Welcome back to another episode of the corporate Cowboys podcast my name is Alex and if you’ve missed me well a little proof of life for you today is Friday of all days it’s May 12th excuse the change in voice I was out late last night
Was it last night was that late a couple nights ago and wore my voice out so with that being said if you’re not familiar with the podcast the corporate Cowboys podcast this is a podcast tailored to professionals who want to develop themselves and Empower themselves Elevate themselves to the level of a
Corporation so an individual can negotiate directly with the corporation I mean if you feel unsure of your capabilities to do so then by all means reach out to us you know where you can find us we’re on Instagram that’s at corporate Cowboys with a z the podcast is also on patreon it’s the
Corporate Cowboys podcast additionally you can subscribe to any of those tiers that are available and there are a couple of links available also if you want to donate and keep this podcast free which it will be as long as we’re Kicking and Screaming inside a corporate right so corporate Cowboys do what corporate
Cowboys will now today’s question comes from r slash career guidance so you’ve got 30 minutes of uncut corporate Cowboy opinion coming at you right it’s not legal advice I gotta I have to give you that disclaimer that it’s not legal advice anything that we promote or publish I should say
Is not legal advice if it’s not been tailored to you or if you haven’t engaged us in a professional capacity so I just know that we do not promote we do not um condone any wrongdoing any wrongful activity so as always take everything we say with the grain of salt if
If the vest fits you maybe you could zip it up but if there’s some space in between your rib cage and your plates that it’s not tailored to you don’t use it you can’t blame us for what we put out and then you think you can just run with it right if you
Think you can run with it you have to you I mean you necessarily assume the risk so today’s question is asking why why am I so unmotivated when I have a good job at a good company that pays well question mark why am I so unmotivated when I have a
Good job at a good company that pays well I mean just off the top because this is a pretty long prompt I’m probably going to read through I’m probably going to rip through it because I don’t want to interrupt this uh hypothetical client’s line of Consciousness stream of Consciousness right
So uh you you The Listener get the full picture before I rip it apart with my opinions as a corporate Cowboy right and my opinions are informed by not only personal experience but professional experience the experience of my colleagues and my previous clients as well right so I try to generalize
As much as possible because corporate itself is a is an unliving non-breathing not flesh not blood legal person right it’s it’s a legal fiction if we’re speaking legally it’s illegal fiction so they don’t necessarily exist but they do operate through people right so it’s these it’s these people it’s these people that you
Have to be mindful of these uh directors or executives and directors and Executives can get it too I’ve said it time and time again pretty much an overarching theme to the podcast is that everyone is entry level forever you can get clipped one day to
The next one day you think you’ve got a really stable job and you’re just showing up for the check and the next you’re terminated because the right to work is a right to work at will and you could be fired at will and just as easily so our hypothetical client wants advice
They’ve flared this post for advice and they’re asking I recently or the writing I recently accepted an offer at my current place of employment a couple of months ago due to to be what what do to be unhappy with my last employer maybe it’s due to being
Unhappy with my last employer it could be a typo I have been job hopping every one to two years because of this it’s the same role but different Industries okay so maybe it’s a maybe it’s administrative in nature right that’s possible that is possible maybe it’s administrative if it were technical
If it was if it were the same role but a technical role I doubt you could um you could transpose it from industry to Industry as easily as this person has and they claim to be job hopping every one to two years right and we don’t know how many years
It has been so it’s been at least two maybe three different Industries so the same technical position more than likely is not possible right if you’re moving from like an engineer to then a welder right and your entry level at both of them if you’re an entry-level welder and
An entry level engineer more than likely there is little if any overlap right so it’s it’s got to be something administrative I’m thinking sub something uh not to the level of an executive not to the level of like the c-suite within corporate maybe middle management that’s possible that’s possible but uh administrative at
Least right they’re not on the operational side they’re more than likely on the services side if you catch my drift so they can send you I doubt that things may be different at this new company as they are highly rated by employees and are considered one of the top places to work
I’m making over 100 000 a year I have great benefits got a huge sign-on bonus and I work 100 percent remote okay maybe it’s I.T right it could be I.T at this point if they’re working remotely it might as well be it if they’re just working on service tickets and they can access
Workstations and computers remotely using uh Team Viewer or some other application then they don’t even even have to show up to the office they could just be working remotely they continue I like my team and people who work here seem happy however I still wake up not wanting to go to work and
Have trouble keeping up with my work due to the lack of motivation I’ve been trying to figure out why and the only thing that makes sense to me is I’m not motivated because I don’t feel like the work I’m doing is Meaningful let me let me cut you off right there
Let me interject something if you feel like the work you’re doing is not meaningful it’s because it’s not it’s not that that there is going to be uh the hunch the uh the the gut instinct that you can rely on you can depend on if you don’t feel like you’re
Contributing in a meaningful way it’s more than likely because you’re not it could be that you’ve topped out your position for what you can for how much you could develop professionally if it’s become monotonous uh routine programmatic uh systematic then it it might just be time for you to
Move on do something different something more that you could learn something different you could learn and continue building on your professional skill set so so to get out of that rut that you’re doing the same thing over and over and getting nowhere that is called what insanity and that’s
If anything what we incorporate as a corporate cowboy strive to get away from it could run people mad it could run people up a wall make you go crazy but you want to get away from the insane you want to stay sane but you want to keep from going insane
And sometimes you might just come off as crazy because you’re wanting something different you’re wanting something more you’re not lashing out but you’re reaching out you’re grasping and for some they might not understand why is Alex not content why is Alex not complacent why doesn’t Alex enjoy sitting still being a Sitting Duck
Resting on his laurels because Alex doesn’t want to get caught lacking simple as that so the hypothetical client continues here I’ve been trying to figure out why and the only thing is that they make sense they’ve the work they’ve been doing is not meaningful okay I feel like
The skills I develop at work don’t have much application in my personal life and all my efforts is purely to make the company more money I’ve thought about a career change but not much appeals to me and the ones that do have average salaries that are about 30 to 40 percent of what
I’m making now so all right so they’re in a spot they’re in a spot where it’s not even between a rock and a hard place but they’re in a spot where they’re making money they’re making good money and yet they don’t think they’re doing an adequate job to get ahead in life
Right so this could easily be one of those uh dang I forget what the term is called but there is a specific term for these for these useless jobs these jobs without any real utility any real social utility right it’s just uh just a filler like a gap filler job where you just
Show up for the check you get paid out and because I don’t know you got a degree for it or because there’s some sort of uh legal incentive right it could be like a a Dei program or something else that that the work is not as meaningful as it is
Uh loud as it is scandalous or quote unquote revolutionary right so it could have this label of revolutionary this label of impactful but overall I mean what you’re doing is just isolating and identifying problems identifying if anything identifying and labeling not even isolating but you could be isolating individuals even but
Uh pointing out problems where they don’t actually exist right and that’s not meaningful in any sense because you’re not really creating solutions for them you’re just griping and whining right so that’s at least my take on a lot of what Dei is sure it might be well
Intended but as far as execution goes I mean not not really effectively executed so they write they continue I feel like the skills I develop at work don’t apply in my personal life and all my efforts is purely to make the company more money well yeah those skills for the most part
If you I mean you apply for the job so you should know what you got yourself into if you’re having doubts now it’s because what you [ __ ] grew a conscious after you’ve been getting paid out how nice how you know check your [ __ ] privilege why don’t you one time right
Now now that you’ve made this money maybe you got out from under some debt you might have had but you’re living lavish now that you’ve got some time to reflect on what the nature of nature actually is what you’re having second thoughts what I mean you’re in this deep
Already baby you signed the dotted line so either you see this [ __ ] all the way through or you attempt to make some changes but whining and crying about it is it going to resolve your situation right if you want to move like a corporate Cowboy then you use the resources you have
And make changes where you see fit right and it’s always always going to be for the betterment of business that’s what uh that’s what the principles that underpin being a corporate cowboy ultimately accumulate to they come to that peak of improving business I mean you really want to
Get to the get down to the root of what of the origins of a corporate Cowboy it really was just a take it’s just a it’s just a corporate take on Cocaine Cowboys and Cocaine Cowboys started by uh using Federal resources was it not from the three letter agencies who were
Overseeing and regulating the trafficking of this white powder and the Cocaine Cowboys branched out for themselves looking out for themselves and making the business of trafficking more efficient making the business of trafficking more innovative I mean for their own sake to what extent but hey at least they were professional
About it right so they’re getting paid out in the very end if anything if anything you want to think about whether or not the corporate Cowboy to that degree foreign has enough resources that they could start an initiative of their own I mean it sounds like you’re bored
It sounds like the hypothetical client is bored right maybe uh they’ve got maybe they’ve got extra time or extra Slack if they’re feeling unmotivated to to do their work I mean it took them this long to jump on a an online form and a Reddit forum and air out their grievances so we
Don’t know how long they’ve been experiencing this maybe the first month or the first two months or maybe the first year they were still getting to know their position and learning the ropes of of their corporate position and in that time they weren’t complaining because they were uh professional development was at capacity
And they couldn’t stretch themselves any thinner but now that they’ve got just about everything under their control now they’re finding their board now they’re finding that they’re lacking motivation right it’s not unheard of definitely but that’s when you know it’s time to change if not your job then your approach to the work
That’s when you you know that’s when you get I mean if you start let’s analogize you signing the dotted line if you if you are not passive right if you’re not just signing your your life away and going to work as a subservient associate colleague you’re signing the line with some some
Form of aggression some form of professional Authority that’s you that’s you infiltrating the corporation that’s you slipping the knife between the coastal ribs of the corporation and just you know just letting it sit there getting a feel getting a feel for the work I mean [ __ ] you got your hands dirty now
And so when you pick up the slack and you learn the ins and the outs of the position and you get bored that’s when you twist the knife that’s when you wiggle it around that’s when you get to know the actual corporate body that you wore within that you are inside
And start uh you know branching Out start networking what the hierarchy looks like what the hierarchy requires to operate how the hierarchy operates its strengths its weaknesses the opportunities for your own advancement that’s how you move like a corporate Cowboy otherwise you’re just going to show up on Reddit and [ __ ] whine
About it so continuing continue let me finish this off it says um I like I like my team and people who work here seem happy however I still wake up not wanting to go to work and have trouble keeping up with my work due to a lack of motivation oh I’ve been
Trying to figure out why and the only thing that makes sense to me is I’m not motivated because I don’t feel like the work I’m doing is Meaningful I feel like the skills I develop at work don’t have much application in my personal life and all my efforts is purely to make the
Company more money I thought about a career change but not much appeals to me and the ones that do have average salaries that are 30 to 40 percent of what I’m making now yeah no it sounds like you’re at a [ __ ] useless position or you’ve you’ve stumbled into a useless position
Maybe they haven’t expressly identified it I’m sure if you told them to quit they’d be like no where am I going to make money from so no definitely they’re still Bound by it they’re still under the illusion that they’re useful but um they don’t know how to multiply their professional utility for personal
For personal gain or for personal realization actualization if we’re going off of Maslow’s hierarchy so they write have any of you been in a similar position and if so how did you break the cycle I already talked about that I I pretty much walked you through the life cycle of an entry-level
Employee you get started you sign the dotted line what is it two weeks of training maybe a month of training maybe it’s three months of Probation and in that time you are learning you are training you are exercising you are being evaluated on how well you learn
The job and perform on the job and in that span of time it’s pretty much taking the entirety of your professional capacity to really uh perform on the work right so maybe you’re not spending much time or investing much time in feeling out your options and opportunities to grow in the
Company which is fine which is good I mean it’s not always required of you but at the point at The Junction in which you start feeling bored is when you should be thinking what more can I do and it doesn’t necessarily have to be for the sake of making the company more
Money it could be for your own development maybe you want to reach out to your proximate colleagues your the colleagues closest to you maybe you know some folks who are a little bit higher than you maybe maybe your superiors could let you win on a little bit of what they do so
That you could Prime yourself for getting promoted you want to move up it’s going to require you taking on more responsibility and you take on more responsibility by showing initiative by taking the initiative that demonstrates you being capable of taking on the additional responsibility and getting paid for it right
But obviously the getting paid part is going to come later when you are evaluated for a performance a performance review if you will at that point is when you bring up and negotiate what it is you believe that you’re worth right now now that’s higher level thinking that’s more higher level
Strategizing which if you need help on it’s what we’re here for and it’s what we do from day to day for our clients legal professional or otherwise you can reach out to us so let me uh continue here they add an edit to actually uh two edits two edits
The first edit says they’ve been at work and they see a ton of comments this is such an important part of my life I’m trying to figure out so I’m going to do my best to get back to all of you sharing your thoughts thank you all for
Showing your support truly it means a lot edit number two continues and they write I want to thank you all for bringing your unique perspectives to this conversation it was eye-opening to hear how many of you are in a similar position I hope we can all find happiness however possible
Um [ __ ] here we go hold on oh what what they write after reading through all your comments I think I’m going to do the following in this order one rule out medical issues like thyroid hormone foreign I mean [ __ ] I guess that sounds reasonable I guess that sounds reasonable as much as
I’m very much gung-ho Hands-On get dirty first come clean later that’s typically my Approach I mean if they want to be thorough if they want to be thorough maybe you know they have some kind of hormone or neurochemical deficiency right that we are just not privy to so it’s possible
It’s possible whether or not they can get that [ __ ] kick-started and normalized who’s to say who’s to say right I’m not definitively writing it off but I think that um you can definitely work through it I mean they’ve been working through it now I think what they need really is just
Some external motivation if you have to pop something to get to fuel internal motivation if you if the external factors don’t fuel or your motivation enough I mean it’s just a lack of action at that point it’s a lack of action to uh be able to cultivate momentum and be
Able to get you moving right yeah you’re at work but are you actually working right you see you see what I’m doing there yeah you’re at work you’re present but are you actually presently working and I’m talking about on yourself are you growing and if you’re not find a way to grow
I mean at this point it could just be a lack of inspiration right but you know first is first I guess you want to rule out any of that and if you got to get medicated you know you have to then weigh weigh the pros and the cons of
Reliance Independence and whether or not drugs will become a crutch so yeah at least you got that going for you that’s just a whole nother branch of analysis number two they write you talk to a professional therapist to make sure these feelings stem from something like ADHD depression or past workplace trauma
Past workplace trauma huh what you’ve been in the field slanging lead or some [ __ ] that we aren’t privy of I feel like they would have put that in the Reddit post somewhere like oh this reminds me of the time I was slanging sacks and you know some well I mean if there were
Places as routine and monotonous and you were slaying sacks every [ __ ] day and nothing changed like really you you never got walked up on you never got robbed you never contemplated robbing somebody else like living that life but I get it I get it the corporate life and the street life
Can be analogized can be parallelized to some degree but it’s not a one-to-one I get it I get it it’s not a one-to-one number three they write continue my search for a hobby or something that I can enjoy and look forward to outside of work [ __ ] bump that up to number one fam
Bump that up to number one right if you’re not going to make a move and develop yourself professionally to to move up or to make some change [ __ ] rock the boat a little bit not necessarily create drama but at least make work entertaining for your professional development sake then [ __ ] find a hobby
Right leave your work at home sorry leave leave your uh work feelings at work and leave your home feelings at home so like if you if you if you really want to uh divide because I mean this this third option of finding a hobby obviously isn’t going to
Make your work life any better for your personal life so you want to further create that separation and keep your work feelings at work and then cultivate a more home life I don’t know what you’re going to end up doing maybe making kites or water coloring
Do that do that if you think it’s going to help you grow and the key word is grow ultimately the bottom line the common denominator of my opinion so far has been to find something that helps you grow something that’s creative something that’s inspirational and and you’ll be surprised you’ll be surprised
You’ll be surprised to find how art can help you be creative in your professional endeavors for development so I’ll just leave it I’ll just leave it at that I’ll leave it at that number five sorry number four look into volunteer opportunities where I can give back to my community
That’s always good that’s always a nice touch number five they’re right while doing the above reflect on what is and isn’t in my control and focus on changing aspects of my work that are in my control [ __ ] me in that case number five should go into number one number five should be
Bumped up all the way to number one why because it’s in line exactly it’s in line exactly with what your issue is now at work and that is monotony that is the the the boringness the the routineness the programmaticness right what you’re trying to break away from and change up
It could be that that you you haven’t taken a step back and really evaluated your circumstances in the lens of professional development to be able to identify those opportunities to be able to identify what is out of your control and what is within your control something that you
Could change something you could dictate the terms of and you could always you could always dictate the terms of your own professional development don’t let anyone else convince you otherwise [ __ ] that’s how we got started and that’s how we are Where We Are in today’s day and age
Right letting folks talk you out of what makes you better is how we ended up with capitalism in the state that it is now which is lacking which is not competitive which is uncreative which is not innovative that’s because [ __ ] choose to not work they just show up for the check and by
Work I mean put in the [ __ ] work they just you know choose the lollygag and go off and find a [ __ ] Hobby but uh I suppose try to make change from within does come with some risk you may or may not get a Target painted
On your back if you want to rock the boat and make others uncomfortable you want to create work for others even if it’s of a different kind even if it’s going to be less in the long run a different kind of work to many who are stuck in the [ __ ] Matrix means more
Work what it’s a it’s a different I have to change the way I work I have to well this is more work than it’s just they that it’s like two plus two equals five for these [ __ ] they can’t put two and two together something you got to live with
So the it’s something you have to live with and if you cannot convince them otherwise well there’s corporates and then there’s Cowboys which is which is coming back so the overarching theme of its entry level forever and business being War and uh How the West has never really been settled right
Business is war it’s corporate War and it’s technically what you signed up for and what you just went to sleep because you made good money yeah I’m gonna let you think about that have a good one I’ll catch you next time
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