No matter how much you invest you're time and effort for your job: You are expendable, and the only people who will know you were absent from home because of work 20 years later, will be your kids.

My biggest lesson was that decades of work means nothing if you become disabled (in the US).

You can end up with literally nothing and lose literally everything if you become disabled. Even if you still have skills, even though you worked hard to contribute to society for decades, it can all go away overnight and you can suddenly not afford food anymore. There’s no safety net, and you won’t learn that until you need it.

Because fuck you.

Always look busy

The "family" talk is only just talk. If an employer says "we're family here" or some similar nonsense, it's not family as in "we stick together through everything" - what a family actually is or should be.... It's more of a farengi perspective...

Rule of acquisition 111: "Treat people in your debt like family… exploit them."

And rule 6: "Never allow family to stand in the way of opportunity." (Which is also cited as "Never allow family to stand in the way of profit")

Fact is, they want you to be family in the way that you'll do anything for them, like you would for your own family. But when it comes time that you need them to help you out like a family would, they'll show you the door very quickly.

Related: if you're hit by a bus tomorrow, your job will be posted before your obituary. You're just a cog in their money printing machine. As soon as you lose your value in that regard, you're gone. If you slow down the machine too much, they'll find a cog that is more easily lubricated (to push the analogy). If you're broken and can't work, they'll replace you without a thought. Management is there to put a nice face on the company (for your benefit) and make it seem less like you're a number; but that's all you are.

We have nothing to lose but our chains.

Everyone has a right to be lazy except for you.

Recruiters do nothing except tell people "no" when they need a job, and companies aren't really looking for new people otherwise they wouldn't turn down someone for not meeting ALL of their ridiculous demands.

Capitalism gets IN THE WAY of hard work, and sees hard workers as suckers, rather than rewards it.

During covid: the government paid me more than my employer to sit around and do nothing, so I had zero incentive to go back to work.

Lesson learned: Get a better employer

A central purpose of doing your job is to train yourself up to do the job you would prefer - either at the company you are with - or more likely at another.

Spend your time on interesting new skills

The company has an obligation to find workers who don't know their worth and continue to do more work without more compensation. Take the additional work, get them used to doing it, and get that raise at the next annual review, or leave.

They're not your friends, even if they act like that.

The management just sees you as expense factor and does not care about you except for how to get the most work done for the least amount of money. Your team leader does not care about you and only cares if their numbers look good. Your colleagues do not care about you and only see you as competition or the idiot they can give their work to.

If someone is nice to you they want something from you not because they like you.

There is no such things as the employer will provide a safe working environment. They don't care, it even more true when your safety cost them money.

Learned this very early at my first job. I was new to the whole content writing industry so I kept to just writing the minimum expected 2000 words per day.

Meanwhile two other coworkers with more experience wanted to impress the management I guess and wrote way above that.

The result? More and more work for them. And also when performance reviews came along I was the only one to get a raise because “the quality of my writing was above average in the company.”

In the end, they were punished for “over productivity” while I was rewarded because sticking with the minimum word counts meant I had time to polish my work.

Lots of meta-level comments here so I'll add one that's more in the weeds:

In an office job, it's always good to be friendly with IT and the office manager/administrative assistant.

• You are more important than the company, put you and your family first.

• If your company doesn't provide a pension plan you have no reason to be loyal and stay.

• Telework is an excuse for minimal working. Most remote workers schedule emails, get their work done quickly than spend the work day doing personal work on the clock.

• Charisma is more important than performance for career progression.

• Favorite employees are typically the easiest to be manipulated and taken advantage of.

Knowing enough of the process makes it incredibly easy to slack off, and that should always be the goal.

Document absoluely everything. Get every agreement in writing. If someone tells you to do something in a meeting, follow it up with an email response confirming the action. Keep a copy of those emails. If it’s not written, it didn’t happen.

It’s about who you know. Don’t socially isolate your self even when you are great at your job. Being invisible is a sure fire way to be overlooked when it comes to promotions or a raise. Also being likable means your colleagues will more likely have your back and root for you.

A couple of months ago there was a post on Reddit of a Gen Z person who hated when people would say a simple good morning to them. They rather walk into work, sit down, do their work and go home without talking to anyone. And a lot of other Gen Z people agreed with them. Crazy that they don’t understand how the “game” works, nobody is going to root for you when you act like that. Also no wonder Gen Z is struggling with loneliness.

If you get placed on a PIP (Performance Improvement Plan), it's better to resign and look for another job than to fight the process.

Find a new job before those new owners take over the business.