On this blog, I’ve been cataloging how I’ve changed during this 5+ year journey to financial independence. Most of those changes have involved how I act at work, which I detailed in posts here and here.
Being A Yes Woman
‘Fun’ examples of my blind acquiesce of work authority figures include, but are not limited to:
- Planning all of our company’s social events (e.g. a winter and summer parties for the whole company) by myself in addition to my full-time job
- Creating and running additional company activities to boost morale…despite morale being down because of toxic managers and low pay (not because we lacked mardi gras parties or world cup viewing events…)
- Saying yes to my manager asking me to meet with her financial advisor despite her knowing I advocate for DIY investing instead of paying for some suit’s new boat
Turning Over A New Leaf
Well I’m happy to say this is no longer the case! Over the years, I’ve evolved from a scared employee that will do anything anyone asks to one with boundaries. Shockingly, those boundaries have allowed me to do better work and (unsurprisingly) to have a better work/life balance.
Who knew that not being anxious and having a clear head to respond to client requests instead of being a ‘yes man’, would lead to better outcomes? Who knew that setting clear boundaries for when you are available (9 to 5) and when you’re not would make clients respect you more? And who knew that being able to view a job unemotionally allows you to see what items will lead to the biggest actual impact instead of focusing equally on everything (including time wasters like the office politics in my job)?
The Marketing Machine
Well a new, strange phenomenon has emerged along this same vein. As background, I work in marketing and one good tenant of marketing is to have a point of view as a company and constantly show how you are different. One of the ways companies do this is to have a constantly updated blog on their site (yes we’re getting a little meta) that shows who they are as a company and how they think.
My company asks that everyone participate in writing these blog posts. They encourage us to write about specific subjects within marketing, such as creating great content and pushing through an industries’ noise *eyeroll*. I personally find those subjects tired (maybe I’ve been in the business too long… ๐ ) and instead, choose to write about whatever strikes my fancy.
A few months ago, I was coming out of a meeting with 13 other attendees that definitely could have been an email. I was curious and calculated how much billable time was wasted in that meeting: $2,000…WHAT?!
As a result, I was fired up. So when I saw that I had a blog post due for my company by 5pm that day, I wrote about how most meetings are a waste of time. I was feeling real sassy and had a deadline short enough that I didn’t stop and second-guess myself before hitting “send”.
Money From Realness
Then something hilarious happened. In order to incentivize people to write these blog posts, my company also gives out monetary prizes to the most read articles. For 3 years, none of my articles ranked – they never even came close.
Then my article bashing meetings came out and ever since then I have been RAKING IN THE DOUGH! Overall, in the last few months, I’ve brought in $1,300 extra by writing that one, short, sassy article that I guess resonated with people, perhaps because it was ‘real’ instead of marketing jargon. I’ve consistently been the most read article on our company blog for the last few months.
It’s also possible that practicing my writing on this blog for the last 5 years has helped me hone my craft. When I look at my archives (don’t go in there – it’s a bloodbath – sometimes literally!) I can see that my writing has definitely improved, so that might be a factor as well. So, I can credit giving less of a shit about what other people think and this blog for helping me make a fine chunk of change!
Conclusion
Like always, hindsight is 20/20. I wish I had come to the realization years ago that taking a step back and giving less of a fuck, would actually lead to a better career AND a better life. But I guess I can’t complain since I did discover it by 30. I somehow made money by being my (brash) self instead of the work persona I usually put forward. I wonder what other ridiculous surprises will happen in these final 4 months before retirement…
Have you ever made money in an unexpected way?
One unexpected way Iโve made cash is by gaming my employee stock purchase plan. I once worked at a company that gave a 10% match to whatever you put into the ESPP as long as you left it in there for at least 3 months. Most people Could only spare maybe an extra $100 from each paycheck for the plan. Sneaky me saved up and ran my entire paycheck through the plan simultaneously taking out a 3 month old paycheck on each pay day. I effectively got a 10% raise!! Woohoo thatโs rich and sassy like a fine barbecue sauce
Ha, love this story, Life Outside The Maze. You and other FI folk know how to work a system to your advantage! Solid hack there. Did the company change the terms of that offer, after the unexpected way you used it?
Haha, nope we were subsequently acquired so the company got gobbled up. I did write about the sneaky details of the hack though in a post if Purple doesn’t mind me shamelessly linking it: https://lifeoutsidethemaze.com/have-you-claimed-your-10-guaranteed-raise%ef%bb%bf/
I’ll allow it ๐
That is AMAZING!!! I bet they didn’t see that coming ๐ . Really smart of you to do that.
Awesome use of money. It is always interesting just how much easier it is to make money when you have your finances handled. “The rich get richer” type of thing. Glad you used your mind a little and figured out how to best utilize your paycheck!
I read that post and it was a good one! I think having the optimizer mentality of someone seeking Financial Independence was really suited to cutting to the core of those bloated, wasteful work meetings we’ve all been stuck in countless times before.
Thanks! Fair point on the optimizer mentality – we sure do love optimization and spreadsheets ๐ .
i just got 50 bucks for a company “bravo” award. it came with a photo of me wearing paper hat on the employee of the month plaque. it was just some extra for me agreeing to do my boss a favor and work a few hours on a saturday, but here was my stipulation. i’ll only do it during civilized hours that work for my life. if it encroached on happy hour then it would have to wait. congrats on the 13 benjamins.
Nice Freddy! Looks like you’re cashing in for…well not even being sassy, but a reasonable person with boundaries. I love it! And thank you.
Oh wow, that’s good hustling. Nice job.
Readers can tell real from BS. A regular article about work won’t do it.
Is there any blowback from the management? Not that you’d care. ๐
Thanks Joe! And nope there hasn’t been any blowback from management, but after my winning streak I assume there were complaints because I seem to be suspiciously not on the roster anymore despite having more views than others lol. It’s all good – I already cashed in. And yeah I really wouldn’t care at this point – like 100 workdays to go…
I’m just curious – was there a moment when you think the turning point happened? Like, was there a pivotal choice you made that went against the “yes woman” grain, that sparked future baddass Purple? Or do you feel like it was a slow progression?
I say this full well knowing that I can’t pinpoint a single instance that led to me changing somewhat similarly. And I’m definitely not yet at the same level of DGAF as you are yet, but think I will grow into it as my net worth grows.
There was no one moment – it was definitely a progression. If you want to see each step I go year by year in the posts I linked to at the top of the article (which I know you read already since you commented, but just saying ๐ ). As my stash grew and I started feeling like I could say more of what I was actually thinking I started evolving. I wish I had had one revelation and just instantly turned into a Purple superhero – that would be a better story ๐ . I hope you keep evolving your DGAF status and I’m excited to hear about it!
That’s awesome you can make some extra money that way. It reminds me of the time I sang karaoke in front of my entire company to get $50 at our company christmas party. I think there were only 3 of us who did. lol! Whatever man! But it’s interesting about not giving a bleep and kind of making more. I’m thinking about that topic right now of how hard should you push yourself, but also let things go at the same time. Hmmmm
That’s so cool! I’d totally sing karaoke for $50. Making some extra money and becoming even better at my job have definitely been strange and unexpected consequences of giving less of a bleep ๐ as you say. Balancing pushing vs letting go is definitely a hard one. I might have swung too far in one direction ๐ .
Awesome story Purple, I hope this meant your current company decided on less meetings…
More recently my company gave us all $50 gift cards for increased productivity while WFH, which means I’ll soon have either some new socks or a dehydrator. Decisions, decisions.
Thanks Darcy! And unfortunately they have gone in the opposite direction and scheduled MORE since everyone has gone digital when we started quarantining 9 weeks ago. Luckily my “decline” button is getting a work out and that’s the only negative thing about it for me ๐ . And ooh $50 is awesome! They could tell y’all were more productive? That’s impressive given everything going on. As for socks or dehydrator…why not both? How much do dehydrators cost?
Sounds like the guy from office space that got hypnotized and thenot topped giving a shit about work, and somehow found himself promoted. I need to take this approach to work, but I do pride myself on doing the best job possible, so that’s kinda hard.
Yeah Office Space is pretty extreme in that way. If I didn’t try my best I’m sure I would have been laid off with 4% of my company last month. There is definitely a balance though. I’ve been able to keep doing great work while being more of myself and so far that’s been paying off monetarily and in my performance reviews.
Well played, Purple! There is definitely a time and place for sassy in the office, though it’s sometimes hard to tell when and where.
I’m glad your new attitude helped you put some solid boundaries in place for your own mental health.
And having the stones to say what, clearly, many others would only think created a nice $1,300 cherry on top.
Well played, indeed.
Haha thank you! Yeah I’m careful with my sassyness, but so far it’s paid off when I do let it out – like with that blog post and when I shared my salary with my co-workers. So far it’s only led to good things ๐ .
Ha! meetings are an inordinate waste of time. I worked from home the better part of 15 years and regularly scheduled conference calls were my laundry folding time and it always made me feel slightly subversive, yet incredibly productive, you know, since I got my laundry folded. The last 4 years of my career I managed my own team as well as my own pile of work and guess what? WE HAD NO MEETINGS! I think there is a very rare time and a place for a meeting, if you have a short and clear agenda and someone who can moderate and I attended maybe 4-5 of those over the course of a 20 year career. I love that you had the chutzpah to share your salary with your co-workers. That was so frowned upon when I worked for a large publicly traded bank and I know it was so they could control (fuck with) us!
Right?! It’s shocking to me how much time is wasted on them…and how obvious it is that people are doing other work and not even paying attention aka it’s not needed. Laundry folding is smart! I still have a little stab of work from home guilt if I do stuff like that, but if I had more unnecessary meetings I think I would. I have been declining them lately.
And no meetings in the team you managed is awesome! Did you use a messaging service or something instead of talk as a group? I find email is not ideal for that. And yeah sharing salary is still frowned upon here (even though it’s illegal to tell us not to share…which was in our employee handbook for 10 years). But what are they going to do to me? Fire me for sharing? Hello lawsuit! Lay me off? Bring it on ๐ .
That is great! I wish my company appreciated sassiness. My boss is a total yes person and takes on party planning and miscellaneous unfulfilling work on top of a very stressful workload. Of course this trickles down to her team. I am swamped and don’t volunteer for these extra projects. Unfortunately for me, the employees who do volunteer are definitely favored.
I wouldn’t say the company appreciates sassyness, but the democracy of the internet does ๐ . Ugh I’m sorry about your boss and that that trickles down to y’all. Totally don’t volunteer if you’re swamped! I’m not even swamped and I’m not volunteering.
In fact I just told the team that I’m going to stop managing all of the company’s social media, which I’ve been doing for 3+ years on the side of my real job and when I kept getting pulling into meetings about it and micro-managed I was like “Why am I doing this?! I don’t have to!” So I quit and my time is coming to an end relatively soon. It’s freeing.
I’m sorry the volunteers are favored at your company. I actually haven’t seen that at mine. The people that work hard and take on extra work (like me) were usually taken for granted.
I guess I should say that volunteers are favored by my immediate boss who decides our raises. Overall though the company takes her for granted.
Ah! Well, yay for raises ๐ .
I went back to work with my husband a year ago tomorrow. One of the last meetings I attended, I walked out of the meeting, looked at my boss and said โthat could have been an email, it was a total waste of our timeโ. Presenter was standing behind me, I still didnโt care. People who like to hear themselves talk drive me nuts.
On my last day I told my coworker who was hired the week after me exactly how much I made, how much my last three raises were and told her she needed to demand a raise because they would give it to her. She was doing the majority of the work in her department. And severely underpaid.
That’s amazing all around! Good for you for standing up for people’s time and making sure your coworker has the knowledge to fight for what she deserves!!! Absolutely wonderful!