There is a surefire way to tell if the job you are applying for is completely wrong for you. Totally foolproof. Simply check your resume for lies to yourself. If you have any of these, don’t bother turning it in to anyone. You’ll be miserable if you get the job.

I kid you not.

Here is a nice example of one of these lies, if you are confused. We’ll use my resume from a few years ago, back when I was still trapped in the office job cycle. It is important to keep in mind that at the time I was desperate for work and would have taken anything!

Objective: To gain experience in administrative support and financial planning with a promising company

Oh really? This is a blatant lie. I wrote this on my resume so I could get a job, not because it is what I wanted to do. In fact, this person sounds exactly like the opposite of who I really am. If I was telling the truth at the time, my objective section would have looked more like:

Objective: To make some cash while I begin looking for an escape route from any more tedious office jobs that I am sick to death of.

So this was my first lie. Already I was compromising who I really was in order to look good to my potential interviewer. I had already opened the door to a long, dark road leading to a dead end. Now check out some other lies:

Skills and Qualifications:

• Excellent visual display and presentation designer with knowledge of Photoshop, Bryce and Visio.
• Outgoing, flexible, engaging, and a strong problem solver
• Team player that also thrives on working independently

Stop right there. First off, I have no idea what a “visual display and presentation designer” is. Mostly likely it was my desperate but subconscious attempt at encouraging a potential employer to give me some form of creative work. On another matter, I don’t even know what I meant by “Bryce,” because I think they are a company. There is no program called “Bryce” that I’m aware of.

Next, I call myself “outgoing, flexible, engaging, and a strong problem solver.” Well, I’m happy to admit that I’m actually not that outgoing, especially at work. In the past I have kept to myself on the job and I am NOT engaging (I’d rather most people would just go away when I’m trying to concentrate!) So here is another example of me trying to put on a fake persona for a job.

Finally, I talk about being a “Team player who also thrives on working independently.” Wrong, wrong wrong. I am NOT a team player! Never have been and never will be. I find that when I work with others I just get frustrated. I like people but I don’t like brainstorming sessions with others. I have plenty of good ideas on my own and half the time I’m just frustrated by how working with others slows any real productivity down. For me, it’s a waste of time.

I’m not even going to go on with my own example. You get the point.

Conclusions

Repeat the following after me: If I change my personality on my resume to get a certain job, I will have to become that personality. After awhile, I will begin to stop acting like my true self, and I will be chasing someone else’s goals instead of my own. This process will make me miserable and hate my job.

It’s totally logical. First you lie to your potential employer, then you put on an act until you can’t stand it anymore. It’s a vicious cycle. The only way out is to be honest with what you want. Your job search may be far more restrictive, but I guarantee you that the potential results will be far more closely aligned with who you are.

Exercise

As a good practice, write your REAL resume, as if no employer would ever see it. Write it out in its entirety, complete with education, skills, objectives and past job history sections. Put down things you are TRULY proud of both on and off your jobs. Write down things you are good at, even if they seem to have no logical basis or use in the real world. Talk about how you can juggle 10 balls at once. Write about how you started a chess club in high school. Talk about your trip to California that you videotaped and made a horror movie out of with Adobe After Effects. Anything that to you is an accomplishment. I don’t care how cheesy it sounds.

For your past jobs write what you ACTUALLY did. If you hated your boss, put that down and say why. If you liked certain aspects of a job, do the same. Be positive when possible.

Make sure you have an objective section at the top. And in this write anything that comes to your mind. What do you want?

At the end of this exercise, look at your real resume. Are there any themes that jump out at you? Do you see patterns in your accomplishments and/or skills? Take note of these, and start looking for jobs/business paths that most closely resemble these. This is what kind of “job” you should go after, and probably what you should do with your life.

I hope you never compromise yourself on your resume again.

Last year I wrote about the 4 stages involved in making The Great Office Escape. It was an effort to show the path one could take to get from a world of professional, emotional, and personal prison to a place of connectedness, strength, creativity, and harmony. I called this place the “4th stage,” which one could reach once their income and work were completely separate entities. In this stage, a person no longer has to work if they choose not to. They either have enough funds in the bank to retire to that proverbial island away from it all, or they are generating so much passive income that they can reasonably expect never to have to work for a living again. This is the 4th stage.

But in describing this stage, I did a disservice to the very people who had reached this enviable place in life. I assumed (quite falsely) that the journey out of the office ends here. In reality, it does not.

We are programmed at an early age to go to school, go to work, have a family, work ’til we retire. This programming that takes place throughout a person’s early life is no fault of society or any one person in particular… it is just the way things work. This needs to be accepted. While I may be in the minority here, I am a firm believer that many people are completely out of touch with who they are. Many of us live lives of compromise: we wanted so much more out of life as kids, but once we realized that for one reason or another our dreams were unrealistic, we slowly gave up on them. With time comes forgetting, and with forgetting comes acceptance. Then comes complacency. And complacency is the opposite of living.

This is what I mean when I say that it takes a long time to remember who you really are once you finally reach a point in your life when you don’t HAVE to work for a living. One must go through some serious de-programming before they can feel “themselves” again. Not everyone who reaches the 4th stage makes it successfully to the 5th. Some actually go back to work because they can’t possibly think of anything else to do. Some go on to do extraordinary things because they learn to reconnect with themselves. This process of reconnecting and figuring out where to go next is the bridge between the 4th and 5th stages.

In reality, the 5th stage is a place very few people have truly reached. I’ve heard some stories of a few: the millionaire lawyer who threw it all away to open a surfing shop in the Caribbean, not for the money but because he loves it there, or the Investment Banker who couldn’t stand the daily grind of comparing homes, cars and families and relocated to Africa to teach poor children. There are probably some bigger names you can think of. Oprah might be one. But it takes a certain kind of person; one who does not desire recognition, to get here. Recognition tends to make people fall back into becoming what others want them to be on some level.

The Defining Characteristics of the 5 stages

There is a turning point in each stage that will show you without a shadow of a doubt where you are. Here they are:

The 1st stage - Your income comes from a source on whom you are partially or totally dependent. Usually you live with a parent and they pay some or all of your expenses. Even if they help you out only $50 a month, it is enough to keep you in this stage.

The 2nd stage - Your income comes from a source for whom you work a set number of hours on a set schedule. Most people fall into the 2nd stage. Most never advance beyond it. Still, it is nice to have complete control over your finances, isn’t it? This is still nothing but indentured servitude.

The 3rd stage - You create your own income by choosing the sources. Your hours are flexible, as is your schedule. Your work is still tied to your output, though you have greater freedom and control. You are not in this stage until you have absolutely not tie to a salaried or hourly position, even if it is very part time (unless you are just doing it for fun.)

The 4th stage - Your income is no longer tied to your work. You are financially free and could survive without working another day in your life, OR you have so many passive sources of income that it is reasonable to conclude that you’ll always have money.

The 5th stage - Your life is no longer tied to your income.

What the 5th Stage is Like

Remember what you were like as a child? Probably not as well as you think. This is a bit like the final stage. Once you get over all the guilt, shame, boredom, confusion, depression, and uncertainty of the first four stages (yes, I said four) your purpose is clear and you are truly connected with your life, and your mission. Your inner child is at play expressed through the wisdom of your adult self. Your life finally becomes the answer to the question “what would you do if you had (insert huge sum of money) dollars and never had to work again?” It is your answer, and you are living it. You aren’t simply gambling, drinking, spending money excessively, buying a new huge house, car, boat or sitting around bored like many people who have reached the 4th stage. You have opened your eyes, and you are like a child in the sense that many of the ties that have bound you your whole life have disappeared.

The 5th stage isn’t for everyone. Some people are perfectly happy in the 2nd (or even the 1st!) Of course, this is entry isn’t for you. You know who you are.

What is the 5th stage really like? It is simply you being yourself, working not because you have to, but because you want to, as an extension of who you are. You’ve long since conquered the work for money routine, transcended the need to escape the 9 to 5, and even moved beyond the mastery of your finances. You have become connected with your life purpose, and you are living it. I can’t think of a better place to be.

Here is a letter I received from someone I know who is “trapped in the 9 to 5.” I changed her name to protect her anonymity and to prevent her from losing her job. And what a shame that would be

I am so f***ing sick of being a glorified secretary. Sure, I might have
other titles, but I think my coworkers see me as their bitch. They seem to
think that my job is making their copies or running to the office supply
store. Hey, I have work to do, too, and last I checked, running YOUR errands wasn’t
part of my job description. Oh, and neither was stroking your ego because you feel threatened by the fact that I’m female and smarter than you. And inferior to you in rank at the office.

And then there’s the pity. You don’t have to buy my lunch because I make
less money than you. Why don’t you just respect the fact that I don’t WANT
to go out to lunch with the team? It has as much to do with you respecting my personal time as it does with you respecting our financial differences. Seriously I cannot take it anymore. We are all trapped in office hell together, and somehow I got stuck making the coffee.

-Hermione, February 2008

Our culture of overwork is increasingly pervasive and unhealthy. Perhaps it’s a Westernized thing. Americans work very long hours. Whatever the cause, the symptoms are clear. Time spent at the office oozes away from the plastic, income-producing world of work and seeps into the comfort and familiarity of what was once our lives.

All is not lost, however, if you still recognize yourself, see the truth and can separate your work life from your real life.

Who are you?

Two Classes of Hard Work

A separate distinction between work and leisure is clear for many people. They’ll go to work and work (most of the time) and then go home and eat, sleep, go out for drinks, spend time with friends and spend time with their kids (not in that order, of course.)

But a few types of people seem to have trouble with this. They blur the lines between their work and their hours of pleasure, and surprisingly, it seems to be two very different types of people who do this:

1. The people who are in love with their work
2. The people who are addicted to work

Do you fall into the first class? It’s rare. Here is a hint: if you have to ask, you aren’t.

Anyone who is in between these two extremes (and they are extremes) usually seems to have a better work/life balance.

Which category do you fall into? Many people actually don’t fall into either one. Here two questions to answer:

• Do you spend a lot more time than the average person being productive/working, even when it isn’t always necessary?
• Do you love your work?

If you said “yes” to the first question and anything but “definitely” to the second one, you are a workaholic and fall into that second category.

Workaholism is a very problematic thing for not only individuals, but whole families.

I remember a conversation I had with a former employer of mine who took a week off to travel to San Diego with her family. She took all the responsibility of planning the entire trip, from the flights to the hotels to each and every activity of each and every day. Not only did she need everything planned out literally to the hour, (by the way, this is a terrible practice for having quality vacations, not being spontaneous) but she also spent a good part of her trip on conference calls and “catching up” on work from outside the office. Apparently her mother and husband didn’t have a very good time. I’m glad I wasn’t on that trip.

But this is what I mean when I say family suffers too. Workaholics affect everyone around them, because they cannot relax, are always looking to the next thing and don’t know how to stop “doing.” They must always be productive.

Unplugging

For those of you who are in love with your work, (ie: you fell into the first category) you don’t have a problem. Your work gives you energy, you are probably very good at what you do, you are making a difference in the world in your own way, and you actually relax by “working.” You are not a workaholic. You can skip the rest of this section.

But if you are increasingly using your leisure time for being productive, and you spend hours outside of work thinking about work, checking and responding to work-related e-mail, and spending more time at the office than you need to, well you have a problem. It’s time to unplug, dude.

Start small. You need to give yourself one day per week (preferably a day that you don’t have to work) where you spend at least half the day not doing anything related to work or productivity. This means no talking to co-workers, not answering the phone, no job-searching, no doing anything productive. There will be plenty of time for this behavior in the coming week.

If you can keep this up for four straight weeks, then take the next step. Take an entire day off. It’s hard work, not working isn’t it?

After awhile, (three months), take the final unplugging challenge. Take an entire week off and go on vacation. Make sure to disconnect yourself entirely from your co-workers and really be on vacation. If your family comes with you, they will appreciate you for it. In fact, leave some of the planning to them! Don’t be like my old co-worker. Don’t spend your entire trip on your cell phone either. Don’t send text messages to anybody back home. Life is too short.

A Final Thought

We spend 60-80% of our waking hours working. There is no need to make it 100%.

When you ask an older person to reflect on their life and tell you what they regret, they NEVER say “I wish I had worked harder.” Heck, after watching so many years of their lives flash by, most older folks simply wish they could have spent more time with family and people they cared about.

Do this while you still have time.

Take a look back and the last time you had a week off (or more) and didn’t actually go on vacation. I’m assuming you didn’t just sit around the whole week getting absolutely nothing accomplished. You probably did some cleaning, did some chores, or fixed something at least once. You were productive for a bit of the time, right?

Right. Now, take a look at the amount of time you were actually productive. Did you work straight through the entire day for hours at a stretch consistently? Did you rigidly compartmentalize your work into huge chunks of time that ate up your entire morning, afternoon and early evening? Of course not. You probably worked for an hour or two at a stretch, relaxed, and then worked some more much later. Or maybe you worked pretty hard for two days then took three off.

My point should be pretty clear by now. Human beings do not naturally work well in “8-hour 5-days-per-week stretches.”

This is why many people at work get tired and end up being truly productive for only half the day or less.

This is why two of your co-workers will sit on their desks chatting about the NCAA March Madness tournament for hours (and why there are office bracket tournaments anyway.)

It’s because people are BORED, TIRED and they are trying to PASS THE TIME. They aren’t getting anything done because they can’t concentrate for that long. People have natural cycles where they will be more inclined to work hard and work productively.

The rigid 9 to 5 schedule destroys this, and hurts the quality of work and life for millions of people.

Solutions

1. Be your own boss. This is self-explanatory. Now if you are a restaurant or store owner you’ll probably have to work within a set structure as far as time goes. Even in this case you’ll have more flexibility. However, one of the greatest advantages to being self-employed is that you can set your own hours.

Hate getting up early? Work evenings. Hate rush hour traffic? Start early, end early. Or work from home. Either way, your natural cycles will thank you ceaselessly by providing you with more energy for doing your work. And more work energy equals higher quality work!

2. Cheat. This is easier said than done, because it requires you to be sneaky on the job. But hey, it’s a heck of a lot of fun too, and the only alternative if you have to continue your desk job for the time being. First, you will need to determine which of the following categories you fit into first:

• The “Chunk of Time Worker.” You tend to be most productive in spurts. You might work incredibly hard for a couple of weeks, only to find yourself incapable of even brushing your teeth the next. No, you aren’t bi-polar. You are a “Chuck of Time Worker” or COTW for short. All stupidity and extremism aside, you function best with spells of hard work followed by a spell of relaxation.
• The “Consistent Worker.” You tend to work hard for a few hours each day, sometimes in succession, sometimes not. Long periods of idle inactivity scare you, but so does tons and tons of hard work with no break in sight.

So which one were you? Once you become aware of this, you can be sneaky at work. If you fall into the first category, you need to get your work done ahead of time when you are on one of your “hot streaks.” Be the most productive person in the office and then some. The further you work ahead, the better. This way once you crash and need some time off, you can “pretend to work” for a week while everyone else is catching up. Just sit at your desk eating cookies and e-mailing friends all day while you are temporarily “burned out.”

If you fall into the second category it is a little bit trickier. You probably will need to pick a time of day where you will put in the most effort, and then take breaks without your superiors or coworkers knowing. It’s similar to the first idea, but more spread out.

I know this all sounds a bit childish, but it actually is very mature. You’ll be far more productive, energized, and ready to move on to a better place than you would have been before. Plus, you are actually HELPING your company by functioning at your optimum capabilities. Who cares what the clocks say?

Remember: We are human beings, not machines. In this connect-the-dots, cookie-cutter, time-obsessed world we live in sometimes makes us forget that.

While I’ve been busier these days (learning the ins and outs of web development and transitioning into a more free work life out of the office) I’ve been updating this site a bit less often.

I can assure you that I am NOT vanishing into thin air and will update this site more often in the coming days. I’ve just been extremely productive and dedicated to my new career path and so far it’s going well.

In the meantime, here is a shout-out to some other blogs I have come to enjoy (and you probably will too.) Some have an “Escape the office” theme, while others focus on living a simpler and more stress-free life in general. So without further ado:

1. Steve Pavlina’s Personal Development site

While I’ve always been somewhat skeptical of personal development experts, this guy is fascinating. Not just because he reminds me of myself in many aspects, but also because much of what he says isn’t always “conventional belief.”

Check out some of his more popular entries on the left sidebar, especially the ones about why it’s better to be self-employed, and what is wrong with the 9-to-5 office grind. His articles about sleep are also fascinating.

As always with any self-improvement advice, remember that the best advice is really your own (after all who else has to be with you 24/7?) Still this website in part motivated me to start this blog.

2. Escape From the Cube

The author of this fun blog has a personal mission to escape her cube by October of this year. She loves to write about all things related to living frugally, her business, the housing market and many observations on the perils of a culturally and economically backward society where the people who actually possess wealth don’t really know what they are doing.

I hope she reaches her personal goal. It’s really inspiring!

3. Plan Your Escape

This site is really well-designed and is full of interesting advice on how to save money and be more frugal. It definitely has a strong “voluntary-simplicity” theme and he updates quite frequently (which I would also like to do!)

I also like his emphasis on how it isn’t the money that makes you happy, but how people who spend endlessly don’t find their “utopia” either, but are in fact adding nothing but burden to their lives.

4. Rat Race Escape Artist

Sarah Rourke actually makes it her business to help you transition out of the 9 to 5 world and into a self-employed life! She has some good ideas about how to make the leap right on her blog, and she’s also undergoing a professional transition herself.

This site is full of good ideas about how to deal with the emotional side of starting a business and becoming an entrepreneur.

5. True Office Confessions

This is an addictive site. Not really a blog, but if you ever need a pick-me-up on your long day at work, this is the place to go. A reminder that you are just one of the suffering millions, True Office Confessions is filled with daily comments made (anonymously) by other trapped employees.

Just make sure your boss doesn’t see you looking at this!

My apologies for the lack of updates the last two weeks. I’ve been busy working on the web-developing side of things, and have an internship which begins tomorrow working with some Flash and XHTML projects. Speaking of which, I was thinking about the completely different directions and traits my current and former careers possess.

Exercise

This is actually a good exercise for those who are miserably employed. I want you to do the following: (only if you are less than thrilled with your job)

1 - Draw out two vertical columns on a blank sheet of paper (or computer screen.) Label the left column “current career” and the right column “dream career.”

2 - Make a list of some traits related to your current job or career in the left column. Let’s say, for example, that you are a fire-fighter. You could list things like “unpredictable”, “a regular salary”, “high job security”, “dangerous”, “exciting”, “decent pay”, “work closely with other people”, “high stress level ranging to low-stress level, often within the same day.” You don’t need to go completely crazy. Just list between five and fifteen things. Also, make sure to number each item.

3 - In the right column list traits that your dream career would possess in relation to your current career. You don’t need to have a specific dream career in mind. Just imagine which traits you would like to have in your dream job. Make sure that they correspond to the traits you listed on the left. For example - if you listed “unpredictable” for the first trait in your fire-fighter job in the left-column, list either “predictable” or “unpredictable” corresponding to this in the right- column. In other words, the traits should loosely correspond to each other. Do this for each item on your list. You may find that your current career has some traits that match your “dream career” traits.

4 - When this is all done, look at the number of traits that matched.

Interpretation

If at least 70% of your traits match, you are doing quite well professionally and probably are in the right line of work.

If 50%-70% of your traits match, you might want to consider a different line of work, but within a similar field.

If 30%-50% of your traits match, you should probably quit your job when you get the chance and consider another line of work. This one doesn’t seem to be cutting it for you.

If less than 30% of your traits match, get out now!

My Story

I used to be an Administrative Assistant at a financial company downtown. I hated my job, but wasn’t sure what I wanted to pursue instead. I just knew that I hated being trapped in an office all day.

My list would have looked something like this:

How many of these 11 traits matched for me? Perhaps number 2 “kind of” matched. I don’t mind detail work as long as it’s the right kind. Repetitiveness when I don’t have creative control of a project drives me bonkers. That’s a bad kind of detail. So really this isn’t much of a match.

Basically my administrative assistant job would score about 3% at best for me!

And how about the occupation that I’m going to school for? (I’m working toward becoming a Flash developer) How much of a match would that be? Almost 100% actually. I suppose I don’t get to work outdoors, though I could always bring my laptop outside if I wanted to and work on projects from there.

What I want you to do is look at your right-hand column and try to find a career that fits a majority of those traits. Your dream career might just actually exist!

After some deliberation I’ve decided to start an advice column here at TGOE. If you have any harrowing tales of office woe, difficulty maintaining or attaining a more low-key existence free of the rat-race, would like advice on finding a better career, or would just like some friendly tips on getting out of a difficult, stressful work-related situation, e-mail me or reply to this post and I’ll be happy to help!

Let me know if you would like me to publish your story (and my advice) on this site. I promise never to use your real name or real place of employment!

Also feel free to read any of my extensive back entries for some additional advice. This site is only six months old but I have written almost 100 articles!

Are office jobs bad for your health? Based on my own personal experience, I’d have to say “yes.”

I have noticed a few nice changes in my health since the day my most recent office job ended in November. (I am a currently unemployed student who is beginning to take on web development projects for extra cash)

Here is a brief list. While it’s possible that the following changes did not occur solely because I’m not working, I would say the timing is particularly interesting. Is the lack of an office job the culprit? You decide.

1. My blood pressure has dropped significantly. Last year (and the year before) it was running around 135/80 (High blood pressure runs in my family) which for a young, healthy guy like me was alarming. That top number sometimes even cracked 140. What’s it like now? Most recently it was 109/69! That top number (diastolic) has not been above 119 since December.

2. My low back problems have virtually disappeared. This might be one of my more alarming improvements. I’ve had lower back issues for the last 5 or 6 years (seems like a lot of people have back problems) and nothing I did seemed to make much difference (not even stretching and yoga.) But for the last two or three months my back has gotten progressively better, to the point where now I don’t have to take any Advil after any kind of exercise. I used to practically live on the stuff! I haven’t been doing anything different except be more active in the past month and (obviously) sit around a lot less. Office jobs are killers for your back.

3. My afternoon “tired-spells” have decreased significantly. While I worked at my last job (and jobs before it) I would always get quite tired around 3 or 4 in the afternoon. I’d be sitting at my desk, and slowly my productivity would slow to a crawl to the point where I could barely keep my eyes open! By evening I’d usually be feeling a bit better. This almost never happens to me now, whereas it was an almost daily nuisance while I was working 40 hours per week, even on weekends.

This is an obvious one - I’m sleeping better now because the stress is gone and I don’t have to force myself to get up at a certain time.

4. My financial prospects are better. What?! Are you serious?! You might think I’m crazy. I have very little income, am not working, but here I am thumbing my nose at the “cold hard reality of unemployment” and even smirking a bit. I swear it’s true.

While I was slaving away at the office I earned a bit over $13 per hour. With my monthly expenses, taxes and bills eating away 95% of my income, this might as well have been 70 cents an hour. At the rate I was going I never would have gotten anywhere. What I was doing was not a career, but a job. It was a dead end.

So, I lost my job. Big deal. I turned around, sold my car and went back to school. Now, I’m learning something new. (Flash and Web Development) I’m going into a bit of debt to do it, yes, but it’s a career that is far more lucrative. I’m going to come out ahead, have more time, and be able to work for myself soon (I’ve already started!)

Thoughts

While it may not be a universal truth that working less is better for you, I am pretty damn sure that it was for me. And perhaps a lot of unnecessary health problems could be eliminated if we simply worked fewer hours!

This site states that job stress is more associated with health complaints than both financial and family problems. It would seem that our culture’s obsession with getting to the top, putting in a hard day’s work, and giving it all you’ve got (literally) are getting out of hand. A stressful job may not even be worth the (expensive) health insurance if it’s slowly killing you. If the war is between quality of life and wallet size, which are you really aiming for? What are you going to do about it?

The end of college is more than a mere turning point. Until this time, most young people have had the “next thing” to look forward to every year of their lives. But what is the next thing? It is the next institution of learning, of course.

Sure, finishing high school and saying goodbye to friends, clubs and in some cases, your popularity can be a difficult thing. But the next thing is, once again, right around the corner. In this case, it is college, which plenty of young people gleefully make the transition to because that’s what everyone else is doing. It’s what their parents expect too.

Turning the clock back a bit from the end of high school shows a world of great predictability and lack of real change. Preschool becomes Kindergarten. 6th grade becomes 7th grade. Middle school becomes high school. Juniors become seniors.

But there is no transition like the end of college. Few are truly prepared. Many students, having received straight A’s, rewards, and great test scores stumble terribly out of the gate and are miserable in the real world, working long hours in miserable jobs, taking a long time to “become successful” while a few others thrive. Why is this?

Reasons for a Difficult Transition

1. There is no “next year.”

What happens next, as they say, is up to you. For quite a few people, this is exciting, but for some, it’s scarier than the ingredients of a Twinkie. Many people go through their young lives having always done what is expected of them (or, more appropriately, what their parents/teachers/social networks expect of them.) The decision to go to school isn’t even a decision for them. It’s more a decision of where they will go and what they’ll study when hey get there.

After this phase of their life inevitably ends, they will find themselves in a position with nobody telling them where to go next. Not always easy. This is why you see some young women longing for their sorority days and desperately staying in touch with all their sisters, and some young men sticking around the college they attended, going to parties long after it ends. (Yes, the gender roles can be reversed here!)

2. Work Sucks

Are you still in college? Ever seen “Office Space”? If not, watch it. I’m not kidding. This is what it’s like. Your boss will invade your space. He will drive a Porsche with a vanity plate that spells “MYPRSHE.” You will be asked to work weekends. I am dead serious!

Whether or not you may think so, there is a big difference between working hard in school and working hard at work. No matter how much homework you do and how many classes you take, it isn’t anything like the time-consuming death march of the work force. Even if you do manage to do 40 hours a week of school-related work, it isn’t the same. Rarely does a student work this hard, this consistently for much longer than a week or two (pre-finals, I suppose.) And even if you do, you can always take some time off and “set your own hours.” You can cram for a final all-night of you want, or just do it in the afternoons.

Feel like postponing your homework and skipping a few lectures until the weekend so you can stay up late with friends and go to the football games for a week? You can do this in school, get away with it (a few times) and still get decent grades that semester. I skipped every single lecture except for the first one in my art history class (and this was like 15 lectures) and got a B.

Do this at work and you’ll probably get fired. You can’t skip “lecture” at work, and your “lecture” is 8+ hours per day, every day of the week!

It’s a whole new ballgame. And if I’m scaring you, read up on some of my motivational, entrepreneurial entries on why starting your own business is preferable. You should be scared. The 9 to 5 world is an awful place.

3. The End of Social Life

This section may seem like it doesn’t belong on this website, but it definitely does, because it is all related to the same problem. You’ll miss your friends, lunch meetings, study dates, and the random college groups you could join at any given time. One of the hardest things about leaving school is the sudden lack of social life. This isn’t because you suddenly stop talking to your friends (usually you’ll keep in touch) or because you live off campus now.

It’s really because you, and all your friends all work 40 hours a week now! How can you ever find the time to meet up as often as you did in school? It’s impossible. Ask anyone who is a recent grad what they miss the most about school.

The social life!

It’ll be an almost universal answer. And it’s because of the 9 to 5 work.

I know a guy who started his own matchmaking business based on personality compatibility. (His site is echemistry.com) He is a really interesting guy - travels a lot, runs an online business, and most importantly, is VERY well connected.

I’d argue that if he were stuck in a 9 to 5 job since his college days he would NEVER have the amazing social life that he actually has. The guy has friends from all over the country, and even the world. Probably a good portion of them are self-employed or students themselves, because these crowds tend to have more time to meet up.

So, if you join the 9 to 5, say goodbye to your social life as you know it. Everyone is always too busy.

Final Thoughts

I probably have scared you a bit now if you are still in school. So now I owe you some comforting thoughts to make up for it!

First, you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. No matter what anybody says, all you really have to do is earn enough money each month to live on. After that, the rest is up to you. 9 to 5 isn’t the only solution. Don’t continue the same path you’ve been on. Don’t just go on to “the next thing.” There is no 17th grade.

Secondly, it’s never too late. You can lose your social life, your friends, and even your job, but there will always be opportunities for change. You can work in a terrible job for 10 years, only to reinvent yourself, quit, and start a business. Anything is possible. That’s the beauty of the real world - you are in charge!