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Is there any way to trigger a FTE or does it have to come naturally?
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Mental masturbation, don't worry about itIs there any way to trigger a FTE or does it have to come naturally?
So this is an open call for everyone to share their "FTE" story, otherwise known as their "F*ck This Event."
A "F*ck this event" is an incident in your life that pushes you over the ledge of a SCRIPTED existence. It is a pejorative "I've had it!" or a "I can't live like this!" moment that screams it's time for you to change.
Interest moves to commitment. Thinking moves to action. Desire moves to obsession.
I described mine in both books -- getting stranded in a limousine on the side of the road in a blizzard.
What event in your life screamed to your
I worked as a manager of a movie theater. There are 2 moments that are the reasons I left that company. The first was a group of teenagers that came in and their sole objective (I perceived it this way at least) was to cause the most commotion in the building as possible. They did everything from put their hands in the way of the projector, to screaming while the movie was actively playing. We make the decision to remove them from the premises, and I drew the short straw (mainly because I was already helping a group of ushers clean a nearby screen). I walk into their movie, and I ask them politely to leave the theater. The first kid looks at me, and offers me a skittle. I refuse, and then he looks over at his friend and says "is it because he's black?" I respond no, and give them all of the reasons as to why. They finally get out of their seats, and then stop at the doorway of their screen and talk to my employees about how I was so mean to them, and how can they put up with such a horrible manager. I walk up, and the kid offers me another skittle, I again refuse and tell them to leave again. I then have to follow them out. They walk back in 15 minutes later and hang out in the lobby. I later that night had to kick out their friends for screen hopping, and yelling in theaters that they shouldn't have been in. The bigger one was watching one of my fellow managers get physically assaulted by a patron, because that particular patron talked through an entire movie (allegedly) and another patron was mad about it. A huge fight broke out after that, and I had to call the cops. One of the patrons threatened to pull out the handgun he had on him, because the other one was allegedly saying rude things about his wife. And BTW I was making $14 an hour for this.So this is an open call for everyone to share their "FTE" story, otherwise known as their "F*ck This Event."
A "F*ck this event" is an incident in your life that pushes you over the ledge of a SCRIPTED existence. It is a pejorative "I've had it!" or a "I can't live like this!" moment that screams it's time for you to change.
Interest moves to commitment. Thinking moves to action. Desire moves to obsession.
I described mine in both books -- getting stranded in a limousine on the side of the road in a blizzard.
What event in your life screamed to your soul, "ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!"?
View attachment 14851
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UNSCRIPTED: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Entrepreneurship by MJ DeMarco, international best-selling author of The Millionaire Fastlane
Wow, doesn't this goes to show that the hospitals are pretty focused on money now more than ever? I want to let you know that you're not a rebel, more like a realist and no bs type of person. Wish you well in life!The biggest one I remember was right after the May, 2011 Joplin tornado.
I worked in the collections dept. at the hospital that didn't get wiped out.
For maybe 2 weeks after the disaster we only collected on accounts outside of the "red" zone.
Then we resumed all collections.
Massive hospital debts people already couldn't afford.
I had to call and let them know, despite not having a home or a car or half their family .. the hospital still wanted its money.
A few days later I quit and started selling lego portraits.
To be fair, I'm pretty sure I was born with the word "rebel" stamped on my forehead.
Wow, this really quite bad for a minimum wage employee. Hopefully you'll won't have any kind of experiences like this ever again. Thank you for telling your FTE, this made me think again about most jobs and how most jobs are set to be just above minimum wage. Thank you.I worked as a manager of a movie theater. There are 2 moments that are the reasons I left that company. The first was a group of teenagers that came in and their sole objective (I perceived it this way at least) was to cause the most commotion in the building as possible. They did everything from put their hands in the way of the projector, to screaming while the movie was actively playing. We make the decision to remove them from the premises, and I drew the short straw (mainly because I was already helping a group of ushers clean a nearby screen). I walk into their movie, and I ask them politely to leave the theater. The first kid looks at me, and offers me a skittle. I refuse, and then he looks over at his friend and says "is it because he's black?" I respond no, and give them all of the reasons as to why. They finally get out of their seats, and then stop at the doorway of their screen and talk to my employees about how I was so mean to them, and how can they put up with such a horrible manager. I walk up, and the kid offers me another skittle, I again refuse and tell them to leave again. I then have to follow them out. They walk back in 15 minutes later and hang out in the lobby. I later that night had to kick out their friends for screen hopping, and yelling in theaters that they shouldn't have been in. The bigger one was watching one of my fellow managers get physically assaulted by a patron, because that particular patron talked through an entire movie (allegedly) and another patron was mad about it. A huge fight broke out after that, and I had to call the cops. One of the patrons threatened to pull out the handgun he had on him, because the other one was allegedly saying rude things about his wife. And BTW I was making $14 an hour for this.
Tl;dr having no power to actually do anything to handle any situation despite having the responsibility to handle those types of situations for what is today's standards minimum wage.
Wow man, thank you for posting that.I've had several of these in my life. I look at my paths as stepping stones and at each hop to a new stone, I had a FTE that led to the hop.
Then I look at the different paths I had that had their hops:
The ones that stood out the most that really made my blood boil came down to job/career and business.
- Relationships
- Job/Career
- Business
- Health
- several other small areas like family/being social, etc
In a nutshell, I was working a job to make someone else rich. I was a loyal employee before I "opened my mind" and I would work with dedication and earnest for the employers I worked for. Some of my FTEs while being employed ( summarizing them ):
- Working on the weekends, not getting paid. Happened a lot while an hourly employee. Ended up getting a settlement check for this though years later from the employer in a class action lawsuit. Looks like I wasn't the only one.
- Was asked at one of my jobs to get rid of my current freelance clients in order to work there, which I followed through with. I only had a few clients, which barely paid the bills for me so I thought it wasn't much of a loss to land this full-time job that would make me more per month. Got laid off 3 months later. Which was after getting this employer to top 3 positions in Google for 1,000s of major top keywords they still enjoy to this day. Couldn't get my old clients back because they found someone else to help them when I couldn't for those 3 months. Was without money for me and my family of 5 for next 9 months. Had to request unemployment which I was denied ( never could figure this out ), and had to get my kids on passport health plan and food stamps and look like a total loser to my wife.
- Passed over for Director level position even though I was promised it and next in line... AND after I hand built the department I was in by myself over 3 years from $10,000 in annual billings to over $5m. Instead, they brought someone in they did not know at all to be Director, who lied on their resume, who was working remotely ( but I was denied this benefit 4 times the last 3 years ) and then this new person ended up firing me based on a lie for something they said I did on my approved day off. This new person stayed on another year before they got canned. No one cared at the company though, and now this company is hitting the shitter.
- Promised equity in a new 2nd business as part of a negotiated lowered salary for a CMO role in a current business. New 2nd business was canceled within 6 months of me coming on by the owner, but he wouldn't raise my salary in the current business though to compensate for the broken promise and killed plans/expectations. He also wouldn't hire a CTO to handle tech issues which I then took on myself too just to get things rolling. Later on, I was laid off because the owner was too busy cheating on Ashley Madison and acting like a "gangsta with money" every month with new luxury cars, condos, and vacations that he ended up hurting the cash-flow of the business and ended up getting rid of 60% of his employees. I was basically cheated out of a lot of pay.
- Was laid off due to VC money coming into company and VCs wanted no remote employees. I just helped this company earn $38m that year from $400,000 the year before though. While leaving the company, they asked me to turn over my FB account ( my personal one ) because attached to it was highly successful ad campaigns I created on my own spare time that was sending leads to them. I didn't turn it over and I was their #1 lead generator. They wanted the account instead of paying me for it afterward even though they also just laid me off for a BS reason ( no more remote employees ). They wanted to lay me off, take away my only source of income, ( my personal FB ad account ) and not compensate me for it.
- Was promised a years worth of salary was ready for me at a new startup before I came on board. Left the current position I was at to join this new company to find out they lied and ran out of money in month 4. They were so busy buying t-shirts, swag, cell phones and other BS, they didn't make any sales and had to let me go.
- Promised 7 hour work days, paid for health/dental/401k benefits, and negotiated extra's ( cell phone, internet expenses ). Ended up working 9-12 hours days. Never got a dime for health or any benefit at all and never seen a penny for internet or cell phone expenses. Company was strict about filling out your timecard daily to make sure you put in 7 hours at least. Cared more about this then the fact they piled people with so much work that they worked 12 hours days instead of focusing on their benefit of "35 hour work week". They looked at your timecard during the day, they knew you already clocked 7 hours by 1pm but didn't care and still piled you on with more work due by end of that day. When brought up, was told "sometimes you have to put in extra to get stuff done". What's the purpose of a 7 hour work day then as a benefit? They were so strict about this timecard BS that I stressed out about it and when I hit 7 hours, I stopped putting in more time just so I could focus on quality work. Many times I was so stressed I just got to 7 and anything over 7 I would bank for the next day so I wouldn't have to stress about it and had a little buffer so I could focus on just work.
- After working 1 position for 24 months ( that 12 people now do as indiv jobs - I visited the company a few years later ), I asked for a raise from $26,000 a year to $30,000 on my 2 year anniversary. Was told, " we don't have the budget". I quit and went to work at another company where I did less work and was paid the $30k I wanted. 4 months later the old company calls me up wanting me back offering me even less work and $32,000. Where'd the money come up in just 4 months? Hmmmmm. I actually ended up going back to work for this company and negotiated remote work too "when the numbers looked good". Well, I took their sister company from 0 sales to $1m in less than 12 months once I came back on, and on my yearly ( now 3rd year total ) asked for my remote work benefit. Was told I could "maybe" get 1 day to work from home per week. I quit that week because it was known I wanted to work full time ( all 5 days ) from home when I came back.
- Boss intermingles in my company email inbox ( which I am fine with, it's his company ) and jumps into convos I am having with clients routinely via email and I never know when this happens because I am not CC'd on it or it comes in after hours and is missing sections in the reply'd email. This happens daily, several times a day. Even though he is "trying" to help, it's basically micro-management and it confuses me, the client, and causes a ton of productivity loss to recoup and try to figure out what has been done and promised to the client and start back at zero again to resume work that is now added to my plate. In the end, it was a cluster F*ck daily and tons of stress to sort through. This process routinely delayed projects by more than a week several times and caused errors in peoples ad accounts where he jumped in, misunderstood, and made changes in their account that I had to later undo and fix only after the client complained about it. In this role, I was the "only PPC guy" managing over 50 PPC clients weekly.
- Being told I need to do work that employee B, C, and D can't do or can't handle even though it's their assigned job role and function. Even though I technically know how to do it, it's not my job function and this is happening all the time daily. An example of this would be me being hired to manage multiple PPC campaigns at an agency. For some reason I am now told I have to write the copy for the website and also do the social media and SEO work. Employees B, C, and D can't do it for X reason or can't handle it ( even though that is what they were hired for ), but now I am suppose to. I don't get paid their salaries though in combination with mine and I am also not allowed more hours to get the work done. I don't mind to help out in a time of need or crunch, but this is daily ongoing for months and isn't just 1 or 2 projects, but like multiple spread over 90 clients, EVERY SINGLE DAY for months on end.
- Laid off from a startup because I wouldn't move to San Francisco so the company could be close to investors. Helped this company go from basically 0 sales to their first 50k customers and 500k in sales. This success helped them later get into Y Combinator and get funding from a Shark Tank investor. All wasn't lost, I did have some equity and was able to cash out on that, but being told you are getting let go because you don't live in X place even though the company was pretty much all remote was tough.
- Another agency I was at, they routinely could not pay me on time. They expected me to always meet deadlines and would be rather harsh if I wasn't on time with the deadline. I'm OK with that, but then they would never meet their payroll. I would wait a week or 2 on the check and was told, "it was sent" but it was ALWAYS late without fail. One time I waited 4 full weeks and the check didn't come. When I asked about it I was told, "oh we havent been paid yet by X,Y,Z client, so we can't process payroll". Hmmmm, ok. Could you have at least told your employees this before it happened? I had to contact you to find out about your failure to meet your obligations? I was then told they didn't know when they could process payment but I was "first on the list" to be paid. These people would also take lots of time ( 4-5 days ) to answer a simple email or voice mail which would delay my projects causing me to be late on them, which they would in turn be harsh to me about.. lol
- Another agency, would only pay me via Paypal. Seriously.
I was told all of that normal " we're a family here", "we love our co-workers and will do anything for them", and "anything you need, we are all here for you" BS that companies try to tell you about culture and family work environment. I was told, upon first hire, if this ended up an issue for me ( because of fees ), they would work out another solution. I took the role thinking in 3-4 weeks I would bring it up as an issue. And I did bring it up... every month for a full year as Paypal was taking thousands of dollars in fees ( for the year, total ) on the pay I was getting. Was told every time nothing they could do as their "bank" doesn't do ACH wires. I gave up asking after 12 months of pleading, and 30 days AFTER I GAVE UP we hire a new person who has an issue with Paypal payments too. All of a sudden we start getting ACH wires because of the new hire, but I was out thousands of dollars in fee's from the last 12 months which never got recouped. I checked the bank info the money was sent from with Paypal, against the ACH info I was now getting and the info was the EXACT same bank.
- Was working with an agency for 9 months doing plain PPC management and day to day as their Director. I came up with an idea to target customers no one else was doing online ( I researched it for months to make sure this was new ). As a new way to target customers, I came up with multiple use cases and tested it out on my own dime too. When confident, I approached the agency and pitched the idea as a partnership between me and them to start a new company doing this lucrative method exclusively . They agreed. I was to do the work in the new biz ( while still being employed in the old biz ), and they were to sell the product to their customer base. I was going to be 51% owner of the new venture. INSTEAD, they told the idea to another agency who ran with it and 3 weeks later I'm invited to a new call out of the blue with our "new partners" who would be selling it, and "us" would be working it ( meaning me by myself while my employer still retained 49% of the new company and did nothing ). I immediately went Bezerk as this was theft of my idea and method and had tons of phone calls back and forth with everyone. The other "new agency" decided to drop out and run it all on their own, by themselves, and is now the market leader for this new marketing I invented on my own as my employer told them how to do everything. I quit the company I was at after this and they blamed me for costing them "lost revenue" in the deal.
- I'm hired into a new role of PPC management for an agency to handle clients that they are picking up. My boss, for some odd reason, confuses information and doesn't bill our clients for 6 months because he thought someone in another department was doing that. When found out, it is decided to cut my position ( no longer needed ) and ditch trying to "have clients" as an income stream. My boss and the people in the other department keep their jobs for another 3 years though while I get let go. WTF?
- This next one might be a bit controversial, but I think it highlights the "bad deal" you get out of working for someone else as a w2 or even a 1099. I get why companies do this and how, but its still a bad deal for you in the end. Essentially, several companies I have worked for.. I brought with me certain copywriting and advertising techniques I've learned over the years. Think things like swipe files, ad formatting, use of certain images, certain emoji's, audiences, tricks/etc.. This is all fine and dandy while employed and getting a paycheck, but when you get laid off or let go and you find out that 9 months later the company is still using those assets you brought to the table ( that they never had prior or knew about ), it stings a bit to know they are still profiting from your work and ideas and using them today, while you might be still job hunting and trying to put food on your table. Right now today, I still see ad angles for at least 2 companies that were close to bankruptcy the day I signed on to them.. using my swipe file copy on the ads too.. that are making a ton of money on years later after they laid me off. However, I was left scrambling at the last minute and had to rebuild up for months after they let me go. Bad deal...
Needless to say, I haven't been employed as a w-2 for a while now. People think it's a "safe" bet and it has never been that in my experience.
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