Ever wonder how people end up in dead end jobs at 40?

[Roli]

There is no such thing as too late if you found your way here

Thanks, I genuinely appreciate that, I'll try and hold onto those words, I just feel like such a loser at the moment, I will keep going though, because the thought of giving up is even more depressing.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[ryanbleau]

I've just read every post from start to finish on this thread. I have so many feelings about this right now because it was the kick in the pants I've needed lately. Today was just another monday except my wife is working in Phoenix and my son cant go to daycare till 6:30 . So I roll in at 6:40 instead of my normal 6 am or earlier. New guy who just started TODAY decides to let me know that in California I'd be replaced if I couldnt meet the time requirements. This bothered me on a visceral level . I didnt move 2800 miles to work for someone else. I didnt come all this way to give up on what I wanted. Spending the last couple weeks with just my son has opened my eyes to a few very important things. I'm not going to be mortgaging my kids childhood. This is exactly the motivation I needed. Thank you

 

[Roli]

I've just read every post from start to finish on this thread. I have so many feelings about this right now because it was the kick in the pants I've needed lately. Today was just another monday except my wife is working in Phoenix and my son cant go to daycare till 6:30 . So I roll in at 6:40 instead of my normal 6 am or earlier. New guy who just started TODAY decides to let me know that in California I'd be replaced if I couldnt meet the time requirements. This bothered me on a visceral level . I didnt move 2800 miles to work for someone else. I didnt come all this way to give up on what I wanted. Spending the last couple weeks with just my son has opened my eyes to a few very important things. I'm not going to be mortgaging my kids childhood. This is exactly the motivation I needed. Thank you

You should have said something like "Yeah? In Vegas they punch out smart a$$ new guys who comment on people's lives they have just met."

Good luck on your journey of redemption

 

[MAU]

I've just read every post from start to finish on this thread. I have so many feelings about this right now because it was the kick in the pants I've needed lately. Today was just another monday except my wife is working in Phoenix and my son cant go to daycare till 6:30 . So I roll in at 6:40 instead of my normal 6 am or earlier. New guy who just started TODAY decides to let me know that in California I'd be replaced if I couldnt meet the time requirements. This bothered me on a visceral level . I didnt move 2800 miles to work for someone else. I didnt come all this way to give up on what I wanted. Spending the last couple weeks with just my son has opened my eyes to a few very important things. I'm not going to be mortgaging my kids childhood. This is exactly the motivation I needed. Thank you

Sometimes we need a good kick in the a$$ from outside events to get us moving. Mine was when I found I was always training the new guy and within months be would be my boss. Kinda like WTF? but once I realized that my ceiling had been hit, I moved on.

MAU

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Delmania]

Sometimes we need a good kick in the a$$ from outside events to get us moving. Mine was when I found I was always training the new guy and within months be would be my boss. Kinda like WTF? but once I realized that my ceiling had been hit, I moved on.

MAU

Some of us need multiple a$$-kickings to get over inertia.

 

[Vigilante]

I will add a few stories to fuel the fire, because they represent most workplaces in America. These stories are not unique to me.

Story #1
@ryanbleau's story IS my story. When I worked at Wal-Mart, the typical work day at their corporate offices was 6AM to 6PM. If you rolled in at 7:30am some morning, your boss was looking at his watch. The first few days, he might not say much, but make it a pattern and you're going to be called out. So the typical work day is roughly 12 hours a day. Need to leave some day at 4:40PM for a kids softball game? Once in a great while, you can get a "get out of jail card" but twice in one week? Forget about it. They consider it dedication. The other employees, or "associates" as they are called to help you numb the pain of being an employee, are the worst rats about it. Envy if you leave "early" creates angst on their part. If you routinely show up at 7:30am for your 9-5 job, your co-worker associates will take you down. The fact that a newbie called out Ryan comes as no surprise to me, when people try and climb over other people in a false perception of job security. The person who commented that to you Ryan is poison. Watch for it. This was only the first comment.

I quit Wal-Mart Corporate one Saturday morning, forced to attend Saturday "management" meetings which usually amounted to public floggings. Sam Walton preached that if the stores had to work weekends, so did the corporate employees. It was a holdover from the Henry Ford production days, when everyone worked six days a week.

So I was @ryanbleau. I sat in your chair. I dealt with the same assholes. Been there. I drank the same poison you are sipping on. I would like to tell you that my escape was easy. It wasn't. But I can tell you that when you claw your way out of the prison and slam the door shut behind you, you will never look back. I would and could never been an employee again. And I crawled out of the hole, starting from below $0. So, you can make it out. It's not going to be easy, and it's not going to be fast. But... almost all of the tools you need to do it are contained within MJ's book, and buried deep within the pages of this forum.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Story #2
I was at a Best Buy vendor meeting. Leading the vendor meeting was a giggly new "director" who was introduced as the "team lead" for this particular division of Best Buy. It was painfully apparent that she new nothing. This was accentuated by the fact that she said, to this group of vendors Best Buy had assembled, that she "knew nothing."

"It's a good thing" she said, "that her employee <<reference to red faced guy standing behind her>> knew everything because he was training her in." Giggle, giggle, giggle from her. Stark stares back from the vendors she was speaking to. They all liked the guy that worked for her that was tasked with teaching this monkey how to press the buttons. He got totally screwed, and she laughed about it in front of a room of his business peers.

Did you catch that? He was the guy that had worked for the company for a dozen years. He was the guy that sacrificed his weekends, hoping for the promotion. He was the guy that got passed over for the promotion, only for them to hire him a new boss who knew nothing. She laughed about it, alluded to that fact, in front of vendors who knew the whole story, and further emasculated the guy. Two years later, he quit. I wish I could tell you that his story had a happy ending, but he ended up in a similar situation to the guy in the OP.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Eventually, this corporate bullshit grind just wears you out to the point where you find yourself at age 40 or what ever, working in a mens clothing store while know nothing directors laugh with vendors at your expense. It was really sad to watch that vendor meeting, and his professional embarrassment played out on a very public stage.

To those of you in the fight, keep fighting. To those of you with a job (today), you need to psychologically take the edge back by looking at it as a game, and YOU decide when the checkmate is going to occur. While you are being the best employee your company ever had, you need to have a freedom date in mind. That will change your mindset. Every day when you walk in the door to train in your know nothing director, recognize she or her protege she is training to take your job will still be there when you are long gone. You having an END GAME in sight will make the days pass more tolerably, when you look at your current paycheck as a means to an end. The company doesn't own you. One day, you will emancipate yourself. This is the beginning of your story, not the end of it. The change for you can start with your own resolve.

Those of you have made your way to the forum have an above average chance of escaping the gerbil wheel than those who stay in the cocoon. Knowledge is the beginning of transformation. Draw energy from the people that have gone before you. The struggle is worth it. The planning is worth it. Burning the midnight oil with a wife or husband and two kids at home? Worth it. Freedom is worth it. Set some things in motion now that will create your path to escape down the road, and use that chess match and eventual victory as the thing that allows you to tolerate the seemingly intolerable existence of a worker who toils day after day to make somebody else money. They don't own you. That isn't your end game. You may need it today to pay your mortgage, but freedom is in front of you.

There are thousands of people just like you. They just don't happen to sit in the cubicle next to you, singing happy birthday to the office secretary as another piece of crisco-laden birthday cake breaks up the monotony of another Tuesday in the office. Your tribe is here at the Fast Lane Forum, and we're waiting for you to join us on the climb.

 

[Supa]

I will add a few stories to fuel the fire, because they represent most workplaces in America. These stories are not unique to me.

Story #1
@ryanbleau's story IS my story. When I worked at Wal-Mart, the typical work day at their corporate offices was 6AM to 6PM. If you rolled in at 7:30am some morning, your boss was looking at his watch. The first few days, he might not say much, but make it a pattern and you're going to be called out. So the typical work day is roughly 12 hours a day. Need to leave some day at 4:40PM for a kids softball game? Once in a great while, you can get a "get out of jail card" but twice in one week? Forget about it. They consider it dedication. The other employees, or "associates" as they are called to help you numb the pain of being an employee, are the worst rats about it. Envy if you leave "early" creates angst on their part. If you routinely show up at 7:30am for your 9-5 job, your co-worker associates will take you down. The fact that a newbie called out Ryan comes as no surprise to me, when people try and climb over other people in a false perception of job security. The person who commented that to you Ryan is poison. Watch for it. This was only the first comment.

I quit Wal-Mart Corporate one Saturday morning, forced to attend Saturday "management" meetings which usually amounted to public floggings. Sam Walton preached that if the stores had to work weekends, so did the corporate employees. It was a holdover from the Henry Ford production days, when everyone worked six days a week.

So I was @ryanbleau. I sat in your chair. I dealt with the same assholes. Been there. I drank the same poison you are sipping on. I would like to tell you that my escape was easy. It wasn't. But I can tell you that when you claw your way out of the prison and slam the door shut behind you, you will never look back. I would and could never been an employee again. And I crawled out of the hole, starting from below $0. So, you can make it out. It's not going to be easy, and it's not going to be fast. But... almost all of the tools you need to do it are contained within MJ's book, and buried deep within the pages of this forum.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Story #2
I was at a Best Buy vendor meeting. Leading the vendor meeting was a giggly new "director" who was introduced as the "team lead" for this particular division of Best Buy. It was painfully apparent that she new nothing. This was accentuated by the fact that she said, to this group of vendors Best Buy had assembled, that she "knew nothing."

"It's a good thing" she said, "that her employee <<reference to red faced guy standing behind her>> knew everything because he was training her in." Giggle, giggle, giggle from her. Stark stares back from the vendors she was speaking to. They all liked the guy that worked for her that was tasked with teaching this monkey how to press the buttons. He got totally screwed, and she laughed about it in front of a room of his business peers.

Did you catch that? He was the guy that had worked for the company for a dozen years. He was the guy that sacrificed his weekends, hoping for the promotion. He was the guy that got passed over for the promotion, only for them to hire him a new boss who knew nothing. She laughed about it, alluded to that fact, in front of vendors who knew the whole story, and further emasculated the guy. Two years later, he quit. I wish I could tell you that his story had a happy ending, but he ended up in a similar situation to the guy in the OP.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Eventually, this corporate bullshit grind just wears you out to the point where you find yourself at age 40 or what ever, working in a mens clothing store while know nothing directors laugh with vendors at your expense. It was really sad to watch that vendor meeting, and his professional embarrassment played out on a very public stage.

To those of you in the fight, keep fighting. To those of you with a job (today), you need to psychologically take the edge back by looking at it as a game, and YOU decide when the checkmate is going to occur. While you are being the best employee your company ever had, you need to have a freedom date in mind. That will change your mindset. Every day when you walk in the door to train in your know nothing director, recognize she or her protege she is training to take your job will still be there when you are long gone. You having an END GAME in sight will make the days pass more tolerably, when you look at your current paycheck as a means to an end. The company doesn't own you. One day, you will emancipate yourself. This is the beginning of your story, not the end of it. The change for you can start with your own resolve.

Those of you have made your way to the forum have an above average chance of escaping the gerbil wheel than those who stay in the cocoon. Knowledge is the beginning of transformation. Draw energy from the people that have gone before you. The struggle is worth it. The planning is worth it. Burning the midnight oil with a wife or husband and two kids at home? Worth it. Freedom is worth it. Set some things in motion now that will create your path to escape down the road, and use that chess match and eventual victory as the thing that allows you to tolerate the seemingly intolerable existence of a worker who toils day after day to make somebody else money. They don't own you. That isn't your end game. You may need it today to pay your mortgage, but freedom is in front of you.

There are thousands of people just like you. They just don't happen to sit in the cubicle next to you, singing happy birthday to the office secretary as another piece of crisco-laden birthday cake breaks up the monotony of another Tuesday in the office. Your tribe is here at the Fast Lane Forum, and we're waiting for you to join us on the climb.

Awesome post!

I'm writing this right now, while sitting at a desk at my job. Believe me I hate this job. Not really the work that needs to be done in that job, that could be worse, but I hate the fact that I have to work a job, that I have to drive there every damn morning, listening to the annoying job-loving discussions in every corner of the building.

I hate that. But at the same time I love it. I love it because it fuels my desire to break out of this hamster wheel even more. It is a daily reminder of what I want my life to NOT look like in 5 years. It is a daily reminder why the frustration and pain that may come from business are worth it.

I know that I will escape this hamster wheel someday, and I have a clear date in my mind. The days at the job are still tough to get through. It' still hard to sit there doing nonsense work for someone else, knowing that you could be sitting at home in front of your notebook working on YOUR business. But don't let the job take away your energy to work on your breakout plan. Use it to fuel your energy even more.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Vigilante]

Awesome post!

I'm writing this right now, while sitting at a desk at my job. Believe me I hate this job. Not really the work that needs to be done in that job, that could be worse, but I hate the fact that I have to work a job, that I have to drive there every damn morning, listening to the annoying job-loving discussions in every corner of the building.

I hate that. But at the same time I love it. I love it because it fuels my desire to break out of this hamster wheel even more. It is a daily reminder of what I want my life to NOT look like in 5 years. It is a daily reminder why the frustration and pain that may come from business are worth it.

I know that I will escape this hamster wheel someday, and I have a clear date in my mind. The days at the job are still tough to get through. It' still hard to sit there doing nonsense work for someone else, knowing that you could be sitting at home in front of your notebook working on YOUR business. But don't let the job take away your energy to work on your breakout plan. Use it to fuel your energy even more.

Look around you. The people that are sitting there will still be sitting there five years from now. You won't. Some of their faces will change, but the grind will remain the same long after you are gone.

Your freedom date, circled on the calendar, changes the game.

Take a walk at your allotted lunch break today. Clear your head. Get some fresh air. Think about your end game.

Today brings you one step closer to your escape hatch.

 

[If—]

Nothing short of escape is an option once you get it.

Yep, it's like the breaker tripped and can never be reset. Your sentence pretty much encapsulates the journey.

 

[ryanbleau]

Yep, it's like the breaker tripped and can never be reset. Your sentence pretty much encapsulates the journey.

And there in lies my current force for momentum. Thank you Vigilante

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[ZMan26]

Ha, made me cry thinking of all the frustration I go through right now just to avoid being that same guy.

Thanks for giving me a little bit more power to carry on...

God bless...

This is a long, rambling story I wanted to share with you after I was troubled by something I saw the other night. It's almost written as a short story. If you don't like a little introspection, or are reading for a business plan, skip this thread. Someone out there needed to hear this message, and I hope it gets in the hands of the people that needed to read this. Many of us might see ourselves through the eyes of the main character below. - Vigilante

I stopped in with my kid a few nights ago to a local sub sandwich shop, and the sad story written there is etched in my mind. In a combination of thankfulness and helpfulness, I pour out the story here like retelling of a dream. Only, this wasn’t a dream, but a glimpse into the desperate eyes of thousands of people across the United States. The forgotten ones, the failures of capitalism. The working class.

You can find my perception judgmental, until you realize that the story also marks the beginning of my story. I was this guy. Dropping out of school, I was working in retail. Young and not wise enough to realize the deck was stacked against me, I bucked the odds. Through a combination of tenacity and reinvention, I broke the mold. However, I can give you a glimpse into the life I saw a few nights ago, and give you eyes to see through the hands and into the heart and mind of the clerk, the salesperson, the forgotten ones.

I pulled into the sandwich shop, needing to get my kid a sandwich. Having spent the afternoon at an amusement park and her private swimming lessons, if I brought her fuel tank back on “empty” I would be answering to her mother. A ham and cheese better than nothing, we pulled my paid-for vehicle into the lot and went into the store. We ordered some food, and settled into a booth that she would spend the next fifteen minutes using as a jungle gym. She’s the kid that you hate sitting at the table next to.

It was then that I saw him, the 21 year old mirror image of me. Only, he was probably 48. Dressed in a cheap suit and tie, name tag slung around his neck like a noose, he was on a 29 minute escape from his evening shift at the mens clothing store a few doors down the mall. His suit was a little rumpled, which was probably OK as a quick scan of the parking lot indicated there probably were no customers to notice that night anyway. His eyes showed that he was a million miles away.

He was on about minute 10 of his 29 minute escape, an unpaid half hour that extended his required scheduled time by the same 29 minutes. You get a half hour break plus two fifteen minute breaks for every eight hours you work in the United States. A half hour isn’t really enough time to do anything, and most nights the time is spent sitting in the break room, watching the clock and wishing you were anywhere else. It's just enough time for you to settle in to your resentment of your job, and then the bell rings or the whistle blows and you are right back where you started from.

This wasn’t his first job, and likely wouldn’t be his last. A series of choices and setbacks had led him to this sandwich shop that night. He turned it over in his head, over and over and over again. When he left the clothing shop for his "break" his 24 year old boss told him to make sure he was back on time this time. As if there were another time that he hadn’t been. F*cker.

He looked at the clock on his 4th generation iPhone, and with 19 minutes left, his mind slipped away into another mindless game of Tetris. He set his personal high score last week, in what was probably his millionth game. High score. The occasion passed with nothing more than a quick flash on the screen, and then he was back folding shirts again.

His dinner that night cost him more than he made for the last hour. He had a base pay of $12 plus commission, but with no customers in the shop, there was no commission. Add to that he was required to take a half hour unpaid, and his sandwich cost him more than he made after taxes for nearly two hours.

The Tetris helped him forget. It helped him forget that his son's tuition was due tomorrow. He felt dead. He felt trapped. When he allowed himself to think about it, he couldn’t breathe. His ability to pretend it wasn’t happening ended when the credit card was declined, and then they started calling. Not sure what he was supposed to tell them. He put their number on ignore, but knew that was only going to make it all worse.

He looked at the clock as he drifted away into another game. 9 minutes left.

They told him tonight they were cutting his hours back to one hour less than full time. He’d have even less. He didn’t have anything to say. Where else would he go? When he took this job, he told himself it was just temporary. But last week turned into yesterday, which turned into today. And now he had to go home, and tell his wife he just got a pay cut.

6 minutes.

It was easier to just not think about it. Three more hours of standing around a store with no customers. It made no sense to him. He got mad. He thought about the fact that his time was worth so little to them that they would just have him stand around, folding shirts and paying him less than a sandwich. Last month, they changed the commission plan so that even the sales he did were subtracted from his “salary” before he got any commission. Tonight, though, that wouldn’t matter.

4 minutes.

He would almost rather be there than at home.

3 minutes. He slumped down in his chair. He didn’t want to be there. The sandwich made him sick, as the stress turned into a knot in his stomach. He started another game, and then realized he had to get back. Back to what? Back to nothing. Back to his time clock. He had to rush back to be on time to stand around.

He crumpled up his salary in the form of a sandwich wrapper, and headed towards the door. Making a left, he was the only one headed to the clothing store from the parking lot. He’d watch the clock roll towards 9PM, knowing his wife was likely to be asleep when he got home.

And tomorrow, it would start all over again.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


This forum gets dozens of thousands of hits per week. Many of them are people just like this guy, looking for something that can help them. Something that can encourage them. Something that can teach them. Maybe… maybe that guy is you.

These people are all around us. Capitalism requires it. There are more of them than there are of us. Most of them will never break out. Most of them will never find a way. Some won’t do it because they can’t, some won’t do it because they won’t. Some won’t do it because they think it is game over.

The guy in the sandwich shop reminded me of me. I was him. I fought like hell and found a way, but absent that I once wore his suit. Many of us did.

It’s not enough for you to take everything from this forum and use it for your own gain. It’s not enough for you to read the Millionaire Fast Lane, the Four Hour Work Week, start your business, and live happily ever after. Your life will still be devoid of meaning until you figure out how to reach people with scale and bring them with you.

Look deeply into the eyes of the clothing store clerk in the sandwich shop. At a minimum, lets realize that he deserves compassion. He may never make it. He may never find it. He may always live from day to day eating those shitty sandwiches. Showing you shirts. Folding shirts. And you and I? We look past him. We wonder why he's such an a**hole at the clothing store.

KAK left the forum. He then came back to reach more people in scale. MJ DeMarco could have just walked away, and never written the Millionaire Fast Lane.

I taught some classes last fall. Most of the people sitting in the class were in various stages of being that guy in the sandwich shop. I haven’t reached enough of them yet. We’re not all called to be teachers. Some can give back through philanthropy. Some can give back through teaching. Others through works or other ways of effecting people, either individually or in scale.

Not sure why I spent the time telling you all this, other than the realization that had my life taken some different turns, I could have been that guy in the sandwich shop. That guy is here. Reading this post. Rather than step around them when they find us, maybe we should do a better job here at the forum of helping them find a way.

What will your legacy look like?

 

[ryanbleau]

Vigilante this post made me buy the book. just placed the order. Walking thru the grocery store about to grab a six pack and realized i'd be paying the same for the book on amazon. Still bought the beer. also ordered the book. Been lurking here for a while and finally found something that resonated hard enough to move me to serious action

 

[Wal-Mart Vendor]

The manager of the cafeteria in my office building quit. His last day is next week. He got a new job slinging hash somewhere else for a little bit more money.

I watched him tell his "customers" that today. I watch them look back at him with glassy eyes. Nobody cares. It is not going to impact anybody's life but him and his family.

There will be some new guy there next week slinging the same hash. Different guy… Same food.

Make sure it is not you.

Love this!

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Wal-Mart Vendor]

Most of us don’t think we are good enough to get our dream job, to live the life our heart desires. Turns out behind every excuse of not quitting lies self-doubt. We blame the job not working out solely on ourselves. We are not smart enough, fast enough, political enough; leaving no room to explore possibility.

 

[daivey]

Another amazing post.

I got an amazing story today...

Our manager sat us down today and told us about how he is disappointed that our sales are down.... That we need to fall in line and make those calls and get that business... If we aren't on board, to get off the ship. Then he laid out this gem "you should wake up to come to work to work hard and aspire to do better in your job every day and to find better ways to do your job every day... I don't believe that you guys are here to collect a paycheck only, and if you are, then you should leave."

Should we work hard? Yes. Should we do our job, yes.. should we work smart? yes.... But sorry, I'm here for a paycheck only. I leave the "critical" thinking up to you boss man. It's your ship after all.

I will add a few stories to fuel the fire, because they represent most workplaces in America. These stories are not unique to me.

Story #1
@ryanbleau's story IS my story. When I worked at Wal-Mart, the typical work day at their corporate offices was 6AM to 6PM. If you rolled in at 7:30am some morning, your boss was looking at his watch. The first few days, he might not say much, but make it a pattern and you're going to be called out. So the typical work day is roughly 12 hours a day. Need to leave some day at 4:40PM for a kids softball game? Once in a great while, you can get a "get out of jail card" but twice in one week? Forget about it. They consider it dedication. The other employees, or "associates" as they are called to help you numb the pain of being an employee, are the worst rats about it. Envy if you leave "early" creates angst on their part. If you routinely show up at 7:30am for your 9-5 job, your co-worker associates will take you down. The fact that a newbie called out Ryan comes as no surprise to me, when people try and climb over other people in a false perception of job security. The person who commented that to you Ryan is poison. Watch for it. This was only the first comment.

I quit Wal-Mart Corporate one Saturday morning, forced to attend Saturday "management" meetings which usually amounted to public floggings. Sam Walton preached that if the stores had to work weekends, so did the corporate employees. It was a holdover from the Henry Ford production days, when everyone worked six days a week.

So I was @ryanbleau. I sat in your chair. I dealt with the same assholes. Been there. I drank the same poison you are sipping on. I would like to tell you that my escape was easy. It wasn't. But I can tell you that when you claw your way out of the prison and slam the door shut behind you, you will never look back. I would and could never been an employee again. And I crawled out of the hole, starting from below $0. So, you can make it out. It's not going to be easy, and it's not going to be fast. But... almost all of the tools you need to do it are contained within MJ's book, and buried deep within the pages of this forum.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Story #2
I was at a Best Buy vendor meeting. Leading the vendor meeting was a giggly new "director" who was introduced as the "team lead" for this particular division of Best Buy. It was painfully apparent that she new nothing. This was accentuated by the fact that she said, to this group of vendors Best Buy had assembled, that she "knew nothing."

"It's a good thing" she said, "that her employee <<reference to red faced guy standing behind her>> knew everything because he was training her in." Giggle, giggle, giggle from her. Stark stares back from the vendors she was speaking to. They all liked the guy that worked for her that was tasked with teaching this monkey how to press the buttons. He got totally screwed, and she laughed about it in front of a room of his business peers.

Did you catch that? He was the guy that had worked for the company for a dozen years. He was the guy that sacrificed his weekends, hoping for the promotion. He was the guy that got passed over for the promotion, only for them to hire him a new boss who knew nothing. She laughed about it, alluded to that fact, in front of vendors who knew the whole story, and further emasculated the guy. Two years later, he quit. I wish I could tell you that his story had a happy ending, but he ended up in a similar situation to the guy in the OP.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Eventually, this corporate bullshit grind just wears you out to the point where you find yourself at age 40 or what ever, working in a mens clothing store while know nothing directors laugh with vendors at your expense. It was really sad to watch that vendor meeting, and his professional embarrassment played out on a very public stage.

To those of you in the fight, keep fighting. To those of you with a job (today), you need to psychologically take the edge back by looking at it as a game, and YOU decide when the checkmate is going to occur. While you are being the best employee your company ever had, you need to have a freedom date in mind. That will change your mindset. Every day when you walk in the door to train in your know nothing director, recognize she or her protege she is training to take your job will still be there when you are long gone. You having an END GAME in sight will make the days pass more tolerably, when you look at your current paycheck as a means to an end. The company doesn't own you. One day, you will emancipate yourself. This is the beginning of your story, not the end of it. The change for you can start with your own resolve.

Those of you have made your way to the forum have an above average chance of escaping the gerbil wheel than those who stay in the cocoon. Knowledge is the beginning of transformation. Draw energy from the people that have gone before you. The struggle is worth it. The planning is worth it. Burning the midnight oil with a wife or husband and two kids at home? Worth it. Freedom is worth it. Set some things in motion now that will create your path to escape down the road, and use that chess match and eventual victory as the thing that allows you to tolerate the seemingly intolerable existence of a worker who toils day after day to make somebody else money. They don't own you. That isn't your end game. You may need it today to pay your mortgage, but freedom is in front of you.

There are thousands of people just like you. They just don't happen to sit in the cubicle next to you, singing happy birthday to the office secretary as another piece of crisco-laden birthday cake breaks up the monotony of another Tuesday in the office. Your tribe is here at the Fast Lane Forum, and we're waiting for you to join us on the climb.

 

[Vigilante]

Another amazing post.

I got an amazing story today...

Our manager sat us down today and told us about how he is disappointed that our sales are down.... That we need to fall in line and make those calls and get that business... If we aren't on board, to get off the ship. Then he laid out this gem "you should wake up to come to work to work hard and aspire to do better in your job every day and to find better ways to do your job every day... I don't believe that you guys are here to collect a paycheck only, and if you are, then you should leave."

Should we work hard? Yes. Should we do our job, yes.. should we work smart? yes.... But sorry, I'm here for a paycheck only. I leave the "critical" thinking up to you boss man. It's your ship after all.

The fallacy of management is pretty simple.

You'll never own the company.

You should work hard for the company for the paycheck and compensation you agreed to work for.

But at the end of the day, it's just a paycheck.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Delmania]

I sit here at my desk, and I can feel my life draining from me. I sit in an open office arrangement, so I don't have even have the luxury of privacy. Everyone can see what everyone is doing. When the team I am on mentioned this is not comfortable to our manager, he said he wasn't going back to open walls because that hampered communication and teamwork*. He, however, has a nice corner office with a door closed.

Second, like most Americans, my work is dead to me. Some background, I have a master's in computer science. I know there is a bias towards college here, but for me, it was genuinely worth it. I enjoy programming, and the concepts in computer science tickled my brain because merged together two loves of mine: math and programming. Meanwhile, I waste my life writing "textboxes over data" so a middle-aged divorced woman who micromanages me can fit an arbitrary number each month. Most of my life is wasted in emails, coordinating what should be simple changes. I've tried taking the approach that I am here for a paycheck, but it doesn't work. The stuff I create? Within 5 years is will be useless shit. More crappy software written so some other cog in the wheel can move the ball slightly faster. It's my contribution to helping my company make 3 billion a year, which has been a yearly goal for the past 5.

During a meeting, someone mentioned how we gained 10,000 customers, but lost nearly the same. These people tried to somehow make this relevant to the department I work in, which deals with telephone lines and networking lines. No good, nothing we do is customer facing. Our latest victoly was that we switched from fiber ring network to DWDM, so the bits move slightly faster. Relevant? Hardly. Customers won't care; employees don't give a shit because our proxy blocks any useful sites. The execs? Maybe? They don't care, they're too busy doing whatever the hell they're doing. The email was nothing more than mental masturbation for an achievement which does very little to make anyone's life remotely better.

Every day I come to work is a black hole for me. Will I be here in 5 years? No. I am currently seeking another job at a remote company. However, it will still be another job where someone else will tell me how to use my skills for their benefit.

For many reasons, I am not certain I will ever escape the corporate world.

But you, you reading these pathetic words of wallowing self-pity, can do it**:
* You can live below your means.
* You can work your a$$ off and make something.
* You can get in front of people, engage them, and make a difference in your lives.
* You can take your life by the reins and do what you need to do.

Never get sucked into that addictive drug known as a salary.
Never try to climb the Sisyphean corporate ladder.
Never forgot, your life is worth more than either of those.
Never forgot true wealth is when you are capable of spending your time doing what YOU want to do.
Never forget a few good friends are worth more than all your coworkers combined.

Always remember, if you don't live your life, someone else will gladly live it for you.

* Open offices do improve collaboration and communication, but at the expense of productivity and quality.
** Yes, I have been diagnosed with depression.

 

[Vigilante]

I sit here at my desk, and I can feel my life draining from me. I sit in an open office arrangement, so I don't have even have the luxury of privacy. Everyone can see what everyone is doing. When the team I am on mentioned this is not comfortable to our manager, he said he wasn't going back to open walls because that hampered communication and teamwork*. He, however, has a nice corner office with a door closed.

Second, like most Americans, my work is dead to me. Some background, I have a master's in computer science. I know there is a bias towards college here, but for me, it was genuinely worth it. I enjoy programming, and the concepts in computer science tickled my brain because merged together two loves of mine: math and programming. Meanwhile, I waste my life writing "textboxes over data" so a middle-aged divorced woman who micromanages me can fit an arbitrary number each month. Most of my life is wasted in emails, coordinating what should be simple changes. I've tried taking the approach that I am here for a paycheck, but it doesn't work. The stuff I create? Within 5 years is will be useless shit. More crappy software written so some other cog in the wheel can move the ball slightly faster. It's my contribution to helping my company make 3 billion a year, which has been a yearly goal for the past 5.

During a meeting, someone mentioned how we gained 10,000 customers, but lost nearly the same. These people tried to somehow make this relevant to the department I work in, which deals with telephone lines and networking lines. No good, nothing we do is customer facing. Our latest victoly was that we switched from fiber ring network to DWDM, so the bits move slightly faster. Relevant? Hardly. Customers won't care; employees don't give a shit because our proxy blocks any useful sites. The execs? Maybe? They don't care, they're too busy doing whatever the hell they're doing. The email was nothing more than mental masturbation for an achievement which does very little to make anyone's life remotely better.

Every day I come to work is a black hole for me. Will I be here in 5 years? No. I am currently seeking another job at a remote company. However, it will still be another job where someone else will tell me how to use my skills for their benefit.

For many reasons, I am not certain I will ever escape the corporate world.

But you, you reading these pathetic words of wallowing self-pity, can do it**:
* You can live below your means.
* You can work your a$$ off and make something.
* You can get in front of people, engage them, and make a difference in your lives.
* You can take your life by the reins and do what you need to do.

Never get sucked into that addictive drug known as a salary.
Never try to climb the Sisyphean corporate ladder.
Never forgot, your life is worth more than either of those.
Never forgot true wealth is when you are capable of spending your time doing what YOU want to do.
Never forget a few good friends are worth more than all your coworkers combined.

Always remember, if you don't live your life, someone else will gladly live it for you.

* Open offices do improve collaboration and communication, but at the expense of productivity and quality.
** Yes, I have been diagnosed with depression.

I assume you have watched (and pretty much your favorite movie is) Office Space.

If you haven't seen it, fake being sick right now, head right home and order it up on NetFlix.

 

[Delmania]

I assume you have watched (and pretty much your favorite movie is) Office Space.

If you haven't seen it, fake being sick right now, head right home and order it up on NetFlix.

I stopped watching it when it stopped being funny and more like a documentary...

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Vigilante]

Another one from the archives.

I had an assistant follow me around all day one day reminding me to be cordial to people. Really. All through Wal-Mart's corporate campus.

See, after I had been there for a long time (at Wal-Mart corporate) my boss said on a review that I wasn't cordial enough with my colleagues.

So the next day, I literally spent the day with one of my three full time clerical assistants walking around the office. ALL DAY.

I greeted people. I smiled at people. I stood around the water dispenser shooting the shit with people. I stopped and chatted up the front desk receptionist. The sample room worker. The mail clerk. i cube hopped. I worked the cafeteria. EVERYONE.

The whole time, my assistant was in tow, keeping track and telling me where I might have missed people along the way. Meanwhile, I got absolutely F*cking NOTHING done.

It was important on my review, even though my sales for my business were off the charts positive.

My boss called me in towards the end of the day and told me I needed to stop. Word had gotten out I was on a campaign to be cordial.

Which alone is FUNNY, because one of the office snitches did what they always did... when running into the big boss with the latest gossip.

It lasted exactly one day. She decided she wanted results over congeniality.

The review, however, stood as delivered.

 

[throttleforward]

Another one from the archives.

I had an assistant follow me around all day one day reminding me to be cordial to people. Really. All through Wal-Mart's corporate campus.

See, after I had been there for a long time (at Wal-Mart corporate) my boss said on a review that I wasn't cordial enough with my colleagues.

So the next day, I literally spent the day with one of my three full time clerical assistants walking around the office. ALL DAY.

I greeted people. I smiled at people. I stood around the water dispenser shooting the shit with people. I stopped and chatted up the front desk receptionist. The sample room worker. The mail clerk. i cube hopped. I worked the cafeteria. EVERYONE.

The whole time, my assistant was in tow, keeping track and telling me where I might have missed people along the way. Meanwhile, I got absolutely F*cking NOTHING done.

It was important on my review, even though my sales for my business were off the charts positive.

My boss called me in towards the end of the day and told me I needed to stop. Word had gotten out I was on a campaign to be cordial.

Which alone is FUNNY, because one of the office snitches did what they always did... when running into the big boss with the latest gossip.

It lasted exactly one day. She decided she wanted results over congeniality.

The review, however, stood as delivered.

I'd like to say this was different in a military environment...but it's not, at least not at headquarters with people who are "this" close to becoming a general officer, brigade commander, etc.

Wow.

 

[hellolin]

I sit here at my desk, and I can feel my life draining from me. I sit in an open office arrangement, so I don't have even have the luxury of privacy. Everyone can see what everyone is doing. When the team I am on mentioned this is not comfortable to our manager, he said he wasn't going back to open walls because that hampered communication and teamwork*. He, however, has a nice corner office with a door closed.

Second, like most Americans, my work is dead to me. Some background, I have a master's in computer science. I know there is a bias towards college here, but for me, it was genuinely worth it. I enjoy programming, and the concepts in computer science tickled my brain because merged together two loves of mine: math and programming. Meanwhile, I waste my life writing "textboxes over data" so a middle-aged divorced woman who micromanages me can fit an arbitrary number each month. Most of my life is wasted in emails, coordinating what should be simple changes. I've tried taking the approach that I am here for a paycheck, but it doesn't work. The stuff I create? Within 5 years is will be useless shit. More crappy software written so some other cog in the wheel can move the ball slightly faster. It's my contribution to helping my company make 3 billion a year, which has been a yearly goal for the past 5.

During a meeting, someone mentioned how we gained 10,000 customers, but lost nearly the same. These people tried to somehow make this relevant to the department I work in, which deals with telephone lines and networking lines. No good, nothing we do is customer facing. Our latest victoly was that we switched from fiber ring network to DWDM, so the bits move slightly faster. Relevant? Hardly. Customers won't care; employees don't give a shit because our proxy blocks any useful sites. The execs? Maybe? They don't care, they're too busy doing whatever the hell they're doing. The email was nothing more than mental masturbation for an achievement which does very little to make anyone's life remotely better.

Every day I come to work is a black hole for me. Will I be here in 5 years? No. I am currently seeking another job at a remote company. However, it will still be another job where someone else will tell me how to use my skills for their benefit.

For many reasons, I am not certain I will ever escape the corporate world.

But you, you reading these pathetic words of wallowing self-pity, can do it**:
* You can live below your means.
* You can work your a$$ off and make something.
* You can get in front of people, engage them, and make a difference in your lives.
* You can take your life by the reins and do what you need to do.

Never get sucked into that addictive drug known as a salary.
Never try to climb the Sisyphean corporate ladder.
Never forgot, your life is worth more than either of those.
Never forgot true wealth is when you are capable of spending your time doing what YOU want to do.
Never forget a few good friends are worth more than all your coworkers combined.

Always remember, if you don't live your life, someone else will gladly live it for you.

* Open offices do improve collaboration and communication, but at the expense of productivity and quality.
** Yes, I have been diagnosed with depression.

That's funny, I just started my first new job after college as a junior developer, and I was pretty luck to get hired even though I didn't know much about programming to start with. Right now the company is paying me good money to train me and let me learn, and I'd say that like you, I do enjoy working with programming since it's not a brain dead job. I wonder if a couple years down the road when I am finally being good at it, will I be feeling the same as you? This is why I kept telling my friend in the company who works beside me, who also got me this job, that my end goal is not to advance much in the company but to learn programming using this job and make something out my own in the future. Even though our jobs might be draining us, but you can not denial that tech jobs are one of the few jobs that pays good right now and tech skills are one of the skills most suitable to start your own side job at the moment.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[marklov]

This Forum is really something special.

My now Favorite thread.

 

[TedM]

Being able to shut it down at anytime and spend the day/week/month with the people that matter....

that is the equivalent of "My Lamborghini Moment."

Amen

 

[Delmania]

That's funny, I just started my first new job after college as a junior developer, and I was pretty luck to get hired even though I didn't know much about programming to start with. Right now the company is paying me good money to train me and let me learn, and I'd say that like you, I do enjoy working with programming since it's not a brain dead job. I wonder if a couple years down the road when I am finally being good at it, will I be feeling the same as you? This is why I kept telling my friend in the company who works beside me, who also got me this job, that my end goal is not to advance much in the company but to learn programming using this job and make something out my own in the future. Even though our jobs might be draining us, but you can not denial that tech jobs are one of the few jobs that pays good right now and tech skills are one of the skills most suitable to start your own side job at the moment.

You know how to program? Good. Let me introduce you to the other 18.2 million people that can program*. You'd like to make your mark using your programming skills? Good. Knowing how to program makes you valuable. Learning how to market makes you dangerous. There's a trend here to teach you to learn copywriting. Don't bother, you know programming; but you do need to learn to market because before you launch your next great idea, you want to know for sure people will buy it. There are resources aplenty for this. This site is a great one. Coursera has a free course on marketing that first year MBAs take. I recommend it.

However, you are competing with 18.2 other people in this world. That's good for you because 99.9% of them are dark matter developers. They come into their grey cubicles, write some shitty Java code, push it some bloated application server, and watch as some exec's stock options go up 0.001%. But not you. You're on this forum, you need to own this shit. You need to get good at this shit. How well do you know core computer science topics? People spew out you don't need to learn computer science to be a good programmer, and they're right. But you, you don't want to be a good programmer, you want to be a great programmer, because as you start your trek on the fastlane, you're going to work with other programmers, and the more solid your technical understanding is, the more you can drive towards the result you want. Learning to program without know computer is like learning to write copy without understanding how to market or the psychology of persuasion. You'll get good at it, but you won't master it. Sure, you can hire someone to program, but if you read these forums, people have mixed results with that and most fall back to learning to code themselves, because writing and managing software is a complex beast.

Don't stick with whatever language your company uses. Go beyond. Learn languages like LISP, Elixir, Clojure. Languages that challenge your understanding of computation. Branch out in other areas. Systems thinking, philosophy, mathematics. The more you look at other fields, the more crucial connections your brain will make, the more you'll see opportunities where others see nothing.

Learn iOS programming and launch something. Not because people want your shitty app, they don't. Do it because you'll learn how to build and release something without the hand holding of mega corp.

The reason people end up in dead jobs is because they don't own their lives. They are like passengers on a train, watching the world go by and expecing to be taken care of. The concept of working at the same job for 40 years and retiring is a tired old like shoved down our throats. The concept of working your way up the ladder is the same shit with different wrappings. You need to own your life.

In a few years, you had better not understand how I feel, because you better have a successful launch or a job that fits in with your life's purpose. Now back to writing shit forms apps that talk to databases.

* Of course, there is a shortage.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Wal-Mart Vendor]

Another one from the archives.

I had an assistant follow me around all day one day reminding me to be cordial to people. Really. All through Wal-Mart's corporate campus.

See, after I had been there for a long time (at Wal-Mart corporate) my boss said on a review that I wasn't cordial enough with my colleagues.

So the next day, I literally spent the day with one of my three full time clerical assistants walking around the office. ALL DAY.

I greeted people. I smiled at people. I stood around the water dispenser shooting the shit with people. I stopped and chatted up the front desk receptionist. The sample room worker. The mail clerk. i cube hopped. I worked the cafeteria. EVERYONE.

The whole time, my assistant was in tow, keeping track and telling me where I might have missed people along the way. Meanwhile, I got absolutely F*cking NOTHING done.

It was important on my review, even though my sales for my business were off the charts positive.

My boss called me in towards the end of the day and told me I needed to stop. Word had gotten out I was on a campaign to be cordial.

Which alone is FUNNY, because one of the office snitches did what they always did... when running into the big boss with the latest gossip.

It lasted exactly one day. She decided she wanted results over congeniality.

The review, however, stood as delivered.

This made my day..chew that fat! Thanks for the laugh!

 

[Vigilante]

This made my day..chew that fat! Thanks for the laugh!

If I told you the SVP of consumer electronics I was working for at the time (Sam's Club division) you'd probably know who she was.

 

[Vigilante]

I single handedly caused the end of casual Fridays at Best Buy company for the entire company. I will tell you all that story some other time. My stories run together in my mind and I can't remember if I told ya'll that one yet or not.

Now every day is casual day for me. My new office was arranged to be right by a back exit door so I can slip in, get some shit done without talking to any employees, and slip out without caring who I see, what I am dressed like, and who might care. Don't care. Zero F*cks given. Tee shirt, flip flops, and board shorts. It's a holdover from when I ruined casual Fridays for everyone else.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Wal-Mart Vendor]

If I told you the SVP of consumer electronics I was working for at the time (Sam's Club division) you'd probably know who she was.

Ha are we talking Nona Garrett or Kathleen Motheraol?

 

[maverick]

Great read. The truth is that you might have a great paying job but you could still end up in the same trap. If your expenditures match or exceed your income, it doesn't matter how much you earn.