Stand up for yourself!

I’ve learned a lot about myself in relation to work over the last five or six years. I’ve realised that I have a short fuse for stupidity and laziness (ironically, I’m famously lazy in my day to day life) in work. I like a cut corner as much as the next employee but when I and the people I respect are affected by this then I look to my superiors for answers. It is important that you have a manager that has your back. You may be a grunt now, doing the busywork that your superiors are above but if they don’t have your back when you deserve it then why play nice anymore?
I can’t stand people not having my back. There comes a time when you can no longer sit back and take the crap that those in power throw at you and that those in the trenches with you somehow get away from shit-free.

Personally, my interest in a job wanes when I know that, when needed, the manager does not have my back.. I can recognise when I’m in the wrong and if I’ve overstepped a mark but if someone can’t provide answers or won’t provide a solution to a problem that affects me then I’m checked out. My stay is over at the Hotel Paradise.

It is always frustrating to air these grievances to someone from the older generation.

“Isn’t it great to have a job? Ah, sure isn’t it brilliant to have the pension and everything getting sorted for you?! ISN’T IT GREAT TO HAVE A JOB, HUH?!”

They’re so incensed by the idea that you mightn’t be fully satisfied by just being employed. Stupid milennials. Why can’t we just be delighted to go into an office for forty hours a week and do meaningless tasks that make other people boatloads of money while we scrape by each week? Why can’t we be enthralled by the fact that we get to log on to work each morning and be greeted by the late shift’s mistakes for little to no praise? Why can’t we be super excited to listen to our manager’s platitudes and pageantry and go another day not knowing exactly where we stand? We’re so ungrateful!

It is a totally different time, quite literally, to when our parents, aunts and uncles were starting out. Gone are the days when you may spend your whole working life with a single company. People nowadays are driven by more than just job security. We want basic things like job satisfaction and not to be taken for granted. Or at least pay us well if you take us for granted.
I don’t buy into the whole Americanisation of offices here in Ireland. Not to tar Americans with the one brush, but fully stocked kitchens, games rooms and slides for some reason have crept into our corporate environments. All I want is to be able to go home at the end of the day, to my own kitchen, games room and slide for some reason and be happy with the work I’ve done.

Recently, I’ve realised the importance of standing up for yourself and your ideals in the work environment. For so long, as most Irish people do, I kept the peace and just let things happen. I would silently simmer about the wrongs I had experienced and covered for my coworkers. However, I stopped simmering over the last few years and started standing up for myself. Sounds easy, right?
It is probably the most difficult thing I’ve ever had to do. As soon as I’d finish standing up for myself I’d get the shakes that come with the adrenaline. I’d run through what just happened and lament my actions. I’d immediately plan for unemployment and ostracization from the working world. When I wasn’t fired and blacklisted after the first few times I spoke out against Big Brother I learned that I was only doing what was right for me. That has had a much more positive effect on my life and happiness over the last five to six years.

Potential employers potentially reading this will probably run for the hills and block my email address. I think the importance of not feeling walked upon and being true to yourself trumps any job that is scared of those things anyways. So, stand up for yourself and don’t let the man get you down. Hmmm… Maybe I was born in the wrong generation myself. Why can’t milennials just work?!