Good old Office Space. If you haven’t seen it, we highly recommend you do. Buy it, watch it, and then watch it again. There is an underlying message to this movie that many people miss. The message is simple…
Don’t give a shit, and you’ll get further.
You may actually wonder what the hell we are talking about and why not giving a shit would get you further than caring and doing your best to make everyone happy.
Well, it’s simple. In an environment where everyone is driven and acting based on fear, the one who isn’t tends to get the most recognition. As you’ll notice in this movie, it is in the scene where Peter finds himself being honest about his lack of motivation and lack of care for what he does and those around him, that lands him a promotion and while everyone else who seems to justify themselves and why they matter in the business find themselves facing termination.
Corporate America is notorious for having imbeciles in executive level management who are very disconnected by the reality of what the front line of their company really is and what the real challenges of their employees are. While everyone who sucks up ends up liked, very few actually come across as individuals that would make it to the top.
A wolf doesn’t like to hire a sheep to replace him/her but instead looks for other young wolves to train. Since confidence plays a significant role in leading others, this quality is typically what disconnected senior leaders take as genuine and needed in order to succeed.
The reality is that the less you care about your job, the better of a job you do, as you tend to work within your own scope of what works rather than blindly follow instructions from those who have never worked a day in your shoes.
Typically most line workers blindly follow and do not differentiate themselves from anyone else who does the same thing. While there are some people who are not afraid to constructively bring up their opinions and point out important issues that must be addressed and generally those are the ones who will be your boss in the next round.
If you are in Corporate America and if you are drowned in fear of losing your job, perhaps you might want to try to not give a shit about losing your job and instead focus on what matters, you. Focus on finding the best way for you to not only fulfill the responsibilities you get paid for but also continue to grow ahead by making decisions based on your understanding of the business, rather than the fear of losing your job.
While Peter in the movie needs to be hypnotized in order to achieve this, you can make the conscious choice to not allow fear to dictate your next move, even if it take balls.
