Apparently you’re not alone. For years, every time I have seen a report on some survey on Americans and their jobs, there always seem to be dire statistics about overwork, stress, burnout, dissatisfaction, and the desperate desire to be somewhere else.
If the various reports are to be believed, then having a job in America sucks big time. For most people, most of the time.
In America, though, there is no lack of advice on what to do about being fed up with your job. There are two main strands of advice that I run across.
Fed Up with Your Job Advice Strand #1:
Quit. Resign. Go elsewhere. Get a side hustle. Buff up your skills and find a better position. Change your career. Find your passion. Start a business. Transfer departments. Discover what you truly love to do. Etc.
Fed Up with Your Job Advice Strand #2:
Suck it up asshole. Improve your attitude. Engage in self-care. Do yoga. Get a better work-life balance. Do meditation. Take breaks throughout the day. Manage your stress. Improve your soft skills. Find the positives. Get more exercise, eat a healthy diet, and sleep 7 hours a night. Or – ‘Follow these 7 proven strategies for a better working experience!’ And so on.
Strand #2, of course, is what various employers promote, and some of them work quite hard at promoting it. Sometimes via the ‘suck it up asshole, you’re lucky to have a job you worthless piece of shit’ method, and sometimes via the ‘wellness programs, meditation apps, yoga classes, and ping-pong tables in the break room’ method.
I will note that there is not a Fed Up with Your Job Advice Strand #3:
Unionize! Organize with your fellow workers for better working conditions. Complain. Agitate. Push for legislation that protects your interests. File a lawsuit. Start a movement. Do something to make things better not just for you but for your fellow job-holders.
Nope. That’s not a media-approved strand of advice.
And yet – if 70% (or whatever the latest statistic is) of people surveyed are made miserable by the jobs they hold – then what fucking good is it going to do you (or anyone else) if you go get another job that almost everyone who’s ever held it has hated just as much as you do the one you’re in now.
You can’t fix a problem that affects 49% (or whatever the latest statistic is) of workers with individual action.
If something sucks for great fucking gobs of people, then the suckiness is not the fault of the individual people. It’s the fault of the thing that sucks.
Tornadoes that flatten houses don’t suck because the people whose houses get flattened don’t have a good attitude toward tornadoes or because they aren’t practicing mindful breathing. Tornadoes suck because tornadoes suck.
Jobs in the US suck because jobs in the US suck. They are designed to suck. They are not designed for the benefit of the people who hold them. They are designed for the benefit of the people who are enriched by them. Essentially, the shareholder class.
The employment system in the United States is the employment system in the United States because the people who benefit from it get away with conducting it the way they do.
They get away with it because the deterioration in American working life has been going on since the Reagan administration, which means 40 years or more now. One of the first things Reagan did in office was a break a strike. (Ironically, he used to be a union leader, SAG, and he led a strike for that union). Reagan set out to break workers and the Republican party has been following his lead (explicitly, out loud, on purpose) ever since.
By now, the system has been tilted against workers for so long that large clumps of them are sliding right off and into homelessness.
Which is just so very very special.
And yet – the people whose entire ways of life have been annihilated by this – still fucking lick the boots of the party that did it to them. Which is interesting. And – well… perverted.
So now I am going to give you my own personal strand of Fed Up with Your Job Advice:
Fed Up With Your Job Advice #1:
When you’re under pressure, short of time, and feeling the heat (literally, if you work outside), take a brief, mindful pause to breathe deeply and say “FUCK THIS SHIT! Fuck it all to hell. This job can bite me.”
What is the purpose of this mini-fit, you say? It’s to remind you not to feel ‘grateful,’ not ‘to just be glad you have a job’, to not say ‘what can you do?’ or ‘I can’t quit. I need to pay the bills.’ Etc. To not take that attitude.
Because it doesn’t serve you or anyone else. Just because something is reality doesn’t mean you have to like it. Accepting the existence of something does not require you to justify it or make excuses for it.
Fed Up with Your Job Advice #2:
Go to someplace that brings you joy – even if it’s only a strip club. Look around that place and plot revenge. Say to yourself ‘You know what would really bring me joy? And peace of mind? Not dealing with the assholes that I deal with every day.’
Or whatever it is. It might not be assholes. It might be a sheer overload of work. It might be never being able to take a vacation. It might be a lack of sick time. It might be never-ending stress. It might be low pay or lack of benefits. It might be unreasonable demands. It might be stupid meetings and 8000 emails. It might be your commute. It might be horrific ‘bonding’ exercises.
Whatever it is, acknowledge that you don’t like it and you’re not going to pretend you like it anymore. Get yourself ready to not grovel anymore.
Fed Up with Your Job Advice #3:
Stop identifying with your job! Seriously, stop identifying with it. You are not your job. You are not the company that you work for. There is no need for you to be loyal. The company will not be loyal to you if there are more than 7 employees. (Sometimes small business owners try to be loyal, but once a company grows….)
I know you want to identify with it because jobs are how people get status in the US (unless they’re influencers in which case they get status via the number of followers they have). But even though you want and need social status, deep down, nobody but you gives a shit. Even if you’re the CEO of BigBank USA, Inc. – all those people sucking up to you don’t give a shit. Once you’re gone, and maybe even before, they gonna drop you like a hot rock. They will delight in your failures because they never really liked you anyway.
Jobs come and jobs go. Having a job doesn’t make you a worthy person. This is absolute heresy in the US, but it’s true. You’re a person, not a role.
Fed Up with Your Job Advice #4:
Detach. Nowadays this is called quiet quitting or something like that. It’s still a good idea. Realize that the corporate BS you are fed is just corporate BS — and nothing more.
And don’t worry too much about your career — AI is going to destroy it anyway!
Fed Up with Your Job Advice #5:
Identify the structural factors that make you miserable. Layoffs? Re-orgs? Instability at the company level? A culture of intimidation and fear? Wage discrimination? Wage theft? Enforced overtime? Or whatever.
Note that these things are not your fault. And then start complaining about them. Ask the questions – are the layoffs really necessary and why? Give ’em hell. Buck the system. Buck the system in a way that doesn’t destroy your life, but buck it. Don’t be an apologist for something that sucks.
Fed Up with Your Job Advice #6:
Start convincing people, everyone you can, that things can be better. Maybe where you work, maybe in general, maybe through unions, maybe through laws and lawsuits, maybe through changes in attitudes, maybe through sticking together and helping each other through, maybe by getting enough like-minded people together, maybe by getting the asshole boss fired, maybe by speaking up, maybe with quiet courage or loud obnoxiousness.
Things can be better. Long hours, 24/7 availability, and burnout don’t have to be the norm. Working two jobs to survive doesn’t have to be the norm. No sick time doesn’t have to be the norm. Etc.
Truly. Jobs that suck for 72% of people (or whatever the latest statistic is) do not have to be the norm.
The problem; the real problem, and it is a very big, very bad problem, is that people are ideologically wedded to a set of ideas that say they do have to be the norm. Those ideas are not true. They are just ideas. Reject those ideas wherever you see them.
In short – get pretty fed up.
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Amen sister!