This article was prompted, as I arrived at Gold Coast airport this morning, skipping to Sydney to try to learn something, by the (new?) sign at the airport car park “Premium Parking”.

Premium Parking? $30 a day! First Class begins even before you board. Or some such crap.

I chose business coaching because I was sick of the corporate attitude – you’ve heard of the idea that the corporation is a psychopath? It has no soul nor conscience, it exists only to make money for its shareholders.

This breeds, in the corporation and in its employees, an attitude that neglects the human aspects of business – caring about people, being responsible and having obligations to other people and to the environment and to community. The idea that people will pay extra (probably with their company credit card) for a special parking spot that lifts them above the ordinary plebs somehow is part of this rubbish isn’t it?

I know that it’s not always like this and that some large companies talk about their responsibilities but it’s also true that these kinds of discussion are almost always talked about in terms of the bottom line.

So I left the world of expense accounts and company cars, business lunches and jollies and became a business coach.

I chose small business, where the owners are real people who know their employees, live in the same community as their employees, whose children go to the same schools and whose community is the same one as the one they work in.

I like the way small business owners feel responsible for their staff and for helping them earn a living. I like the way we meet in local community groups and spend our money locally, how we (most of us) like to give back somehow – volunteering in community and business groups, networking, managing our children’s sports teams.

It doesn’t really matter what the contribution is and this little thought doodle doesn’t mean to suggest that employees of large businesses don’t contribute to society outside work or don’t care about their communities – they very clearly do.

And I guess that the world of small business is not free of pettiness or small-minded meanness either, because we come across that here, too.

But it’s still a nicer place to be – better for your soul, I think. Whatever you think your soul is.

Am I right? Is this your experience, too?

Is their joy in the community you live in and work in that makes up for the lunches and car parks? It’s true for me although I admit I miss the lunches. I liked the lunches.