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Be nice because you want to be a nice person.
Work hard because you enjoy the work.
Take on more than you have in the past to extend your capabilities. Never take on "more than you should".
Never do any of these things for the recognition of others. Do these things because you want to do them.
Be nice because you want to be a nice person.
One way I've seen this put is don't be nice, be kind. Nice is performative and 'nice' people can be two faced because they'll be 'nice' to both a bully and the bully's victim.
Being kind is more about empathy. And if you have empathy, you won't tolerate bullies. It's far more genuine and not just a performance for whoever you're currently in the company of.
Corollary: Quit if you don't get paid to perform tasks you don't want to do.
Or just have the fucking discussion. We sit there mad we have been given something beyond our ability but never want to actualize it sort it out.
These kind of discussions should be practiced in school. Most people have no idea on how to start with it.
It also requires you to value yourself and your time. Some times therapy is the only way.
Yeah have a discussion after you have already been interviewing to see what's out there, your discussion could lead to your manager or VP considering you a flight risk or unmotivated employee, putting a target on your back when they need to do layoffs. So always have a backup plan ready before you open your mouth.
I think this is about jobs and work specifically, because being nice, working hard and taking a lot on is the best strategy in general life for sure. Out side of work for sure.
At work being nice is still important, but it's also very important to be honest. Working smart is important and working for the long run. It's important not to burn yourself at work, but working hard enough that you can be proud of your work and not be bored, because that can be a killer too.
Lastly, being automatically rewarded for anything is a disappointment in both general life and work. You have to always ask for what you want. I had a lot of difficulty with that for my whole life and being in my forties ive gotten only marginally better at this. But at least I get the fact that people aren't mind readers and it's not fair to expect them to notice everything you do and want.
I think it's the "automatically rewarded" part that's the key flaw in the OP.
I recently retired after working for 40 years at the same company. My general approach (to life, not just work) is similar to the post, but with some tweaks. I would phrase it more like:
I had a very satisfying career. I went as high up in a leadership chain as I wanted to go, and had really enjoyable relationships with folks at all levels. But that last bit is very important: life just isn't fair. That doesn't mean we shouldn't strive for fairness though.
This weirdly propaganda-ish phrase was pounded into our working-class heads and our parents' heads. But it only helped me ruin relationships and almost my life.
Now I do my work and I go home. If I don't like the job, I find another one. If I see my coworkers still there EOD I bark at them to go home (half-jokingly). If I make friends - it's a happy accident. Staying late and working hard doesn't earn respect 99% of the time. You're playing yourself if you believe it. Life is short.
Until I realized you did in fact have to ask for it, loudly. And what I found is that they will agree, but drag their feet when following through usually. In those cases you wait until you have leverage and then hammer the point home by handing in your resignation, stating you might be convinced to change your mind.
It works pretty well.
Also: don't do this if you are not prepared to follow through with your resignation. I had a friend try this and security walked him out the door 10 minutes later. See my above point about leverage on how to prevent such a situation, which he didn't have.
At my job managers get swapped out with other locations pretty often. One year I had a HORRIBLE manager. She was knowledgeable but treated some people like garbage and others like saints who could do no wrong. After months of trying to get on her good side I had enough and just stopped putting in any effort outside the bare minimum. And I mean the BARE minimum. Not only did my mental health improve but as I watched some of my other coworkers struggle in the hamster wheel and I realized all the extra crap we were asked to do was meaningless and the entire hierarchy was the “good ol boys” club. I’ve saved soooo much time just telling people “I have no interest in being manager” so not only am I never asked to do extra work but my expectations are lower on all my projects. And guess what I’m salary so it doesn’t matter.
I feel a little bad cuz some of my coworkers are bitter about it. Like they don’t want the work but they don’t want to be passed up for promotion and I’m watching them laughing inside because I could tell them the next 5 people that are getting promoted without even knowing their work ethic. 😂
Probably grade school. Pretty sensitive to hypocrisy and noticed very early on that honesty got shat on or punished, and bullying, favoritism, and schmoozing got you ahead quicker. Being audhd made me very bad at the latter. Could not stand the requirement to kiss ass to get ahead, and just being a hard worker just got you more work.
"Hey that person is cheating!"
"We know, now hush."
"But no one is doing anything about it!"
"SSSSHHHHHHHHHHH!"
I think people don't realize how many doors are automatically open for them if they're polite and hard working. Lots of interactions go way smoother if your end is always covered and the person you're talking to wants to help you because you're being nice.
Compare this to someone who is lazy and impolite. I think polite people would be genuinely surprised at how shit the day-to-day life of someone impolite is. Of course we'll never hear it from the impolite because a defining characteristic is that they're self-centered and ignorant.
The key is asking for it. Someone lazy and impolite who asks/demands that things go their way will get a lot of validation (externally at least)
But if you're polite and hardworking and ask to get your way (which is not necessarily impolite, no matter what the perpetually anxious try to tell you), you actually have even more opportunities laid out for you.
*laughs in a plethora of doors opened with everyone else barging through them instead
What? Yeah? Some doors open in some ways other doors open in others?
my comment was about how doors open in my life, and I never make it through because other people enter before I do and close the door leaving me standing around confused
To quote Parasite (2019):
Ki-taek: She's rich but she's still nice.
Chung-sook: Not "Rich but still nice." Nice because she's rich, you know? Hell, if I had all this money, I'd be nice too!
Similarly, it also closes doors, especially in the US where the egregore of the "Executive leader" dominates - the kind of people who'll forward an email with just "?!" as the body and expect their team to fix whatever problem it contains.
Never realized that 😍
During college. Worked in IT and the biggest raise I could get from the CEO above my minimum wage pay was $1 per hour. Even with a friend we couldn’t afford to rent a place. Houses went from $300,000 to $1,000,000 over a few years while I was working there. That’s when I knew living in the city and having a house was off the tables. 20 years later I now live in an RV off grid in the middle of the desert. Own the land, own the freedom. (Plus the land was cheaper than 1 year of rent in the city)
Damn, that’s nice! Good for you! Checked your other posts, do you have any chickens yet?
Not yet, I do plan to get some. We have an incubator and some solar coop doors we found deals on. We have some free fencing from Craigslist. Eventually we will get everything and build a coop and chicken run.
Nice, keep rocking!
41
I never felt this way.
I was a fucking asshole until my late 20s. Fuck you, get the fuck out of My my way, and give me what I want was my whole outlook on life..
Turns out that when your whole attitude to life is scorched earth you leave a lot of wreckage behind you.
I've grown a lot but I still believe in the importance of rocking the boat sometimes. And have also learned the importance of shutting the fuck and working with people.
I’m still trying to learn it. Some of us have to learn it over and over. Wish me luck, gang.
Honestly it worked to an extent. It got me an ok job where I was paid decently until eventually I'd built up enough experience that I was underpaid.
Then I switched jobs a couple times to get my salary up, and now that I'm older and have kids, I focus more of work-life balance than on my career.
Working hard is still a good thing to do, especially when you're young.
28?
I had been at a place for 4 years, I was the guy that knew everything about my position (there were only 3 of us). Then they hired a guy, and he worked with me for 3 weeks and was an untrainable idiot. Then he became my supervisor. They didn’t even tell me they were looking to create a supervisor position. I quit that day.
When i changed careers in my early 30's. I was in retail for over a decade, hated everything about it, but was too worried about finding a new job. Buddy of mine offers me a desk job, i take it and it changed my life for the better.
I realized after a week that i've been busting my ASS for years with nothing to show for it. My coworkers have been here for 1-4 decades and none of them leave.
If you find the right job and the right management, everything gets so much easier.
I am meticulously polite and helpful. It's who I am, and I won't stop because the people who deserve to be treated like I treat people really are worth it.
People who treat you like shit don't deserve shit.
Mid-twenties probably?
You do not need gratification for every single effort you put forth or every act of kindness you provide. If you expect this then you will be very, very disappointed. It's when you're working hard, and being patient with people over extended periods of time that the dissatisfaction really starts to set in.
There is a reason a lot of work cultures involve people being obnoxiously loud regarding their accomplishments, or exaggerating what they've achieved. That's not enough sometimes and you end up having to move elsewhere. It's all so very unnecessary, and it hurts when you genuinely want to be passionate about your work.
27 years old, believe it or not. I had an "I have no enemies" mindset
it's been working for me.
Realistically, I should have been fired from every job I've had because I'm late so often. But when I'm there, I do more in a shift than any of my coworkers do in a week. Every competent manager I've ever had (which has been about half of them) bent every rule possible to keep me because I'm that good and they know it.
No I would not like to become a supervisor, please stop asking. I like my low stress job.
Probably my first career job, if I had to make a guess. I’m loaded with enough ADHD, and I think a pinch of autism to taste, to make it hard to not notice these things. It also means in general I can have a hard time being really in the moment but if it means that I can’t be as easily brainwashed well that’s ok by me.
It was probably also connected to the first time I had to pay proper bills. I’m fairly privileged so I had always assumed that people were paid decently because why wouldn’t they be? Woof, was that painful, but I try to make sure it’s the thieving execs problem and not mine.
I switched jobs and it started working again. So I'm still of the opinion that it can work in the right job. Sometimes you still have to go ask for more money directly, but sometimes it's just handed to you.
If it doesn't work out, you have a lot of extra experience to talk about in your next job interview.
And all this doesn't usually apply in dead end jobs of course. This is when you're actually on a career path.
I was 25ish. It was kinda crushing, but I also had cheat codes for life so its a bit easier.
How old were you when you realized that asking for a reward/recognition doesn't exactly work out either?
My first job, big boss dangled salary increase if I could get project delivered on time so I worked my butt off. I got the salary increase but I was still paid less than what some new starters with same experience were making.
I dunno, like, 8, 9? I still try and do most of that, but because it's considerate, not because I think I'll be spontaneously rewarded for it.
People never wanted my help in the first place ...
Around 32, when I started working for Blizzard Entertainment.
To be fair, you do have to do all of that, but you have to ask for what you want at the end of it. Probably good to mention it along the way too but thats sort of up to local culture.
About the same age when I realized it was too late to do anything about it either.
10 years old. Parents and teachers are full of bullshit.