The Generation X Perspective

I am from the generation of people who were told as kids, “you work hard and you’ll be rewarded.” You get good grades and you can get into a good school. Get a degree from a good school and you can land a good job and write your own ticket. This may have been true then, but we know that today many kids graduate college having worked hard to get good grades only to find themselves in a lot of debt with no job prospects. 

You have to wonder, “what’s the point?”

I remember working hard at a publicly traded company years ago. They announced that they were going private. Then they went public again and raised LOTS and LOTS of money. 

That holiday season we were told that we weren’t getting much in the way of bonuses because there wasn’t any money 🤯. Mine was $100 that year. I pay more than that each year in bonuses to my two bookkeepers and I am not a multi-hundred million dollar publicly traded company. 

This was an insult to our intelligence, as well as to our hard work. Here we were in the “accounting” department. We understood the “numbers”, heck we were the ones who processed the accounting that was used to determine the “numbers.” 

I wonder what the CEOs (2 brothers), CFO, and other C-level executives got by way of bonuses that year? I’m guessing it was a lot more than $100. 

If you want to talk about culture, this is a great way for a company to ruin its culture. And they had lots of culture there. We had a big cafeteria with ping pong tables, as well as plenty of free soda and candy bars that we could snack on all day. In many ways they treated us very well, even if they were unmindful of our health 😄.

I don’t think I ever played ping pong once. I could just see what would happen if my boss came walking through there at three PM and saw me playing ping pong. 

In my first year at this company (as a temp), I uncovered over $20K in theft from one of the locations that I handled the accounting for. You would think that would have landed me a permanent job there. 

It didn’t.

It took several months beyond that before they offered me a full time position. 

To make matters worse, the employee whose theft I uncovered was not fired. Politics, of course. They were given a second chance and what do you think happened?

Yep. Insanity is not doing the same thing and expecting different results. It’s doing something knowing full well what will happen, and doing it anyway!

It was hard to maintain my confidence in this company given the above.

The question is, if this were to happen today in 2022 and I was only twenty-eight years young, would I resign? Would I “quietly quit” my job?

My answer is a resounding “hell no!”

I would do exactly what I did then. I always kept my resume up to date because you just never know. I pounded the proverbial pavement and started going on interviews.

Eventually, I landed a job with a CPA firm for more money and what I perceived as a better opportunity, especially since working for a CPA could afford me the opportunity to to get my CPA license. That job didn’t turn out to be much better, but keep reading, because it did lead me to the next phase of my career, which all these years later proves to be the best thing that ever happened to me. 

Each experience begets the next. The key is to have the experiences. As many as you can. 

Quitting of any kind doesn’t give you experience. It gives you inexperience. 

Subsequent Generations

On a certain level I agree with Kevin O’Leary (aka Mr. Wonderful) in this video, but I think he misses something really important, too!

Kevin O'Leary: 'Quiet quitting' is the dumbest idea I've ever heard

First, when everyone started talking about The Great Resignation my thought was, “how are these people going to pay their bills?” And it brings up the stereotype “Millennial” probably more so than “Gen Z '', who live at home with their parents at the age of 30+ and can afford to do this. I know this is not true. It’s just a stereotype. 

Maybe they’ve saved? But that doesn’t seem likely. Studies have shown that most people making over $100K couldn’t put $400 together to meet an emergency if they needed to. This is because most people don’t save and live beyond their means. So I imagine most people making less than $100K per year (and that is most people) aren’t in any better shape financially. 

I agree with Kevin. I think Quiet Quitting is a terrible idea. But there’s another side to this that Kevin doesn’t acknowledge, and that is what I want to talk about. 

Why are people greatly resigning and quietly quitting?

Kevin O'Leary talks about how he wants people to work together as a team, work hard, and do what it takes to get the job done. He wants people who WANT to stay past five PM. He wants people who aren't so concerned about “work-life balance”, but who want to succeed and get ahead. 

And I agree with that. That is who I want to hire at my company. So here’s what I did. I hired two bookkeepers to handle our client work and I gave them skin in the game. I didn’t just hand them a book of clients, pay them a set salary and say, “go get the work done no matter what it takes.” 

Instead, I offered them 50% of the revenues on the clients they work on. So when I make money, they make money, and vice versa.

My comment to Kevin is that if I come and work for your company and you want me to give up my work-life balance, do what it takes to build the team, and serve the customer, I am all for that.

BUT…

You had better compensate me more than fairly for that. 

You see, I think people are quietly quitting because they are sick and tired of not being valued. And companies pull these BS stunts, like giving promotions with fancy titles that come with more responsibility (a.k.a. more work), but not the salary increase commensurate with that extra work and that fancier title.

They are sick and tired of having their life sucked out of them by Corporate Thugs who only care about themselves. 

Now, what I love about what these subsequent generations have been doing in recent years before The Great Resignation and now Quietly Quitting is that they didn’t hang around. Publications like Forbes have been writing about the fact that many people get better raises by changing jobs . 

And I don’t think there’s a stigma any more (there was in my time) about having lots of short term experiences and changing jobs frequently. I think it’s well known that this gets people better increases in pay than hanging around for a yearly review. 

So maybe this is the beginning of a revolution of sorts?

Maybe this is the younger workforce’s way of saying, “fuck you, value me or I’m out!”

But I would never recommend quietly quitting or just resigning without something else to hang onto. 

If anything, stick it out in the current job while you look for the next thing. That’s what I did for three jobs, until finally I saw the writing on the wall and I realized the only way I was going to be truly happy was if I did my own thing. 

That’s how Nerd Enterprises, Inc. was born. 

I remember driving home from the CPA firm one day, at about thirty years of age, balling my eyes out coming up the 110 Freeway passing through Downtown LA. I looked at the tall buildings that still remind me of a mini New York City. I thought about all of the people and jobs that were out there and I realized that the only reason I was so frustrated was because I felt stuck.

Then I talked to Hank, my therapist, and explained that I couldn’t just quit. I had bills to pay and was definitely living check to check then. I was barely three years sober. 

After a brief discussion about what I really wanted to do in the most minute details, I started to form the concept of Nerd Enterprises. It wasn’t the big picture stuff. It was more about how I loved to design spreadsheets that helped track complex calculations and analyze valuable data for people. 

I also liked the idea of working with people, and developing relationships. A community, if you will, of colleagues and clients. 

You have the advantage right now. Companies need help. 

Don’t quit!

Don’t even quietly quit. As Arianna Huffington said, “Ignoring the issues—like toxic bosses, pay disparity, or frustration over a lack of advancement opportunities—negates the possibility of improving them.”

Take time off. Set up job interviews. Find a better job. Move on. 

Once I defined what I really enjoyed doing, Hank told me to go home from work every day and work on those things. 

This was 2003-ish. 

I taught myself how to design websites with Microsoft Front Page (don’t laugh… okay, you can laugh). Turns out I loved doing that, even though I wasn’t very good at it. But the more I did it, the better I got. 

I placed ads on Craigslist (don’t do that now, it’s not nearly worth it unless you enjoy getting a mountain of spam). 

Next thing I knew, I had a side hustle going, long before anyone called it a side hustle. 

I used my lunch break to meet with clients and I ate in my car. 

Eventually that side hustle grew and I found a part time job working at a marketing company three days per week as a business manager. 

I had four, not two other days to work on clients. I was thirty-something, so I didn’t mind putting in the hours when I was doing it for me. I worked nights and weekends, it didn’t matter.

Here’s the secret.

As soon as I even STARTED doing something aimed at moving me towards a happier existence, I immediately felt lighter. I no longer felt stuck.

When I showed up to the CPA firm and the managing partner berated me as he so often did, I didn’t quietly quit. I quietly smiled 😁 ← it was a big cheesy inner smile like that one!

I knew I was on my way out to a better place, but I was still going to have the security of being able to pay my bills with no worries at all. 

My best day back then was when I walked in one morning straight into his office and handed him an envelope. 

“What’s this?” he asked. 

And with no emotion whatsoever I said, “it’s my two week’s notice.”

There was nothing he could do or say because I did the right thing. I gave him two week’s notice in the proper form. 

He did at one point say something like, “you’re probably making the right decision because I don’t think it would have worked out for you here long-term.” And I simply agreed with him, which I am sure he didn’t like. 

At this point, he needed me more than I needed him. I was working on a project that required Excel skills that no one else there had. Heck, he used to call me to help HIM with Excel on a regular basis. 

He retained me as a consultant for a while so I could finish out this project. 

If you are miserable at your job, don’t quit in any form.

Use them the same way they are using you. Assume they care nothing about you, other than what you can produce for them. And then care nothing for them other than what they can produce for you. 

Which is a paycheck.

Then do the next right indicated thing.

Work on getting that next job. It might not be better, but as long as it pays more you can do the same thing until you find the right environment. 

And/or start your own business. It has never been easier or cheaper to do that. Many kids who are out of school and in a lot of debt have been forced to do that. Instead of waiting around for a job, they created their own job. I bet they are happier than they would have been at any other job, because anything they do, they are doing for themselves instead of working to get someone else rich!

If you happen to be reading this in the month of September, this article on Forbes tells you why this is the best time to be looking for a job. It also gives you some powerful insights and ideas for what you can do in your current job or the new one you start looking for.

From the article:

“Managers complain to their HR departments that they are not receiving enough candidate flow. They complain that the Great Resignation and Quiet Quitting trends are causing problems. The managers say, ‘we don’t have enough staff to keep up with the workflow,’ and they are afraid to fire the people who are coasting as they recognize it’s not easy to find replacements, and if they do, the salary demands and workstyle requirements will be much higher.”

Pro Tip:

This is your opportunity! That quote right there says it all. Go in and demand your value, both in terms of compensation and culture! Write your own ticket. Now is your chance!

Even if you are not sure about it, just do it. Go on some interviews. The act of doing this alone will make you feel a freedom and a happiness that you may not have felt in quite some time. Go into each interview with the intention of saying, “no” to any offer they make. You have the power. You are in control.

Remember that you are interviewing them as much as they are interviewing you. Ask them questions about their culture and their opportunities for growth. Ask them how they reward employees who put in the extra time and effort. That is a 1,000% fair question, and if they get offended by it, then you just got them to opt themselves out for you as a prospective employer. On the other hand, it signals to them that you may be the kind of employee who every employer really wants – the one who will put in the extra effort to get the job done, and not the quiet quitter 😉.

A company should be proud to be able to explain how they reward employees who go the extra mile. If they can’t explain it, then they probably don’t do it, and that means they don’t deserve you!

Go find your dream job, or create it!

For a GREAT podcast on this subject, check out my conversation with Misty Schachtell , a former Intuit Employee who has the most amazing job now – it’s all her own. 

Episode 1 - I'm Going to Love Every Day with Misty Megia