Today marked the beginning of my return to the closest thing I have to a real adult life: a corporate job (internship) at Dell. Among the constant tom-foolery and jack-assery of college life, there's really not much during they day that resembles what life will really be like after I graduate and become a big 'ol grown-up... besides paying bills I guess.

But this summer and last, I had a chance to see what life might be like working a typical 40-hour-a-week corporate job for a big company. It's all there: the daily commute in shit traffic, the infamous cube farms, the meetings, and all the bureaucracy and processes you would expect to see in a Fortune 20 company with over 90,000 employees worldwide.

Corporate culture is funny to me, though. Everyone seems to have this personality they put on when interacting at the office-- almost like this faux casual way of talking, but in such a way as to not offend anyone or say something too non-PC.

There's also the semi-awkward closeness you can develop with people you work with on a daily basis. You interact with these people every day... maybe even go out to eat lunch with them and joke around some... but in reality... you aren't even remotely close to them. Though you might spend more time with them during the week than some friends, you don't have even the slightest idea as to what type of music they like, what their hobbies are... their dreams, hopes, fears.

From this sort of distance that you can put yourself from your co-workers coupled with the need to work well together to be an effective team, a very weird relationship is formed. Your team is basically a bastardized family unit; everyone has his own role, status, and importance while their "real" lives back home are immaterial.

At the office, everyone is expected to do their job without outside factors effect them. Regardless of background, emotional situations, family, race, gender... anything... the second you swipe your badge and step into the building you become An Employee, with all the accrued emotional and personal baggage you carry veiled behind the business-casual attire and 5' 10" cubical walls.

This isn't to say you can't have real relationship with people at work, or that you can't ever get to know people and develop good friends at the office... it's more of just a reflection of the general type of interactions I've noticed. If you never got to know anybody on a personal level... I'm sure work would seem like an emotionless hell-hole.

And who would want to work at a place like that?