Too Much of a Good Thing

Rory McClannahan

Who hasn’t had this sentence run through their head: “That certainly didn’t work out the way I thought it would.”

Life is kind of like that. You may think that things are going along just wonderful, only to have it turn on a dime. When making decisions, you either leave things to the fates and accept the consequences or you give a lot of thought about what you would like to do. I’m the kind of guy who does a lot of thinking, but I’m beginning to suspect that leaving things to the fates might be a better way to go about living.

Nothing ever seems to turn out the way I thought it would.

For instance, I just left a job after two weeks. It was not anything I had planned. The plan was to change from my current employment to something new. As far as plans go, it went fairly well. I was feeling that it was time for a change in my current job. I wasn’t mistreated and I felt my work had been valued. It was just time move on. It happens.

I found an opportunity and was offered a job. From the first day, though, I knew I was going to have trouble with my new boss. Some people will never get along, and I was seeing that this would be that type of relationship.

Years ago, a former boss of mine, who I respected and was proud to work for, gave me some advice as I was heading into a job interview. “Just be yourself, just not so much.” I understood what he had meant. I have a bad habit of speaking when I should keep my mouth shut. He was telling me that I had the skills for the position, but that I had a tendency to not play the corporate culture game. It was valid advice that I took and got a job.

With this new boss, I had been a little too much of myself, and she was a little bit too much of herself. It was obvious that it was not a good match. This situation wasn’t going to work and there was no sense in both of us being miserable. Better to walk away from a job after two weeks than live in workplace purgatory for years. I feel bad for quitting so soon. Sort of.

Actually, I don’t feel bad at all. Sure, there are financial consequences when you leave a job, but I learned well the lesson that the health of my mind and body are much more important than a paycheck. I’m a pretty smart guy, I’ll figure something out.

When talking about all of this with my sons, the oldest felt the need to defend his generation. I think he feels some online generational pressure online that everyone his age is lazy and unwilling to work. It’s a part of being young to feel underappreciated and I felt the exact same way at the same age.

“Everyone is on us Generation Z for leaving jobs so quickly. Now you can see why,” he said, or something along those lines.

“Where do you think you learned that attitude?” I responded.

He kind of grinned and laughed and agreed. I did my best to teach both of my sons that there is no shame in changing jobs to something more enjoyable or profitable. No employee owes any more to a company than what is outlined in the work agreement. Bosses, in general, want more than that. They want a fealty to the company and give you hats and water jugs and polo shirts emblazoned with the company logo so everyone knows who you belong to.

They make you read an employee handbook filled with platitudes that this is a company with high ideals in which employees will always be treated with respect as long as they follow their rules, whether the rules make sense or not. It’s just words, though, because business is business and as an employee you are either an asset or a liability and you were treated as such, instead of being treated like a human being. Business is business and people can easily be replaced if they don’t wear the corporate branding.

That’s the attitude I brought to my new job. I messed up, I could have played the game and got along okay and just collected a weekly paycheck until it’s time to retire. But I have this bad habit of being me. I’ll work hard for your company and do a good job.

All I ask is to keep me out of the corporate culture in which winners and losers are chosen on meaningless characteristics, such as if you are a woman, or a person of color, or gay, or even if you are a guy who prefers jeans instead of slacks and who seems a little goofy and provincial. We should all look deeper, though, and get beyond whether that square peg fits in a round hole. Who knows? If you just let people be themselves you might get some good work out of them.