Complaining Is Inefficient At Changing The Flaws In Your Corporate Office Job
How to reframe your job inconveniences to set you up to provide value instead of complaining about them
I used to complain a lot about my corporate office job — low pay raise, repetitive tasks, unappreciated and all that.
And I’m not alone. A lot of us, the low-ranking employees, feel this way. We see all the inefficiencies of the company. We talk about it, we expose them to upper management and yet, nothing happens. They do not seem to care.
This went on for about 2 years until I called it quits.
Leaving is the best option when you reach a point where you don’t know how to change the situation.
This made me think about my mom — she never backed out of a tough situation.
She was able to keep going, despite the cards she was dealt with. If I could approach things the way she would, I’d be more resilient towards tough challenges. I tried asking my mom about it, but she sucks at getting into the specifics because she’s doing it unconsciously.
It took me more than 29 years of observation to figure some of them out.
Realize you’ve got more to give
“Go help your mom out!”, is a repetitive nag I heard from my grandma when I was a kid.
In the Philippines, my mom goes to work at the pawnshop for 8 hours, comes home, cooks us dinner, washes the dishes and does all the other house stuff afterwards. It was the same deal when we moved to Canada: go to work, then do housework after.
The cycle never ended.
Now, my dad was around, but I don’t recall him helping her that much. He was busy with other things as well. It’s not that he didn’t help out at home, but, the work ratio between them (on housework) is about 65:35. But she rarely complained.
This made me wonder, “What is it about her that conditioned her to soldier on for a long time?”
Then I had kids. Suddenly it all made sense.
As new parents, it’s easy to complain about how tough it is to balance things at home and work. It almost feels like you don’t have time for yourself. Quitting feels easy — but that’s a wimpy way of handling things.
There’s no way I’m quitting on my kids. Instead, I want to be their hero (just like how I see my mom).
They may be a lot of work, but you love them so much that you make it work — no matter what.
“Make it work” means reframing your situation such that things are happening the way they’re supposed to be. It’s when you feel you are in control. Setbacks don't catch you by surprise because you anticipate them.
“Do not seek for things to happen the way you want them to; rather, wish that what happens happen the way it happens: then you will be happy.”
— Epictetus
It’s a transferrable skill I now apply at my corporate office job.
When you work for a big company filled with standard processes that get results, it’s difficult to find opportunities for improvement. The more effective the process is, the harder it is to spot problems that allow you to practice your problem-solving skills. This is the reason why a 9–5 office job feels monotonous. You are expected to do things as suggested by the “standard processes”.
However, I was able to reframe the whole situation.
There’s almost always something to complain about. These, in reality, are opportunities that could make your job feel less monotonous. No one in your team would stop you from stepping up to solve the problem. And because finding a solution is challenging, you’d feel less like a robot who just follows orders.
The more problems you solve, the more challenges you go through, the less monotonous your job is going to be.
When our coded-Excel-spreadsheets started giving us problems at work, I saw it as an opportunity to provide value.
Now, I suck at programming, but after solving one small issue after another, I eventually became known as the “macro guy” in the team.
Conserve your energy because complaining is exhausting
“How’s it going?”, asked my ex-manager.
“Good!”, I said, but I didn’t wanna give a canned response, so I added, “Complaining is exhausting”. He goes, “What do you mean?”.
I intentionally said that because it’s a good prompt for a 15-minute discussion during our lunch walks at work.
Office work involves a lot of thinking.
But we only have a very limited amount of mental energy to consume throughout the day. While I use most of it at work, I make sure I have enough left for my family. Work is not life — I still have to figure out what to cook for dinner or what games I should play with the kids.
And because our mental energy is scarce, why waste it on complaining?
“We suffer not from the events in our lives, but from our judgment about them.” — Epictetus
When I used to work for my ex-manager and my ex-supervisor, complaining didn’t feel right.
Sure, we would occasionally complain to vent things out, but we don’t dwell on it. It’s as if there’s an unwritten rule that we should limit our conversations to talking about solutions instead of reiterating the problems.
This was the opposite of the conversations I had when I was an unhappy employee more than 10 years ago.
We complain and complain and complain but nothing changes. But I get it, complaining is a lot easier than figuring out a solution (and acting on it). There are risks involved with crafting solutions as they may not always work. If they fail, they can be considered a “waste of time”. But what most don’t realize is that it moves us forward — a little closer to solving the root cause of the problem.
Said simply, complaining is inefficient — so you might as well use your limited energy to figure out and act on a solution.
It’s time to look in the mirror when you think you’re fed up
It felt like smoke came out of my ears when I wrote, “How many more backflips do I need to do for this project?!!” in our group chat at work.
Another one of my team members asked me for the same information I’d already given for the 3rd time! I got irritated because:
- I’m busy with another project. There’s a mental tax I need to take into account every time I get distracted.
- I don’t want to be the bottleneck to their project’s progress.
- It feels like everyone wants to be spoon-fed with answers.
Now, this isn’t the first time, nor the 10th time.
It happens often enough that I easily lose my shiz. And every time I get triggered, I get on a call with the individual and try to vent out my frustration (in a joking way). I needed them to understand and acknowledge my frustration without compromising our work relationship.
You can’t expect people to read your mind.
It helps to be “black and white” — to be as clear as possible. Misunderstandings happen a lot because more people prefer to assume than to ask for clarity. But because the cycle somehow never stopped, I can’t help but think they might be doing it on purpose.
Complaining to our manager or their supervisor crossed my mind a lot.
If I can’t straighten these people out, they would, they are their responsibility. While that seems logical, it can be inefficient. Imagine I did that, what do you think is going to happen?
If anything, it will damage my relationship with my colleagues. They’re gonna try hard to find the faults in my actions, so they can complain about me as well. I’d rather eat my pride than be in an “adversarial” relationship with others. Plus, my manager would probably handle it the same way anyway.
It doesn’t make sense to let one member’s frustration damage the dynamic of the whole team.
When your kids get into a fight, you get them to acknowledge their mistakes (and hug it out). All that energy I would’ve consumed on complaining has been wasted. But as adults, our frustrations, when they’re out of control, can make us say things would permanently damage our work-relationship with others.
Now, this isn’t to say you should suck it up when things aren’t right.
Bottling things up is not good either.
All I’m saying is that complaining (as our default setting whenever things aren’t going our way) is ineffective. A better way to handle it would be to:
- Step back from the situation (for a minute or two).
- Use those moments to reflect and see things from a different perspective (preferably from their perspective). The more perspectives you come up with, the better.
- Choose the perspective that would make you react more positively.
I have no control over other people’s reactions towards me, but I have full control of my behaviour towards the situation.
I learned to self-check by asking, “What if…they are really trying their best?”
Maybe, the reality is, that they’re not operating in the way I expect them to be. Perhaps, I am the problem. I probably failed to acknowledge their current knowledge and skills. Maybe I’m not communicating things the way they prefer to receive information.
Looking at it from that perspective calms down my frustration.
“A real man doesn’t give away to anger and discontent, and such a person has strength, courage, and endurance — unlike the angry and complaining. The nearer a man comes to a calm mind, the closer he is to strength.”
— Marcus Aurelius
Truth is, our biases can get us all worked up for nothing.
Instead of buying into the frustration, it’s more helpful to use it as an opportunity to identify our own triggers. The less I get affected (mentally and emotionally) about it, the stronger I’ll look to myself and everyone around me.
Less stress means a happier workplace.
Handle your frustration like a Stoic
My mom rarely complained about her exhaustion.
That’s because she is in control. Life might have been harder than she realized it, but it was her choice. Therefore, she’s gonna make it work (in her favour) no matter what. It’s a lot easier to go with the current of life instead of going against it.
“If you want to determine the nature of anything, entrust it to time: when the sea is stormy, you can see nothing clearly.”
— Seneca the Younger
It’s easier to adapt to the situation than complaining your way to change it.
