Please, as in to subjugate yourself. My parents are gone, school’s out forever and I left the corporate world more than six years ago. It takes a while to right the ship after pulling the cord on the second chute. I had a mini lesson in re-birth when I went into sales and moved to another state years ago. A total shock to my system. My auto pilot got shut off.
Like being institutionalized, entrepreneurial freedom feels a bit wobbly at first but once you get going there’s no looking back. Inside the chalk lines you knew the landscape and how the game was played. Show up, work the ropes, add a little political panache, size up your immediate boss with his boss in the corner of your eye (cause you never know) and proceed accordingly. You know, work the system. Until the next re-org.
I always thrived in the corporate environment because the rules were clear and you did what you were told for the most part. But curiously, not much more. If you did something out of the book that they couldn’t gauge, you saw first hand how inflexible the system was. As I did. The price you pay for a safe harbor. I was sometimes handed a check and/or a plaque in a restaurant, bar or hotel room. Not at a sales meeting or home office. I mean, the out of the mainstream stuff I did always got out, but it was awkward to say the least.
Here’s what I would have posted on my bathroom mirror.
Then you wake up one day and realize the way you measured success in your life has changed drastically. There’s nobody left to run with. Your world has flipped and the reason you either jump out of bed or drag your sorry ass to the bathroom in the morning is on you. It’s not promotions or bonuses anymore, it’s survival and self satisfaction.
Abject fear slowly turns to exhilaration. Roll credit (1), cue bouncy music and fade.
Welcome to the jungle.
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