5 Signs that You Should Quit Your Corporate Job
I quit my 9–5 corporate job last year. I was working for a big corporation, doing routine work with a good salary. But since I started work from home due to Covid, I had more time to think about what really matters in life. Inspired by the book Design Your Life, I made a bold decision to change my corporate career from marketing to interior styling.
Since graduating from university, I’ve been working in the corporate world for nearly 10 years if I counted from the internship during university holidays. From small start-up, agency, to big high-tech and retail corporations, from strategy analysis to accounting to marketing, I can say I got lots of experience in different roles and offices. But I still don’t feel it actually works for me.
For one thing, I can honestly say I am not quite successful in my corporate career. Although I can pass five rounds of interviews and get into the graduate programs of big corporations, I always failed to get promoted to the manager level or meet higher expectations for a future leader. On the other hand, I do not fully enjoy what I do in my corporate work. Despite there are moments like I executed an interesting marketing campaign, I resolved a complex problem for a client, I well organized the workflow for the team, majority of the memory of the corporate work was like this :
- Endless emails, back and forth communications, useless meetings
- Office politics, always the nice and kind people get redundant
- Soul crushing process and systems, time-consuming admin duties
- My new idea was never get approved the way I wanted, for whatever reasons
- Back pain, dry eyes, long hours sitting in front of the computer
- Fixed 9–5 schedule, has to ask for leave if I want to do something else
- Stuck in an Excel spreadsheet…
It takes a lot of time for me to realize that a corporate job is meaningless to my life, and I don’t want you to experience this detour again. Therefore, I listed the following 5 warning signs that you should consider quitting your 9–5 corporate job:
1. You don’t want to get up in the early morning
When the alarm rings in the morning, if you keep snooze it until the very last minute that you have to get up, you should consider do you really have the motivation to do the work? It’s not the alarm that wakes you up every morning, it’s the purpose, the momentum, and the calling that wakes you up. Who doesn’t like to sleep in a cozy, warm bed in the freezing morning? You get up early because you want to make a difference, you can not wait to make something happen and you eager to achieve some great results today.
Last year when I worked from home, in the early morning I even just turned on my laptop when I was still in bed. If there is no meeting, no one emails me, or no urgent things, I just laid down and slept for another 20 minutes. I hate myself being like this. When I didn’t feel it is worthed to get up in the winter morning to work, I told myself it’s time to change.
2. You are easily get distracted at work
Some corporate jobs don’t require you to work every minute. We all know that. It’s not like a technician, nurse, or teacher who has to fully focus on the work when they are doing the shift. If you work in an office environment and find yourself always check your phones, go to the toilet, chat with your colleagues, go have a coffee, browse the shopping website, check the stock price, etc, you’d better think about do you really want to commit to this job?
It’s not your fault to get distracted, everyone does. But when you are doing something you truly love, you will be fully immersed in it and you can not even feel time passing by so fast. American psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi first proposed a concept flow experience, which refers to a mental state characterized by total immersion, focus, and involvement in a task. If you barely experience this sort of feeling in your current job, as the book Design Your life mentioned, you should review all the things you do every day, and keep a record of the things that create a flow experience for you. It could be cooking, gardening, painting, writing, why not keep growing these flow experiences and transfer these things you truly enjoy to a job?
Take me as an example, I spent a lot of time decorating my home and I just really enjoyed playing around with different accessories to see which one suits my home. So when I look for new career options, home decorating and interior styling come up to my mind first. Since I started doing what I love and worked as a property stylist, I can feel my screen time on my phone dropped significantly, I never opened Tiktok when I was working, the flow experience just happened again and again at work.
3. You don’t want to socialize with my colleagues
I don’t know why corporate professionals love socializing so much! They talked about their kids, pets, partners, family, travel, food, weekend activity, hobby, house, TV shows, movies, skincare products, car, music… almost everything in the office. Even if they work from home, they also organize catch-up sessions, team quiz, online party on Zoom or Webex. You can not escape it, truly. Is that because corporate work normally very boring so people have to keep chatting about these “funny” things?
But what if you are a private person who just doesn’t want to share your personal life? What if you come from a different cultural background just don’t have many common topics to talk about? What if you simply don’t want to hear someone’s kids’ stupid stories again and again? For example, you are gay and single, you don’t want to share your personal stories with someone married, have two kids and always talk family, church things, you may worried they may homophobia, you just want to be private.
If this endless social talk makes you feel difficult to fit in the team or even stressed, why not change a career that you can work individually and does not require talking about so many personal things? The jobs like freelancer work, craftsman jobs, online business normally don’t require these social talks, which you can definitely consider. Besides, I think this corporate social stuff actually wastes lots of time at work. Maybe that’s why corporate professionals always work overtime? They talk too much!
4. You feel it was a waste of your life in the office
How many times of a day you looked at the window of your office, and told yourself: “What if I can have a picnic in this nice weather?” or “ Why I am sitting here to deal with the shit spreadsheet, I should go to the beach!”
Life is too short to waste on something you are not passionate about. If you feel you shouldn’t be here, you definitely should keep looking and find out which way works for you the best.
For example, if you don’t like sitting long hours in an office, why not change to a job that you can go out, travel to different places, walk around and meet people? Such as real estate agents, property stylists or home care workers.
If you don’t like dealing with numbers and spreadsheets every day, why not change to something creative and fun, and you can also think outside of boxes, such as cooking, carpenter, or artist?
Recently, I am watching MasterChef Australia and found some fun facts. Many of the contestants are actually work in the corporates, such as data analyst, lawyer, research officer, chemical engineer, etc, but now they are committed to a challenging cooking competition for a potential opportunity to be a professional chef. They just follow their heart, listen to their calling and doing what they truly love. And if you watch the show, you can feel they really had a good time at MasterChef even the competition was tough.
To be honest, when I worked in corporate, once I found I was sick of what I was doing, I even did not have the desire to get promoted or achieve a better performance review. I never imagine myself working as a senior manager, director, head of xxxx and I don’t admire my boss as well. I think they were doing the exact same tedious, soul-crushing things, they just get used to it and started managing others to do the same. This sort of corporate life isn’t for me.
5. You clicked this article and read till sign No.5
Congratulations! If you clicked this article and read it until sign No.5, I believe you really need to think seriously about does a corporate job works for you?
Please have a look at your Google search history, Medium article recommendation or advertisement you saw on the social media etc, is there anything like these:
- Quit your 9–5 job
- Side hustles ideas
- travel while making money online
- Achieve financial freedom before 35..
If so, you are more likely to be targeted as someone who hates the corporate job and looking for new opportunities to make a living. The big data behind your footprint online probably already predict this, they even know it before you figure it out yourself.
If so, why not follow your heart to try some new ideas? Even if you fail, the worst situation would be you just go back to your old corporate job or similar jobs you had experience with. It couldn’t be worse than now, and most likely, as long as you find out which way can bring the best of you, you are more likely to live a life with purpose and passion.
Now I work as a property stylist and a freelance social media marketer. I feel I am doing what I love ( interior styling) and I can go out more, get exercise while working ( as this job require some physical work ), to see beautiful properties, travel to different suburbs, feel the weather outside, and have flexible schedules, etc. It fits my lifestyle and passion perfectly.
On the other hand, I don’t waste my experience and skills in marketing, I was reached out by an agency through LinkedIn, they initially invited me to an interview for a full-time position, after I explained my bond career change intentions, I also said I am happy to do some freelance work if they need. Luckily last week they assigned me some copywriting work. I just need to focus on the creative part that I really enjoyed in marketing, and get rid of the rest of corporate things such as paperwork, process, admin, meetings, politics etc. Besides, I also started writing on Medium. I will see how it goes.
In the end, I hope you understand the corporate world does not suit everyone. Who says you have to be a white-collar and work in a fancy office if you have a degree? Everyone has different personalities, talents and passions, which will lead to various career paths and life choices. Some professionals are really good at corporate work and they keep climbing the ladder through their entire career. But for the people who don’t want to get up to go to the office in the morning, they’d better take some time off, brainstorm a couple of ideas, and explore more possibilities to bring the best of themselves.
Wish you all the best in whatever career you would like to move forward.
