I gave up on the “corp” life a long while back. Actually, it wasn’t that hard. As a non-white non-traditional employee it was very obvious to me that there was little to be gained in living in the rat race for anyone like me. So, I jumped ship and if they didn’t pay, I didn’t play. Looking at each gig or project based on its merits as to whether it was a good business move to take the work or not gave me some serious questions about who I was and what I wanted. It made it possible to question the interviewers since I was interviewing them. Whenever I turned down a gig or project many thought I was nuts. Whenever I told a company I was done with them and wanted my separation checks it was to easy to walk away from poor management or toxic cultures and like the song about gamblers, “know when to fold ‘em.”
“The biggest mistake in life is believing you are working for someone else.”
The really lousy part was the way the financial and tax systems work in a seemingly deliberate way to discourage individual initiative. It seems to me that guilds and unions would be the way to level the field and those are brutally being hammered. Personally, I think that is short-sighted and will have very bad effects on us all. I did okay, no complaints, but, I worry about the younger generation.