That's one way of looking at it, yes -- except that the comparison to caged animals has misleading connotations. A lion doesn't weigh its options and choose to live in a cage; so to compare someone to a caged lion carries with it the suggestion that they lack agency.
to compare someone to a caged lion carries with it the suggestion that they lack agency.
It most certainly does. PG is commenting on what, to him, is the revolting sight of a bunch of apparently smart people wasting time in a pointless "team-building" exercise. He didn't think those people looked happy, and he didn't think they looked like people who were wasting their time by choice. They looked like people who... lacked agency!
He obviously didn't mean to imply that they'd been forced into their cage.. the entire essay is about how you have a choice about whether or not to be treated like an employee.
And what a revolting sight it is. I recall my job fresh out of school in an R&D department. I was stunned at how the technical people stood at attention and jumped as high as the managment told them. This management was clearly, at least from a techical standpoint, far less intelligent. The engineers there actually marvelled and respected people who could barely figure out which buttons to push on a product they designed.
