Citizenship notwithstanding, the only - and I do mean ONLY - time that marriage is appropriate for a corporate minion is when said corporate minion decides she (or he) is tired of the rat race and would like to spend her (or his) days doing something besides kissing asses and stroking egos. If this is the case, you MUST marry up the social chain. Not laterally; and for God's sake, not down. And NEVER for love.
If you wish to be CEO of the company one day, you might as well kiss your dreams of one day walking down the aisle a big fat goodbye. While it is expected that a successful corporate person will have abandoned her family and not have any real friends, having a spouse seems to fall more into a gray area. After all, lots of CEO's have spouses who bear children for their nannies to raise, decorate their homes, and sip drinks poolside, right? Well, in case I haven't made myself clear already, marriage is a NO-NO!!!!
Swearing off marriage is one specific example of how to distance yourself, which was discussed in Lesson #2. I will reiterate for those of you who didn't read Lesson #2 (and shame on you if you didn't). We distance ourselves because people are needy. Spouses get sick. And we can't shun our spouses when they fall ill, because that would make us look really bad. Additionally, if you're like me, you would much rather burn in the pits of hell because of all the heads you trampled to get to the top; not for punking out on the holy vows that you swore to uphold in front of a minister and a church full of people!
If your spouse gets sick, you have no choice whatsoever but to care for him or her and that could mean being out of the office for a few days here and there in order to transport him or her back and forth to appointments for surgeries and the like. It might mean that you aren't able to travel. It might even mean that you have to leave work at quitting time every evening, thus missing out on precious face time, because you are concerned about the well-being of your extremely-ill-and-not-in-a-very-good-place-mentally spouse. Any of scenarios is bound to play out like a turd in a punchbowl for you; and it will impede your progress up the work food chain.
Medical crises aside, people expect their spouses to be there for them. If you want to be the best little sheep you can be, you just wont have anything to give to anyone or anything else besides yourself and your job. At some point, your spouse will probably expect you to go on vacation with him. Or travel with him to an out of town wedding. Or actually sleep at home a couple of nights a week instead of on the floor of your cubicle. Marriage will only bring you grief you can't afford to deal with. So treat marriage like it's meth. DON'T DO IT.
Coming soon: Lesson #4 - Sterilization.
