the restroom and not wash their hands afterwards. Question, if you don't wash your hands after you use the restroom, just when do you wash them? At first I thought it was just an isolated incident, but no, it happens far too frequently for my taste - no pun intended.
3. No more salary limitations - my income is completely up to me. I will now see a direct relationship between what I put in and what I get out. No more corporate limitations. No more forced "bell curve" for evaluations and raises, which brings me to the next benefit.
4. No more obscure evaluations - oh my goodness this must have been my Achilles heel at the end of my corporate career. My employer's annual evaluation process was just HR formality, no real career planning, no real comments that encouraged growth, just blah. In addition, there was a forced bell curve to ensure that the majority of the employees were scored a 3, or average --- so you could bust your butt but that didn't matter because excelling had become the new average. So much for the motivation factor.
5. No more unnecessary meetings - we would have so many meetings on a daily basis that I often wondered when I would get any work done. We'd have a meeting to discuss the need for an agenda for an upcoming meeting, then we'd meet to go over the agenda and see if there were any changes needed; if there changes then we'd have to meet again to make sure everyone was okay with the changes, then we'd have said meeting, and of course we would have to meet afterwards to go over what we discussed in the meeting. After all of that, we'd have another meeting to get the next manager up the chain caught up, and then if he/she had any additional questions, we're back to meeting number 1 and going through the process all over again! I'm not kidding. I have some readers who are still in that environment and they can attest that I'm telling the truth. In fact, I might have left out a few meetings in the process.

So, is everything rosy on this side of the fence? Of course not. There are thorns in every rose bush. I'll write another post listing the "cons" of the great exodus in the near future.