When I originally composed my seminal article, Things I No Longer Do Thanks to Financial Freedom, I was actually still working, with the end of my esteemed career only seconds away. As anyone who has ever retired (early or not) knows, being that close affords you a wondrous perspective into the preposterous and absurd machinations of all things inherent in “corporate life.”
As such, I was brimming with excitement, angst, and invective as I penned what would be a take-no-prisoners style excoriation of everything I despised about my executive position. Upon publishing, I was actually a bit surprised that the venomous screed, intentionally laden with a sugary, wry humor would, in fact, touch far more nerves than I ever could have imagined. It was immediately picked up and featured by some rather large FIRE sites and, even after two years, still remains the undisputed champion of all my articles.
Of course, as I gently waded into early retirement, I would, upon occasion, haphazardly stumble upon more of these odious features of corporate life and ultimately collected them as a follow up article in last year’s More Things I No Longer Do Thanks to Financial Freedom.
I figured that would be the last in this so-called mini-series, but, alas, over the past year, I realized I’ve just a few more repellent tidbits to get off my chest. That said, forthwith follows the final installment in what has unwittingly become the “Things I No Longer Do” trilogy. So, to misquote U2 for the last time, let us peer at some of the additional things that we can leave behind.
“Financial independence, in general, is all about choice. It is as much about not doing things as it is about relentlessly pursuing all we are impassioned by.”
COMPLAINTS OF THE OVERPRIVILEGED
As the former head of HR for a few Megacorps, believe me when I say that I’ve been subjected to an astounding volley of complaints over the course of my career. As a qualifier for what follows, I am not referring to legitimate, serious concerns of discrimination, harassment, unethical behavior, legal compliance, etc. What I am referring to is garden variety grousing, nonconstructive complaints and patent whining, particularly from executives and other high-earning members of an organization.
As you might imagine, it takes an enormous degree of professionalism and self-restraint to listen to a person with a 7-figure annual total compensation package incessantly gripe about how tough he’s got it, abundantly peppered with a vast array of details of perceived hardships. The same goes for those making in excess of $150K working part-time without a university degree carp about how much they loathe their “horrible” jobs, while I quietly think to myself, “No one has a gun to your head, so why do you wake up each day and come here if you dislike it so much?” Anywho, you get my drift, but very real examples of how the mind can so completely unmoor itself from reality.
Yes, I realize being, as some described me, “a workplace therapist,” was part and parcel of my job and the life I had chosen, so thems the breaks. Many times after a cathartic bleating session, I would be asked, “Hey, who do you complain to?” My response, “No one.” I think there were only a handful who ever got what I was really attempting to convey.
THE DELUSION OF IMPORTANCE
Let’s all be honest here since each of us humans is pitifully guilty of the crime I refer to as “the delusion of importance.” Whatever you’re doing at work, it is not important. Let me repeat that: your work is not important. If you told me that the weekly TPS report or my site visit to location X or my Big Board Presentation was in any way not the most crucial, significant activity occurring on planet Earth, I would have indignantly scoffed and snortled at your limited understanding of the gravitas of my activity. But I was categorically deluded as most of us are about the importance of our work lives.
Yes, there are those who deal daily in saving, helping, and rescuing the lives of others and that does matter. I’m simply making an observation on the majority of corporate life. That said, irrespective if it’s me, you, the washroom attendant, or Jeff Bezos, in the context of a 4.6 billion-year-old planet and a near infinite, ever-expanding universe, the reality is your work tasks mean jack-shit. The secret knowledge, however, is once you have truly embraced this concept, then you are in a position to get real, meaningful things done.
THE “MARTYR BRAG”
While you may be unfamiliar with my recently concocted term, the “martyr brag,” without question, you have been exposed to one many times. Variants might include such utterances as, “I had to cancel my trip to Fiji, so I could get the project done on time” or “I’ve only taken 2 days off in over 10 years,” or “I missed my daughter’s first recital as I had to work all weekend,” and my personal favorite, the exempt clock-watcher who consistently bemoans the fact that they work 70 hours a week.
I’m certain these sound familiar as each workplace has its goodly share of “Martyr Braggarts,” who, I now realize as I write this are, in fact, the unholy progeny of the previous two topics. What’s particularly irksome is that all of us is working long hours and forced to make personal sacrifices but that’s what the job is; it’s what we signed up for. In the immortal words of Chuck Palahniuk, “You are not special. You are not a unique snowflake. You are the same decaying matter as the rest of us.” So, let’s all agree to cease with the martyr mantras and get on with it.
THROWN UNDER THE BUS
If you were to ask me what I consider to be near the top of the list for high moral crimes in both life and work, I would immediately say, “Throwing someone under the bus.” Dissecting this colloquial term, I mean attacking, blaming or outright punishing someone in an unfavorable or vulnerable position specifically in order to avoid said blame or to gain advantage.
This is absolutely reprehensible and despicable behavior and, sadly, I saw it occur on a near weekly basis. Good ol’ cutthroat corporate America one might say. Early on, I drew my line in the sand and always called this out whenever I saw it transpire. Whether it was me or someone else getting “the throw,” I stopped the conversation and focused the dialogue back on the bullshit behavior of the person attempting to make a toss. It’s both shocking and effective when done correctly, but there’s usually a consequence. Did I make internal enemies and possibly have this come back to adversely affect me? Absolutely. That’s the price of doing the right thing sometimes.
I’M SICK, BUT I’M HERE!
One of the few benefits of the pandemic is the fundamental realization for many that if you’re sick, you really shouldn’t be mingling about with others. This in concert with the recent acceptance by employers of a home-based/distributed workforce, will (hopefully) alleviate much unnecessary illness in the office. Coming in to work with a cold, flu, or any other form of transmittable illness is a behavioral manifestation of the “Martyr Braggart.” You should not get points for showing up sick, but something akin to demerits for getting everyone else sick.
For the record, I was exceedingly guilty of this. As I traveled via airplane weekly, it was a perverse, statistical given that I was going to come down with something every 90 days (which I did) and I kept on going. Why? Because I was suffering from a hideous case of “The Delusion of Importance.” I’m still atoning for this. However, I have not been sick once since I stopped working. Those who worked with me likely also noticed a deleterious trend in their annual number of colds after I bailed.
TRITE QUOTES
Oh, vapid, vacant corporatisms, how little I do miss you. While I touched on corporate “non-words” in my original article, trite quotes are a distinguished species unto themselves. You know these and probably hear them daily if you are in or around the typical workspace. They generally mean nothing, are overused to the point of verbal caricature, and sometimes even offensive.
Gems like, “Break down the silos,” “Low hanging fruit,” “Feedback is the breakfast of champions,” “Move the needle,” “Open the kimono,” “Think outside the box,” and my personal favorite “Synergy” just need to disappear from the absurd and deranged corporate lexicon. However, “at the end of the day” I realize that’s nothing more than a wishful thought as deep within my heart I know that “it just is what it is.”
CONCLUSION
So. There you have it. The grand finale of the “Things I No Longer Do Thanks to Financial Freedom” trilogy. Even now, after two years, it still feels as good to get those off my chest as did those that made the original article. While my topics may have expanded, my advice still stands as rock solid:
“If you’re ever in doubt of your FI aspirations, don’t be. Keep at it and it will be worth it – I promise!
HOW ABOUT YOU?
What are some of the things you have left or can’t wait to leave behind on your journey to financial independence? I’d enjoy hearing from you!
AUTHOR’S NOTE:
For transparency, I possess just enough self-reflexivity to realize that I could be tried for irony and held culpable in that the entirety of my “trilogy” is nothing other than the initial topic in this article, but it’s a silly humor piece, y’all, so let’s have a few giggles and enjoy!
Great trilogy Mr. Fate! I FIREd 3 years ago and can relate to all of your points. May I add two to your list: alarm clocks and PowerPoint. Greetings from Brazil!
Hey Amado and thanks for the comment. Hope all is well in Brazil! Yes, like you, I’m grateful to be done with PowerPoint and alarm clocks. Okay, I sometimes still use alarms to get up to go fishing 😎
Thanks for including me Dave! It’s also cool to be featured along with The Police! Just awesome!
During this pandemic ( maybe my mid-life crisis, as well), I
reflect a lot. You really nailed it. I was probably living in my illusion of self-importance.
Hi Thomas and thanks much for stopping by to leave a comment. Yep, that “delusion of importance” is a tough one. All we humans fall prey to it at some point in our lives. It’s certainly easy to do. Hopefully, we can reach a place, like you did, to reflect and acknowledge it.
Best trilogy ever. And I’d like to add “do due diligence” to the burn pile. First heard it in ’99 and remember thinking -no way will that possibly catch on”. Honestly, why would anyone want to, in the throes of micromanaging, toss that out there only to have a newb immediately side-tracked by “do due”?
At any rate- love the article and laughed the whole way through! Also, I agree with your other readers- this content is gold and I would definitely buy the book (or at least borrow it on Libby while recommending it to everyone I know).
Hey Kelly and thanks for the comment! Yep, “do due diligence” is a definite winner. Sadly, that was also a commonplace offender in my experience as well.
Glad you enjoyed the “trilogy,” such as it is. Admittedly, it’s deeply inferior to Tolkien’s “LOTR” or Doyle’s “Barrytown,” but I’m glad it made you chuckle! I keep thinking about this book idea more and more….
haha love these. It’s crazy how often people would go into work when they were obviously sick, and simply brush it off and plow through. I’m looking forward to milking the crap out of the next illness I have and skipping out of work for a few days. Amazing that not spit-talking on each other and more frequently washing hands has virtually eliminated the common cold from the last year of everyone’s life. Hygiene, who would have thought!?
Thank for stopping by to leave a comment IF. Yeah, it’s insane that people (like me) would show up sick and spread the love (read: illness) to all co-workers. Ridiculous! With our collective, heightened awareness around disease transmission, hopefully we’ll see far fewer colds, flus, etc.
Great article. Flowed very well and you’ve done a great job at conveying your feelings. I’m all riled up now too at the whole corporate drama scene lol. My wife is an HR manager and she’s constantly telling me stories about what you reference. I think it must be therapeutic for some people to spill it all out to the HR department. I’ve never really gone to HR (since I don’t have one because I’m union lol) so I’m amazed by the kind of crap they deal with.
Your “Trite Quotes” section is hilarious. The move the needle one… I hear that way too much. I’d like to add another to that section: “Just wanted to touch base” what does that really even mean? I agree with Adam that you should write a book about your experiences from an HR angle. Enjoyed this one Mr Fate!!
Hey, Noel and thanks for the comment. If your wife’s in HR than most, of not all, of these topics in my trilogy will resonate. She can tell you the tales of woe of being the “free therapist” to many a wayward employee.
Glad you enjoyed the trite quotes. You know, I have absolutely zero idea what “touch base” even means. However, it certainly didn’t stop my rampant use of that treasure during my corporate time. That one needs to be banished as well. Yeah, maybe the book idea is a good one. Hmmmmm.
I think there is a place for loyalty in some situations. I worked for over thirty years at a facility that is just about 100 years old. Actually the equipment there now is fairly new as it is upgraded constantly but the original plant started almost 100 years ago. It has run under the same name all that time and provided thousands of good jobs in our low income state. There was no way I was going to let it go under during my time there and it was healthy and profitable when I retired. I took a lot of pride in that, I was a significant part, along with many others, of the plant surviving the last few decades when many others did not. We had smarter people and made better decisions because we cared about the value of the jobs we provided. We were far enough away from our various corporate overlords that we weren’t immersed in corporate speak to the degree that you were. It really was a lot of fun most of the time, less so when a Fortune 200 took us over, but that was late in my career. Agreed nothing temporal is of supreme importance, but I put providing safe, well paying jobs to ordinary people as pretty high on the list of good things you can do in life.
Hey Steve and thanks for the comment and hope you’re well! I concur on loyalty to a good extent. There are, indeed, many great large organizations and I’ve worked for them. My last stint was nearly a decade and my loyalty was based on the company’s values being aligned with mine and, like you say, being able to create great jobs for folks in a great environment was definitely worthwhile. That said, even great companies have some of these ridiculous oddities about them which I’ve enjoyed playfully lampooning.
30 years at a 100 year-old company is a pretty killer legacy! Good on you for that and being able to positively impact the community.
We need to do a “deep dive” on your delusions of importance Mr. Fate… haha.
These are all gems. “The delusion of importance” I don’t think ever really gets shattered until you have been laid off or left your career. Otherwise you’re stuck in the bubble and can’t see that as you point out, nothing you do is important at all. In the micro moment, it is all you can see.
My corporate-isms section is essentially as you so eloquently put it, “martyr brag.” I love that term. I’ll have to use it in real life.
Biggest thing I can’t wait to leave behind is probably a toss up between micromanagement and pure incompetence – doing something because I say do it, not because it makes any sense.
This one hit home – great one that I think anyone in the working world no matter how short a stint, should be able to relate to.
Great comment, dude. Literally had me laughing aloud! Yeah, the Delusion of Importance is surely real. Like you say, you don’t emerge from the spell’s glamour until you stop working be it lay-off or altogether. I was enchanted big-time.
Feel free to use the “Martyr Brag” term far and wide, particularly to those incompetent micromangers (double whammy). Agreed on the relatability of these articles which is why they always get a lot of reads. Something everyone in Office life has experienced and feels the same about.
Oh man, trite quotes and corporate jargon…. the Dept of Defense is big on that crap and since we work with the military we inherit all of theirs as well, and they’ve got some doozies. Me and a friend have considered writing a book about it, there’s just so many it’s an endless well.
Thanks for the comment, Dave. Oh yeah, what with the military and the government, there’s got to be a universe-class level of “non-words” and trite phrases bouncing all about the place. A book like that is absolutely needed!
well said as always, mr. fate. i remember when one of our policies changed for the worse in our large mega corp. it had to do with vacation accrual so instead of getting your 4-5 weeks off in the bank every jan. 1 you would accrue throughout the year proportionally. i remember observing that and saying it sucked that every single benefit becomes less from year to year. one of the shift supervisors who was near retirement defended the change as saving the company money. all i could think is “you dummy. it also means you are not getting YOUR 5 weeks pay as a send-off at retirement.” he wasn’t any executive, just a misguided loyalist who drank the kool-aid.
i can say it is often good to be just a peon who shows up to get paid (and go to the gym). if would not have lasted a week in your line of work with all the bullshit. kudos for surviving it.
Thanks Freddy, as always. Awesome example btw. No joke, I had 2 other topics on my list that did not make this article, one of which centered on bizarre loyalty. Yes “Misguided Loyalists” are a dildonic breed for certain. Only they would argue for or support a retrograde policy or something that’s actually a takeaway benefit. Definitely don’t miss those types.
I think you need to expand your trilogy into a book. I’m actually reading “Bullsh*t Jobs” by David Graeber right now, and it dovetails very nicely with your post. During my career, I’ve managed to eschew much of the annoying corporate BS that you speak of, but of course it’s impossible to avoid completely. Working remote now has definitely made things better, because I’m subjected to less of the chit-chat and incessant complaining. Another couple trite phrases for you: “unpack” and “capture”. We do so much capturing and unpacking of information during our meetings, it’s bonkers.
Thanks for the comment Adam. I’ll definitely check out Graeber’s book for sure. Grateful you’ve managed to escape much of the madness and I’m sure home-based work has mitigated it for many!
Yes, “capture” and “unpack” are fantastic, cringeworthy additions. Huh, this may be one of those trilogies with more than 3 parts!