How Pursuing FIRE Has Changed How I Act At Work (Part 2)

by A Purple Life, posted in Early Retirement, Jobs
This post may contain affiliate links. For more info read my disclosure.

A year and a half ago, I published a post called How Pursuing FIRE Has Changed How I Act At Work. It recapped how I’ve changed as I inched towards financial independence: from doing anything my boss and company asks without question to erecting some boundaries that allow me have a better work/life balance, actually improve my performance and make my work life far more tolerable.

Well in the last year and a half, that trend has continued almost exponentially. Let’s see how my continuous saving has further changed how I act at work.

PURSUING FIRE YEAR 5 (2019)

Right before I wrote the last post about how pursuing FIRE changed how I acted at work, I tried a new experiment:

Creating Work Boundaries

Despite the unsaid always-on expectation that persists in the marketing industry, I turned off my email after hours to see what would happen. At the time, I was running a large, international project for an important client. This project involved meeting frequently with people in other countries and time zones, which meant that I would also receive emails at all times of day and night during their work hours. It was taking a toll on me so I decided to change it.

I turned off email notifications on my phone after hours and my life and the project drastically improved! I got better sleep and was calmer and better able to handle anything that work threw at me.

Erecting those boundaries actually made me better at my job and my client learned what to expect from me AKA no communication outside of business hours. We ended the project successfully with a great relationship and he asked to work with me again a few months later.

It might seem counterintuitive, but having boundaries and teaching people what to expect from you seems to actually improve instead of decrease work performance. I wish I had figured this out years ago.

Maintaining Work Boundaries

So now I’ve been maintaining this boundary for 1.5 years and literally no one has mentioned it. I have set the clear expectation of when they will get a response from me.

My phone number is at the bottom of every email I send in case there is an ‘actual’ emergency, but literally no one has called or texted me – ever. I guess that email didn’t need the “URGENT” flag you popped on it…or need to have the Subject Line “HELP!!!” (yes, that really happened).

I actually wasn’t aware with how powerful these boundaries were until I spoke with a few of my colleagues recently. One of them worked the last two weekends in a row despite the fact that she was supposed to be climbing mountains at the time. Her boss had emailed her on a Sunday and when she didn’t hear from her (mountains don’t have the best reception…) had texted and then called her because a new project HAD TO BE DONE BY MONDAY MORNING!

So she came back from climbing mountains exhausted and then spent six hours of her Sunday working. Fuck no. That is not acceptable behavior and I can easily see that being me if I had continued down my previous boundary-free path.

Refusing Clients

I have asked to be taken off a project for a specific client before, but only because I knew my boss personally and therefore felt comfortable asking about it instead of following my usual routine of quitting to find greener pastures. Well now I have no qualms asking (or telling) anyone that I want off of a project because of a toxic client or refusing to work with them in the first place.

For example, I worked on a horrible project last year where the client was openly aggressive and also changed their mind every five seconds about what they wanted. I tried to see if this relationship was fixable for three months only to discover it wasn’t, so I decided to get out. I told my boss and the manager of the project that I wanted off. They said “ok – we’ll see what we can do” and then did nothing. So six months into the project after pestering them didn’t work, I decided to pull out the big guns:

And it worked. Asking my boss for a LinkedIn recommendation made him think I was planning to move on and forced his hand. I was off the project. Hilariously, they would try to get me to come back to this same client and project, but that’s a story for:

PURSUING FIRE YEAR 6 (2020)

So here we are, in the year I quit my job to retire at 30 and sail into the sunset and my DGAF status has been cranked up to 11:

Refusing Clients

The aggressive client I mentioned above came back and that same manager asked me to work with them. I flat out refused. He said he would talk to my boss about it and I said feel free to. My boss said nothing and I continued to be toxic-client free. Hilariously that very same day this happened with a different, toxic client:

I’m not just saying no to my colleagues to protect my own wellbeing, but to my boss as well and nothing bad happened! Why haven’t I been doing this my whole career?!?! Whatever – you live and you learn and I am loving my newfound power to  dictate who I work with. So far it’s making these final months a lot less stressful.

Spreading Salary Knowledge

So a few months ago this happened:

…and I’m still dealing with the aftermath. Basically I’ve always been an open book about my finances. If a friend or colleague asked my net worth or my salary I would be happy to tell them. Unsurprisingly, people very rarely asked.

However, in this situation, a colleague was talking about her promotion and raise in vague terms and stumbling over her explanation as a result so I did something new: I offered to share my salary – in case it would help her explanation.

When I did her jaw dropped to the floor and we discovered all of the above. Because I spoke up she and several of my female colleagues are in talks with management to get the money they deserve. I probably should have started a riot sooner…

Not Accepting Unrealistic Timelines

At the beginning of my career I was told to “Do ANYTHING to make the client happy.” That includes agreeing to and delivering against unrealistic deadlines. During my journey to FIRE I have slowly been pushing back on that idea by countering with more realistic timelines, but this year I flat out refused one of them:

In the same vein of setting boundaries and expectations, the above request is not acceptable. Especially after I dug around and discovered that they had known about this Monday deadline for over a week. I refused to work the weekend because of someone else’s incompetence. I provided a counter-solution, which they accepted, and we all moved forward. A similar request has not come in since.

Declining Meetings

So at the end of last year this happened:

This began my shocking decision to actually decline meetings. At the beginning of my career I was told not to – that all meetings had to be attended (no matter how useless…). However, a FIRE friend casually mentioned to me that she declines meetings that are not relevant to her. She’s not necessarily in client service, but I thought: I can apply this to internal meetings for sure! So I started trying it out last year:

…and nothing bad happened. I just had less meetings on my schedule. So this year I extended this approach to external meetings as well and nothing has exploded. I am only on meetings that I actually need to be in and I have more time to do actual work as a result. Win/win!

Not Being A Doormat

There’s a stereotype that people in Seattle are passive aggressive. I don’t have an opinion one way or the other because I don’t think I have enough data. I moved here from NYC, which is the opposite of passive aggressive, but I grew up in Georgia where a tenant of southern hospitality is saying the opposite of what you mean in the kindest voice possible and then trash talking behind people’s back (it’s the sweetest sounding passive aggressive-ness there is 😉 ).

Since hearing about this Seattle stereotype, I haven’t been able to put my finger on if that stereotype is based in truth or if I am just more aware of passive aggressive behavior after learning about the stereotype. Either way, a few curious incidents have happened at work that would have previously caused me to go into a panic. Here’s one:

If this colleague would have reached out and told me that doing my time sheets would make her life easier I would have happily done it, but that obviously was not her approach – instead she wanted to passive aggressively tattle and try to push my hand by CCing my boss. So I did nothing. I’m over these kinds of games and happy that they don’t even make me bat an eye anymore.

Opting Out Of Work Gatherings

I used to actually look forward to my company’s gatherings. This was years ago when we hired the best of the best and I hadn’t discovered the prevalent lies (see: the salary disparities above) and the microaggressions that seem to define every company-wide interaction these days.

Well along with those unfortunate changes, the company has started to think it’s acceptable to try and tell me what clothes to wear to these gatherings and since I am not a child with a dress code, I’m not having it. Here’s an example:

I didn’t attend the above company meeting and I was the only person not in ‘costume’ for our Halloween company meeting. I took any digs someone tried to make with one raised eyebrow. Bring it on people.

This refusal to play dress up has extended to opting out of unnecessary social interactions as well. For example, after our February company meeting, HR starting handing out little pieces of paper shaped like a heart and told us to write Valentines to each other…am I in kindergarten??

I grabbed my bag and started walking out during the ensuing chaos. Someone tried to call me out and draw attention to me leaving by yelling “Bye Purple!” over the crowd. Good try. I smiled, waved and walked out the door.

Conclusion

Pursuing FIRE has provided innumerable improvements to my life through the power that having a growing nest egg has given me. It’s not just about reaching a destination and changing your entire life then. My behavior has been slowly changing since I set this goal over five years ago and I’m excited to see where it takes me next.

And now I’ll leave you with this gem:

This sentiment might need to be incorporated into my OOTO message after I quit in September.

Has pursuing FIRE changed how you act at work and in life?

22 thoughts on “How Pursuing FIRE Has Changed How I Act At Work (Part 2)”

    1. Haha yeah it’s solid gold. And thank you! I seriously don’t recognize myself compared to who I was a few years ago at work. It’s amazing.

      Reply

  2. i’ve always been the DGAF employee, but i do quality work and give them what they pay for. i try not to give more than what they pay, though, via my secret formula and my annual private employer review.

    i wouldn’t last a minute in your type of workplace. if it was the only job left on earth i would starve. the only good workplace events in my past are the informal happy hour ones where the dorks and wangs don’t show up.

    Reply

    1. You figured it all out and I love it. Good for you not giving them more than they pay for. If my colleagues calculated their actual hourly wage based on the wild amount of hours worked I know they’d be shocked. And oh no – well luckily this will never be the only job left on earth since it is DEFINITELY not important in the grand scheme of things. Don’t starve Freddy! And ooh I’ve never had those kinds of happy hours – everyone shows up because of free booze. Also “dorks and wangs” is a new phrase for me that I need to incorporate into my vocabulary.

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  3. Switching to this mindset shift has to feel like a lot less pressure. Have there been any downsides to the change?

    When I switched up my attitude before leaving it was mostly to a “let’s just GSD, doesn’t matter how” mindset. The downside was that there were things I STILL just couldn’t get done (bureaucracy). That got me a little down, but I was able to leave knowing I did my best.

    Reply

    1. It really does feel different – I’m loving it. I haven’t had any downsides, but it sounds like the difference in our experiences was that you were trying to create actual change for the company. In contrast, I’m trying to do a great job in my corner, but not concerning myself with personally trying to make my company a better place overall. Instead I’m giving others the tools to do so for their specific situations if they want to (e.g. sharing my salary and helping them come up with strategies to talk to their bosses about it), but I’m not actually trying to change the company as a whole. I’m impressed you did your best though – that’s awesome! I wish the bureaucracy would have gotten out of your way.

      Reply

  4. That sounds like you’ve learned a lot over the last couple of years, which has made your life a whole lot easier and less stressful.

    I mean, if people are CCing the entire company to get their message across, good for them. Proud that you didn’t respond to that!

    Personally I don’t do anything besides working hours and if they want me to they need to pay for my over hours. That’s the easy thing when you’re in consulting.

    I’m convinced that your last 6 months of working will be the most fun, with less f*cks given and no ugly sweater parties (that’s the good thing of quitting in September right?!). Cheers!

    Reply

    1. Yeah it really has AND it’s made me better at my job. Who would have thought haha? Even my bonuses and performance reviews reflect that. Boundaries are making me a better employee.

      Yeah I can see how being an hourly consultant would help with that. Good for you not working for ‘free’! These last few months are indeed feeling better and better. I’m starting to understand the people that say ‘when you’re close to FI work feels so different that it’s almost enjoyable’. Tricky tricky! And haha if I had planned my quit date to avoid ugly sweater parties that would have been hilarious.

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  5. Man, I’m impressed with your continued DGAF status. I admit mine is faltering a bit. All the closures are affecting our paper, and now more so since we’re now owned by a bigger company taking bigger hits. Right at a time when my investments took a big hit, something I would rely on if something bad happens. If we’re laid off, at least there is unemployment, but my walkaway threat is severely diminished from what it was. I could still survive for a few years on what’s left but I would be taking a huge loss if I had to withdraw any. And the part-time jobs I could probably live on without touching my investments are mostly dried up since so many things are on lock down. Oh, and did I mention they messed with our insurance, and we have to buy on the exchange now? I haven’t even looked into what happens if I’m laid off or had to leave. And I just found out today that my cash account that was paying 2.4% is now down to .26%. Well, I’m in new job hunt mode now, at any rate.

    Anyway, none of this is to complain — just to explain why my FI confidence (conFIdence?) is at an all time low. I have confidence it will all turn out fine, and I will always figure out a way to get by — I always have and I always will. But it’s just one of those times where the creep of doubt is peaking around the corner at me, and I haven’t had the wherewithal to kick it in the face yet.

    Reply

    1. Oh wow – I can see why yours would be faltering a bit. That’s A LOT! I’m sorry your conFIdence (love the word!) is lowered. I know you’ll figure it out though. Between all the projects you have going on I know you can find a backup plan even if part-time stuff is drying up.

      And what bank dropped their interest rate that low?!? (Feel free to DM me if you don’t want to share here.) That’s ridiculous and I’ve never heard of that kind of drop before. And they did WHAT with your insurance? Wow – I would have hoped that a big company would be WAY more competent than that.

      Anyway, hang in there dude. You got this. Deep breaths.

      Reply

      1. Thanks Purple! Yeah, I’ve been in far worse situations and I always find a way to survive and thrive. And if things get really bad, I am privileged to have parents who are very FI thanks to frugal lifestyle and investing. I’d have to be close to homeless before I would even consider that option because I believe in solving my own problems but it is comforting to know that safety net is there.

        There’s now a very real possibility of my paper shutting down, which would mean a period of unemployment benefits. (Since not many businesses are going to advertise while they shut down.) But I have polished up my resume and am starting to actively shop it around this weekend. I’ve also got ideas and plans in how I can expand our podcast into a full-service production studio. I think 2020 is shaping up to be all about change for this bicycle bro.

        Reply

        1. Yep – you totally got this. It’s great you have that safety net as well. Sounds like you’re making all the right moves – I hope your resume shopping around goes well! And oooh on the podcast expansion – that’s so exciting! And yep on change – I’m sure we’ll all come out of his different (and I think in the end that will be not the worst thing)!

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  6. Nice job with the boundaries. You have more power than a lot of workers because you prepared. Anyway, don’t quit and walk away with nothing. A recession is going to hit very soon. Maybe you can volunteer to leave or negotiate some kind of severance pay. Good luck and stay safe.

    Reply

    1. Thanks Joe! I responded to your tweet about that (and actually added a section about it to my ‘what am I doing about retirement?’ post just in case others have the same question 🙂 ) . I’m open to asking, but in my experience marketing agencies do not give severance – basically you’re lucky if they even give you notice. My colleague was laid off a few weeks ago and given like an hour to GTFO. Are there any other benefits to getting laid off or volunteering to leave vs quitting besides being able to apply for unemployment benefits (if I was going to look for another full-time job, which isn’t the current plan)? I hope y’all are staying healthy and safe!

      Reply

      1. Wow, I didn’t know that. In my previous career (engineering), when they start laying people off, you can talk to the manager and tell them you’re open to go. So you take place of someone else so they can keep their job. Most big techs have some kind of severance so it’s easier. Some of my old coworkers got 4-6 months of severance, mostly depending on the lenght of service.
        For your company? Check with trusted friends and maybe your boss on the down-low.
        Your colleague didn’t get anything at all? Should at least get 2 weeks.
        I missed your response. I’ll go back and check.

        Reply

        1. WOAH on 4-6 months – that’s amazing. And yeah – my colleague got nothing. I’ve never heard of anyone getting severance at any marketing job I’ve been at (this is my 6th) EXCEPT the one before this one: they offered me 2 weeks pay after being laid of, but ONLY IF I signed a gag order. I refused and told everyone about that horrible company. I’ll ask around with friends at my current place and see what I can find out.

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  7. Well, I finally made it through the archives. I am so glad I discovered you (and finally realised you weren’t 60!). I was at a bit of a low point on the FIRE journey, so this was exactly what I needed. Thanks for relighting the fire (pun absolutely intended) under me!

    Reply

    1. WOAH! You get a Purple Medal Of Honor! That is so impressive. I haven’t done that myself, but should – I’m curious how I’ve changed in the last 5 years. So happy I could help and light that FIRE!! You got this 🙂 .

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  8. Hi Purple, Good to see that pursuing FIRE gave you the courage.

    However, in all honesty, none of the things you mentioned above have any correlation with your FIRE. In all seriousness the people who behaved differently with you may not even know you are on FIRE.

    I only say this because, someone reading might think, “Well I’ll change my behavior in my last year of FIRE”. That’s not a helpful place to be. The time to change is now.

    Good employees are hard to find. If you are one, you have significant power. Never underestimate it.

    Reply

    1. I’m not sure I get what you’re saying. I was explaining how pursuing FIRE and as a result having a larger and larger nest egg to fall back on changed my behavior at work: from someone scared to not do anything people said to putting my coworkers and myself first over toxic clients. I didn’t originally think I would not change until I actually quit, but that’s wasn’t the case. Agreed that good employees do have power and shouldn’t underestimate it, but for me that was difficult given how callously I’ve seen my companies treat people in the past.

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  9. Good for you!
    I hope you are well in Seattle with everything that is going on there.

    Has the economic downturn changed anything about your plans to retire this fall?

    Reply

    1. Thanks! We are well and self-quarantining over here. The downturn hasn’t changed my plans – I’m writing a long form explanation of why that is for my next monthly update and it’s coming out 4/7.

      Reply

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