I recently had a conversation with a friend that went something like this…
Me: Gregg, congratulations on your new job!
Gregg: Ah well, at the end of the day it’s still a job. And I had to take a £13k pay cut.
Me: Why what are you earning now?
Gregg: £95k base and an agreed £15k bonus in April.
Me: Right. Shit.
Gregg: My boss is still a cunt but slightly less of a cunt than the old one.
Me: That’s good.
Gregg: Yeh I s’pose.
Me: Well have a good night, enjoy yourself!
Gregg: Cheers.
Gregg is what is known as a corporate cock sucker. This is not a derogatory term.
Gregg is really smart. He’s got a degree in law from Cambridge. He’s funny, charismatic and loud. At 16 he was the irritating child who messed around in class but always scored straight As. Like most of us, Gregg made career decisions based on advice from his parents. His parents, being: 1. traditional 2. quite worried about how he would turn out, recommended he should study law.
He graduated in 2006 and began a career at a big law firm in London. He earns a small fortune but I’ve watched him become increasingly bitter about his career. He works really long hours and sits down most of the day. At the weekend, he feels he’s earned himself the right to get pissed. That makes him hungover and more miserable on Monday morning and the cycle self-perpetuates. He wants to be a writer and is very talented at it but he started on a very good salary and has become steadily richer. Having equally rich friends and an expensive flat makes it remarkably hard to quit.
He’s underwhelmed, unfit and more worryingly, locked in.
How did it get to this? How is it possible for someone who is so intelligent, hard-working and well-meaning to be trapped in an endless cycle of unfulfilling work? It’s not Gregg’s fault. It’s not really anyone’s fault. It’s a gradual process centred around an illusion of progress.
In the 15 years leading up to his current situation, Gregg was presented with the idea that working harder would make him happier in the long term; if he just worked that bit harder, he could go to the best university in the country, get a first class degree, join the best law firm, make it to partner level. Sold on the idea that making sacrifices today brought a brighter future in later years, Gregg always rose to the challenge. In truth this was an illusion of progress. Gregg now finds himself in a very miserable position and, having sunk 15 years to get here, he finds it very difficult to quit.
This illusion of progress has plagued humanity for the last 12 000 years. Today, many anthropologists are questioning whether moving from a life of hunting and gathering was really a step forward for humanity.
Here is a sneak preview from my book. It’s a chapter called: how we evolved from Hunter-Gatherers to social media managers.
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