Let's Get ScrubbingSelf-Improvement

What If Finding the Right Coworkers Requires Becoming the Right Coworker

Applying the concept that perhaps the key to finding the right person is to become the right person to dating proved to be rather controversial. I followed that post up with an explanation that becoming the right person wasn’t about conforming to other people for the sake of begging for their love.

In fact, I think begging and worshiping behavior that leaves us as a doormat is destructive in the long run.

In short, it was intended to just rhetorically challenge ourselves to consider for a moment: what if everyone around us isn’t the problem, what if we are the problem?

The reality that we are our own problem is a little uncomfortable, but now I’m going to take that same mindset and apply it to the workplace.

What if the problem with your job isn’t your job?

What if the problems with all your co-workers aren’t your co-workers?

What if your frustrations with your boss, God forbid, doesn’t actually stem from a shitty boss?

What if to find the right workplace, we have to start by being the right workplace?

What the fuck does that even mean?

Well, just like dating, so many people find themselves jumping from job to job to job and every time they land a new position they are filled with an initial sense of excitement.

They say, “this time we are really where we need to be, this place is going to be different, this job is going to fulfill us, this position is going to be fun and this time we are going to finally be happy in our career.”



But then the honeymoon period of the new workplace fades, the flaws of other employees start to show face, the perfect boss no longer seems so perfect, and suddenly they find themselves searching CareerBuilder for that next better position that will once again finally make them happy in their career.

The easy answer to all of our problems is that we aren’t the problem.

We blame our frustrations on our work environment while dismissing our role in creating that environment.

We put the accountability of our workplace issues on our coworkers and shift hatred for our monotonous desk job onto management. We blame our workload on irrational expectations instead of our procrastination and turn around to avoid responsibility in our career stagnation by suggesting management simply doesn’t take notice of us.

Instead of improving our way up the career ladder, we come up with excuses for why it would be a waste of time to invest ourselves in where we are at. Then we blame our lack of fulfillment in our career on every mundane thing around us, turn in our 2-week notice, grab a box of belongings and repeat it all over again at a new company.

Except, if we only ever keep looking for that sense of fulfillment coming from an outside source – our employer – then we may never find it. Maybe we have to create that sense of fulfillment in ourselves with where we are at.

That might be a tough pill to swallow. However, consider for a moment that if the only variable that remains constant in continual changes in employment is ourselves, at some point it is worth questioning the constant variable is the culprit.

After all, if we want to work around positivity, step one is for us to curate positivity.

I mean, I think we all know that person that complains about all the animosity they face at every employer.

I just hate workplace drama,” they’ll complain oblivious that they create the vast majority of the drama in which they supposedly hate.

Maybe they have trouble with coworkers because – *gasp* – they’re just not very great to work with. It’d be tough to say that to their faces, but we all know the reason they never get along with coworkers is that they’re fucking difficult as a coworker.

The Solution to Their Work Woes?

Instead of looking to change the coworkers around them, the solution to their problem is to be a better coworker for those around them – improve their work ethic, complain less, and/or be more flexible?

The easy thing to do when people get their annual evaluation is to look at all of their criticism, consider their boss unreasonable and toss it in the trash. The hard thing to do is to reflect on it and consider that there could be a possibility it might be an honest evaluation of their work ethic.

Did you really give 100% to reaching your goals on your career or did you just collect a paycheck?

Maybe You’re In Denial You Chose The Wrong Career Path

So far most of this post has been about taking a hard look at our personality and our work ethic. It could have nothing to do with that. Many of us are just in denial about being where we’re supposed to be.

Perhaps you think finding the right workplace is about the actual building and the people there instead of it being about you completely changing the skillsets you have and course in what you’re truly passionate in.

So, you keep chasing jobs in the accounting field and ignore your heart’s true desire to start up an animal shelter. If that’s the case, you’d never find happiness in all the jobs you place yourself in because you’re placing yourself in the wrong places.

Maybe Your Role as a Coworker Is To Be the Owner

Here’s a thought. Maybe you keep jumping from employer to employer and never find happiness because you’re meant to be the employer. Maybe all this jumping from job to job acquiring new skills is how you find happiness by applying all those skills to being your own boss as an entrepreneur.

Just as with this concept applied to the dating scene, this isn’t some sensational realization that unlocks all the mysteries of our career fulfillment.



It is merely something to reflect upon.

It is rhetorical and meant to ponder over.

If we keep on a trail of job hunting that just leads to a series of positions that ultimately bring us disappointment, perhaps we have to consider if the problem isn’t our employers failing to provide us a great environment to work in. There comes a point where the very negativity we have for our job is creating a vicious cycle of further negativity around us.

Be the change you want to see.


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Landon

Hi, I spewed out all the shit you just read! I like long walks on the beach (but I'm mostly surrounded by cornfields), challenging the status quo of the dating scene, fucking all the rules of dating and encouraging men to live their best life. When I'm not trying to keep the lights on around here and raise two little girls, you can find me drinking and partying - you know the key Wallstreet success...ballin'.

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