These days corporate life does more harm than good to men. Yes, many of us need it to keep our heads above water financially, but in the long-term it damages us tremendously. The risks of spending all your working years in corporate life are many.
You have no control over your livelihood when working for a large corporation. In addition, your potential will be capped, not to mention you will have your soul sucked out on a regular basis. I am not saying go out and quit your job today, as mentioned you do need to sustain yourself. What I am saying is if you do not have a backup plan you will run into some problems down the line.
The workplace used to be an area where a man can go, work hard, and get ahead. His efforts at least seemed in some part to produce positive results for his own life. These days it seems corporate life is just a mirror of how our government is set up.
Identity politics have replaced hard work. A company is no longer an area where a man can feel pride, in fact the opposite is true. These days, with enhanced human resources departments, a man is being neutered by his company. Corporate life is not conducive to our growth and development. I have seen too many guys have their lives ruined by being loyal to their employer. Below are some risks and negatives of corporate life for men.
Harassment Accusations in Corporate Life
You knew this one was coming, but it bears repeating. These days a man could lose his job and reputation by a woman merely accusing him of wrongdoing. I mentioned this in my article here , but I will share again a situation I witnessed first-hand.
In my last company a new employee “was befriended” by two women. One day he is scrolling his phone, out of the blue, one of the girls grabs it from him to look at a picture. She proceeds to go through some other images and sure enough finds something she did not like. He was fired two days later.
Let us be clear, there is no trial today. Men are guilty and that is that. All those weeks or months you spent securing a job. Throw that out the window, it is over because of an mere accusation. Some social justice warrior does not like what you are saying, you are back on the unemployment line. Regardless of if it’s a reality, a misinterpretation or some hag who thinks you are toxic…your career could be ended. I am not saying harassment never happens, I am saying show me the proof before destroying a man’s life.
This Includes Raising Your Voice …
As a side, women also will get you fired if you are mean to them. Seriously, my old boss fell victim to this. He took over for a woman who was useless, never showed up to work, yet held the position for 10 years. This man was in the position for 6-months and gets fired because he loses his temper a here and there. He did it to me about 20 times and I brushed it off or went back at him, this is what men do. The ladies tattled to HR and he lost his job. So what he doubled revenues in the short time he ran the department, he was mean to the women!
Clear Discrimination Towards Men
Did you know that because some other women were screwed over by a man in the workplace, it is perfectly acceptable to screw YOU over now? Apparently, that is the case. There is a push to move women up the ranks. I have no problem with a woman having a high up position if she is capable. My problem rests with choosing a woman over a man to fill a quota.
This happens a lot, I know I was the victim of this sort of favoritism. Corporate life has allowed men to be overtly discriminated against. My former boss (the useless woman I mentioned earlier) created a role for her yoga buddy (literally) that was exactly the same title as a male coworker of mine. By all accounts he was doing a good job, but this role was added anyway…doing something “different” was the company line. 4-months later he was laid off, a guy who was with the company for over 15 years, the yoga buddy remains.
I have heard this story time and time again. Companies basically state it with initiatives to push women forward. What does that mean? Men are to take a back seat in corporate life. This will go double if there is a woman in charge. I guess discrimination is ok in corporate life if the right people are being discriminated against.
Corporate Life Makes You Fat
If you are a man in the office, look around, how many well-nourished people do you see? There are many reasons for this, but the result is the same. Corporate life is terrible for a man’s health.
You are expected to sit for 9 hours at a time, at least, just looking busy. Humans are not built for this type of sedentary lifestyle. We evolved to move, but in corporate life you are basically chained to your desk. Usually by the time you get home from the office after fighting through traffic you are too tired to go to the gym. It almost seems purposeful, how they mentally wear you out.
Let us not forget how corporations “reward” their workers. No need for money when you can buy Costco pizza and supermarket cupcakes. A friend of mine once did an experiment. He wanted to see how many days he could walk through the office and get free food. I believe he gave up after 8 months…there is always some slop that is being handed out. Like I said I almost think it is done on purpose. Fat, weak men are easier to control.
Trading Time for Money
In corporate life, really any job, but especially corporate jobs, you are trading time for money. When I owed rental properties, I went on vacation or sat around on a Sunday and I still got paid. There is still work in owning rentals, but at times I made money in my sleep once all the upfront things to do are complete.
In a job you do not show up, you do not get paid. You may burn through PTO, but for the most part you only get money when you are physically there. Here is the worst of it, it does not matter if you produced anything of value when you are at the office (or home these days).
I think the reason this is the worst part about trading time for money, is it gives you a false sense of productivity. How many people slave away in an office, and get almost nothing accomplished? People brag about working 60 hours a week, but they do not really do anything. Trading time for money is rewarding people to be less productive.
Not Paid for What You Create
A related outcome is that since you are getting the same amount of money day in and day out you do not get rewarded properly. If I save my company 5 million dollars, I may get a phony blue-ribbon award or some other made up hack corporate trophy.
You get paid the same amount if you provide millions in value or if you provide squat. You may argue, “but I will get a bigger raise and bonus”. Managers do not remember the work you put in 5 months earlier, you will get the same standard 3% as you always did.
There is No Meaning in Your Work
How many people in corporate life feel a connection to what they are doing? More likely than not you are just trying to mindlessly get through the day. I am not saying you need some great passion for your job.
I do believe we have to feel like there is some sort of meaning to what we are trying to accomplish. There is no greater hell than putting in nine or ten hours a day, for years or even decades and feeling like you did not make one bit of difference. Like all you did was push papers around and there was no purpose to your work. That is what corporate life has to offer.
Much of the reason for this is the fact that there are so many jobs that are just bull. Jobs that seem to add no value, if (and when) these positions are cut no one even notices.
Then there are the jobs that do provide some purpose but are filled overwhelmingly with minutia. Meetings and projects that go nowhere and reports that no one reads. Sometimes I think that shoveling horse manure would be better. At least at the beginning of the day I saw a pile of manure and at the end of the day it would be gone…I would feel like I accomplished something. In corporate life there is no sense of accomplishment.
You Associate with Losers
If you are back in the office, look to your left and then to your right…what do you see? Most likely overweight losers. The men especially seemed to have given up on life. They wear their khaki pants and short sleeved collar shirts with the company logo on them as their belly hangs past their waist.
Their conversations are especially boring, god once football season starts up these overweight losers take pride (or feel shame) from their team where they happen to live. These guys wear the jerseys of 24-year old kids who make thirty times what they make for playing a game! On top of that they tie their sense of accomplishment to how these kids do on the field. How else can they be seen, but as losers? I like football, but my happiness does not equate to how the Giants do.
Now you are associating with these awful people daily. They say you are an average of the five people you spend the most time with. Do you really want to be an average of the idiots at your job? These men who get bossed around by their wives, who are weak and in debt? Most have no goals outside of hitting Taco Bell after work. They bore you with stories of little Johnny’s little league game because they have nothing else going on in their lives.
Your Stress is Through the Roof
There is a reason why men are having heart attacks more frequently these days, and it is not only our diets. I touched on health earlier in terms of weight gain but let us take it a step further and talk about stress. Stress is a huge factor in many diseases and health. Read here to learn more about this. Corporate life causes much more stress than is necessary
There is a constant pressure to perform as well as deadlines for projects that will go nowhere anyway. You go from looking for work to do to running at full speed. Much of the stress is when something happens that is out of your control. Your boss will come down on you about a problem that costs the company money. The CEO should be blaming himself for the policies that he (or more likely she) implemented. Yet, somehow everything is your fault. You are under pressure to fix it.
You may go days trying to look busy, then a report that takes a week to do will be given a deadline of C.O.B. Now you are sitting there until 9PM working, taking a toll on your body.
Then there are the backstabbing coworkers who try to throw you under the bus. A bad boss or colleague can make your days into a special type of hell. Combined this stress with the lack of exercise and “treats” you get, it is no wonder so many men are having heart attacks at such a young age.
Forced Indoctrination
More and more companies are forcing their propaganda down our throats. As additional college kids graduate the HR departments are turning into social justice wings of corporate America. The problem is, you accept this or leave. When did it become OK for a company to control our thoughts? I have taken 50 of those computer courses on diversity, sexual harassment, and gender. Now we have been trained so we can all walk on eggshells around our colleagues as to not say something offensive.
These are nothing more than someone pushing left wing politics on to their employees and customers. Starbucks used to sell coffee, now they want to have a conversation about race. The main culprits are a bunch of elitists at the top of the company combined with millennials trying to push society the way they want. These people seemed to forget what the purpose of a company is, and that is to make money for shareholders.
As a man you are now forced to accept the reality of the your employer or lose your livelihood. God forbid you admitted you were a conservative or your religious beliefs have you thinking that a penis makes you male. Your “white privilege” is showing if you disagree and it could be career killing. There is no better way to neuter a man than to make him betray his core values…this is what corporate life does to men.
It is a Purposeful Waste of Time
So much of our day could be wrapped up in about two hours. Let us face it in corporate life you are either racing to finish a project or wasting time to fill the void. The fact that so many have so little to do creates a class of employees obsessed with busy work.
Time is a valuable resource for a man. Yet how many useless company town hall events are we expected to attend? How many stupid corporate computer courses are we forced to take? People know when you are busy, yet they cram yet another meeting down your throat.
I feel like this is all planned, if you had down time, they cannot control you. Therefore, you are inundated with useless emails to read and respond to. We spend so much time doing busy work that we must stay late just to finished are needed responsibilities.
Worthless employees also do this to justify their own jobs. Let us face it you can probably fire half the people at a company (if you choose correctly) and not miss a beat in terms of profitability. Employees will run from meeting to meeting and send useless emails to show everyone that they are important. They drag you down the time-wasting bunny hole with them.
In a perfect world, you do the productive labor in the time it takes. Then the rest is up to you…you do not have some slob making up things to keep you busy.
They Control Your Life
A man is not free when his existence is dependent on a corporation. I found this out the hard way. Being cast aside in the worst recession of modern times is humbling. I gave the company control of my life and paid for it.
When you work for a company everything you do and say is under their foot. Post the wrong thing on social media? You lose your job. Want to take a two-week vacation? Ask permission like a child. So many people will not even use their paid leave because they feel obligated not to leave the office. Work for 50 years, never take a vacation…retire, die. Some life.
Even your free time is not your own. How many of you had to work during the weekend or went on a business trip where you were expected to sit with your boss after hours? Company events and happy hours are additional examples of how they take what little spare time you have left.
More and more these days companies want to have control over your freedom, what you say, think, and how you dress. If you depend solely on a company, you cannot control how much money you make. Like I said earlier, hard work does not equal more money. This is why they take so much of your time, if you had free time then you could work on something that makes you financially independent. Your independence is what they fear.
There are some companies that literally microchip their employees. These weak men allow themselves to be chipped like they are a dog. I guess if you already have been neutered then getting chipped is a simple step.
Conclusion: Corporate Life: Negatives and Risks for Men
If you are working in a corporation your focus needs to be on escape. Use them now for a livelihood, but you do not want to be living like this for the next 40 years. Build something yourself. Have some faith in your own abilities, find a path forward and keep working until you no longer need your company to survive.