It’s awfully hard to give 110% of yourself when you know somebody else is taking that 110% and giving you barely 25% back.

The narrative sold to me was linear and simple. “Go to college, get a job, work for 30 odd years, retire.” Somewhere along the timeline a “career” is supposed to appear. How can anyone buy that narrative in 2024? It’s an easier sell to a child who has no basis of comparison. Try telling an adult on the wrong side of 25 they need to stick with a single career for the rest of their lives.

I’m inclined to ask why?

Is a career defined by the professional titles one holds? Compared to what and by who? Certainly not this writer. This writer thinks a career is determined by what a person excels at and remains consistent in practice of throughout their lives. Case in point: I have a friend who has taught at a community college for the last twenty years. Although “professor” remains his professional title, he’s built two boats and still does woodwork for fun. Recently, he fixed a door at a local coffeeshop and was paid in free coffee for the rest of the month. He has never worked as a construction worker, nor any other woodworking profession, but his work is excellent, and he’s stuck with it for longer than he’s been teaching. In fact, at the beginning of the fall 2024 semester, he told his boss he did not want to teach any classes the day before classes were supposed to start. He has no students on his upcoming class roster in the future and he may be done teaching. But he just finished building a pool table and is not stopping any time soon.

I agree “everybody has to start somewhere.” and I believe the axiom of “start at the bottom and work your way to the top” can still work today. Can you, the reader, see yourself getting a job as a stock clerk at a store like Walmart and working your way up until you’re a regional manager? Only to look in your rearview mirror to see a decade and a half spent at Walmart with no receipts? Even when you receive the long-strived for promotion, there’s no guarantee you’re going to keep the position for very long. Sure, catastrophe could strike, but more likely one mistake and you’re out of there. Then what? Laterally go to another department store and work a similar position maybe with less power for the same pay? At this point you’re preoccupied with family, friends, and you’re approaching middle age. Pray the economy stays stable enough to support a retirement, if the common American lifestyle doesn’t kill you before then.

I can’t for the life of me buy it. I can’t be alone either. There would not be so much satire about human emotion being watered down via corporate platitudes with language like, “circle back” and “let’s table this” among dozens of other whitewashed meaningless phrases. My coworkers are not my family, and I think it’s an extent of mental illness for any manager to try and push that sentiment within an organization. Don’t get me wrong, it’s really nice when everyone at a workplace environment gets along. When the strongest feeling you have towards a fellow coworker is mild indifference, it’s really nice. Family businesses, small businesses, organizations where the employees have direct ties to the owner are not what I’m talking about. I’m referring corporations like Amazon who force extracurricular work events and activities upon their employees, paying off their exploitation by occasionally providing meals for everyone, and saying encouraging words to their employees behind dead hollow eyes. Physically endangering yourself for a fraction of what you’re worth, but hey it pays more than your last job.

I must mention the poor victim of the corporate ladder. A point arises where the employee becomes aware they’re stuck there for life. That’s the point where they may lean on the job for social gratification. As if an inner narrative they conclude, “If this place is going to take this much of my time, I might as well get as much as I can out of it.” As of this moment the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports the national turnover rate to be down by 0.4% from the beginning of 2024. In my checkered past and experience, I’ve found it hard to keep friends at work due to high turnover rates. But I may have made some bad choices in places to work. “Good decisions come from experience. Experience comes from making bad decisions.”- Mark Twain.

I envy the simple man. Always have. To take it all at face value and to not think to question it further. To live in the illusion where, I make a difference at a job other than contributing to a richer man’s paycheck? There’s entire departments dedicated to replacing me. Disciplining me. Making me a better agent in achieving the bottom line. and my own fear is what keeps me in line. What would my parents say if I lost my job? I have kids. I’d lose my friends if I lost my job. There’s a less cynical way to interpret that though. Some people are content right where they are. After all, we are all just passing the time until we die. After the “growing up” process, does it really matter what we do? to who? But if you’re content in staying where you are, then thirty years of working your way up the corporate ladder with the distractions of: family and friends and the illusions of coworker families with synergy and genuine care for how the boxes look on the shelves, how tightly stacked the pallets are, how perfect the cuts are, or how much you saved on labor this month might not be the nightmare for you that it is for me. After all, somebody needs to be the area manager for the sausage processing plant. These are open roles for someone. We’re pushing 8 billion people on the planet now? Sure. I’ll get out of their way.