Peter is tired and cynical. He worked office jobs for more than 20 years, and it shows. He canât take it anymore.
The corporate BS jargon. The neon lights. The daily meeting madness. Printers and annoying colleagues. He can feel his soul dying with every advancing day!
Nine to Life takes an honest, unfiltered look at office life.
From office washroom routines, uncomfortable lift conversations, and conference hotel buffets, nothing is left out.
Do you want to know the best strategy for calling in sick?
Look no further!
Interested in what really goes on in executive meetings?
It wonât get more honest than this. Recollections of day to day office life candidly pull through this refreshingly new style of a self-help book.
Looking at the most common reasons why many of us succumb to the madness we call work, it offers potential solutions to take that leap of faith and do what you really want to do.
Donât know what that is?
Peter has a few tips here for you as well. Read this book on the subway, on a plane, at home, on the toilet, at the beach. But whatever you do, donât bring this book to work!
Peter is tired and cynical. He worked office jobs for more than 20 years, and it shows. He canât take it anymore.
The corporate BS jargon. The neon lights. The daily meeting madness. Printers and annoying colleagues. He can feel his soul dying with every advancing day!
Nine to Life takes an honest, unfiltered look at office life.
From office washroom routines, uncomfortable lift conversations, and conference hotel buffets, nothing is left out.
Do you want to know the best strategy for calling in sick?
Look no further!
Interested in what really goes on in executive meetings?
It wonât get more honest than this. Recollections of day to day office life candidly pull through this refreshingly new style of a self-help book.
Looking at the most common reasons why many of us succumb to the madness we call work, it offers potential solutions to take that leap of faith and do what you really want to do.
Donât know what that is?
Peter has a few tips here for you as well. Read this book on the subway, on a plane, at home, on the toilet, at the beach. But whatever you do, donât bring this book to work!
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Do you also hate prologues, forewords, dedications, etc at the beginning of a book? Iâm always like, bla bla bla, get to the point already. You too? Ok, off you go. Jump straight to the first Part and skip this section here. For those interested in getting back their moneyâs worth in page numbers, do indulge me.
Let me warn you. This is not a book with a happy ending. This is not another life advice book. Well sort of. But in the opposite way. The âdonât do what I did and be happyâ way. Donât read this if you are depressed and stuck in a corporate job. You will kill yourself. Trust me. And then I get sued. So please donât. If however, you are about to make a career choice, if you are young and full of hopes and shit, then do read this. Let this be a warning. To do better. To do whatever you possibly can to not enter this soul-crushing world of misery. If I can achieve this, if I can convince you to live a better life outside the corporate prison system, or if you need the extra last push to finally quit and do something meaningful with your life, well, in that case, go on and read this. It will either make you jump out of a window, call my wife and have me submitted to a psychiatry, or motivate you to do something great. Either way, it will be exciting! For one of us.
Hereâs how you can use this book.
Part I is summarizing an entire weekâs worth of typical office life to illustrate what really goes on in an office day to day. Kind of like a collection of Dilberts written out in book form. Insert an office in Europe, Asia, the US, or any other continent. The stories and scenarios are universally applicable to whatever office or city you call home.
Part II is a list of all the excuses we have for not jumping off the hamster wheel, and then it tries to offer possible ways out. The plan is to dump so many motivational speeches on you that by the end you will go straight to your boss, spit on this desk, and hand in your resignation (legal disclaimer â maybe donât go that far. Or at least donât quote my book please). Lots of the stuff in that section isnât rocket science. It isnât groundbreakingly new, and no scientific revelations are awaiting you there. There are gonna be a lot of âduhâ moments. Think of that section as a carefully curated collection of motivational tips & tricks; a look at your mirror-reflection-you-know-what-to-do-so-go-and-do-it type summary.
You can choose to read this book from beginning to end. Or you can only read Part I and then jump off the next bridge.
You can also skip Part I and go straight to Part II if you need no more convincing. You can also skip both sections if you already feel that this is going nowhere and use the book as a door stopper. You already paid for it (or someone else who gifted it to you), so I donât really care.
A question I sometimes get when talking about the things I complain here about is: âWhat would you do differently?â My answer is that neither have I got any clue nor, and more importantly, do I have any interest in solving them. Smarter people than me are continuously trying to optimize workspaces, processes, and staff engagement. Let them do that. Let me whine about desk jobs. I am really good at whining. Youâll see!
Finally, I do like to point out that many people are genuinely happy with their corporate jobs. They love the routine of their day to day lives. They are comfortable getting a regular paycheck. They donât mind the stuff I will talk about in this book, or theyâll think itâs grossly exaggerated. They may think Iâm just a disgruntled employee who canât hack it. Thatâs ok. Some people love what they do or which company they do it for, and Iâm not going to piss on their parade. I know, however, that there are millions of âUSâ out there. People who are fed up in their 9 to 5s and want out. Itâs those people I write this book for. Brothers and sisters, I hear you!
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Part I
Soul Crushing Misery
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âHow in the hell could a man enjoy being awakened at 8:30 a.m. by an alarm clock, leap out of bed, dress, force-feed, shit, piss, brush teeth and hair, and fight traffic to get to a place where essentially you made lots of money for somebody else and were asked to be grateful for the opportunity to do so?â
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-The late great Charles Bukowski
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1. Monday
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I wake up to the sound of birds singing and other cheerful and pleasant melodies. Little angels hovering over cotton-like clouds play angelic tunes on their harps. The sound I am listening to is the sound of my phoneâs alarm. Itâs an app I downloaded with especially pleasant, non-eardrum penetrating or heart-attack-inducing terror sounds. They say it is important how you wake up. To be positive. Mindful. Whatever the hell that means. It is six forty-five in the morning. My body and mind fight me with all their strength. What feels unnatural, unhealthy, and clearly not good for me is the fight to resist the urge to sleep in. To get some rest. To lay in bed and let the day be day. I tried going to bed at 9 pm. At 10 pm. At midnight. I tried sleeping seven hours, eight, nine, and sometimes even ten. I tried meditation before going to bed. To not look at any screen. I tried keeping it cool and cozy in the bedroom. I tried to reduce alcohol intake during the week. I tried yoga. Exercising in the evening. Not exercising. I limited my carb intake at night. Tried to stay clear of sweets and caffeine. To what effect? Zero! When I wake up in the morning, I am tired and exhausted. Every day. Every goddamn day. It feels like there is this layer of grey fog hovering over me, clouding me from thinking straight and robbing me of any energy or will to leave bed. I snooze my phoneâs alarm. They say you shouldnât snooze. That you should immediately get up so that you canât fall back into the deep sleep zone. I ignore that and snooze the alarm five times. Between first and last alarm, I try to relax. Not let my mind take me on its usual anxiety combo tour of work stress and personal life issues. To no success. I jump from upcoming meetings and deadlines I dread, to financial worries, to self-worth doubts and back to work stuff. Then I get angry at myself for not managing my thoughts better. And so I catch myself in a vicious circle of self-loathing anxiety. All before I make it into the bathroom. Sitting up is already painful. My body feels like it weighs a hundred tons. I manage eventually. Open my sore and tired eyes. I sigh. Every day. Every morning. The first sound I make is sighing. The deep, exhausted kind of sigh. The âwhen-will-this-all-finally-be-overâ sigh. We are almost through the first section and I havenât even made it into the bathroom yet. Stay with me. This is going to get worse.
The flickering sensation of florescent light slaps me in the face with its torturing brightness. I raise a hand before my eyes, and seconds later I resign to it. Boxers off. Shower on. In that order. Most of the time. When Iâm done showering, I take a glance in the mirror, and I am amused at how much I am repelled by my mirror reflection. Shave or not shave? Can I still pass as a hipster with the three-day stubble or are we already in the âpushing itâ zone? Teeth brushing and a few other hopeless attempts to look human later, I get dressed. Suits and shirts. Every day the same gig. Do I go with a blue, grey, or black suit? White shirt or blue shirt? The illusion of individualism. I grab my keys, kiss my family goodbye, and head out to work.
Office Space and Falling Down are movies I always liked. Movies about people escaping the corporate rat race. What seemed like absurd fiction and vast exaggeration when I was younger has become a script I no longer consider fiction but inevitable destiny (minus the bazooka or baseball bat perhaps). 8.30 am. I arrive at work. A high rise building with fifty-plus floors. I hope and pray to not meet anyone on my way up. My biggest fear is to meet someone right there first thing in the morning in the elevator. With no escape and fluorescent light to shine on our painful small talk. Bloodshot eyes and fake smiles. Talks about the weather. How was the weekend? Have you seen the game? Howâs so and so? Letâs catch up soon over coffee. Which department are you in again? Didnât you work for John before? NO ONE GIVES A FUCK. He or she doesnât. I donât. Deeply engaging conversations end abruptly midsentence the nano-second the doors open. Oh thatâs my stop, byyyyeeeeeeee. Why is it socially awkward to just stand there and be silent? Why do we have to talk? Thank the tech world for smartphones and their use as eye contact preventers. I see people scrolling up and down the same page for several floors, pretending to be deeply concentrated in order to avoid looking up.
Twenty floors later, the doors open. Freedom. But not for long, I think as I enter our open-space office. Where are the good old Don Draper corner office days? With blinds and lockable doors. Whoever invented open floor office spaces is a cruel and sadistic bastard. Throw twenty rats in a small box, remove any privacy or space for dignity, and then see what happens. Said no scientist ever. If open office space designs are so goddamn great, why is it that senior management still has offices? The same people talking passionately about agile and cross-functional information exchange, conveniently retreat into their world of silence and privacy. Leaving their staff to suffer. I sit down, turn my laptop on, and pour myself a coffee. My one treat before the day kicks off.
âSorry to bother you this early, Peter,â says Mike. A guy in my team. He stinks. I canât stand him. And now he earned my undivided anger. I havenât had a single sip from my coffee yet. Itâs dark and beautiful substance hasnât touched my lips yet. White-collar manâs cocaine as I call it. Survival essential.
âYes Mike?â I no longer pretend. No longer force a fake smile on my face. I let him have my annoyed face in its full glory.
âSorry, Peter, I know you just sat down, but I really need to talk about project bla bla.â
âOh, you do? Really? What can I do for you, Mike?â I put emphasis on his name. Mike. I say it with a wave of hate running through the last syllables of his name. MiiiKKKKe.
âOh well you know I tried getting information bla bla from Carol from Sales and till now I havenât heard anything back. And we need to present tomorrow.â Two sentences of nothingness. Of wasted breath. Time I will never get back.Â
âHave you tried talking to her?â I ask.
Have you made any freaking effort trying to do something yourself, or are you asking me to do your fucking job for you? Is what I want to say. What I do say is corporate speak. Feedback and coaching bla bla, designed to pretend we are better human beings than we actually are. Keeping our emotions in check.
âMike, what I need you to do is to try and get in touch with her again. Try outlining the importance of obtaining this information by making her part of the process. Explain to her the overarching objective of our mission and how she is an integral part of this mission. Try exciting her for the cause, and you will see how her cooperation will improve.â
No, it wonât. Carol wonât give a flying fuck about the cause. Nor will she want to do anything that isnât directly and linear to her getting a better performance review and bonus payment. Mike pretends he is happy with that response. But secretly he isnât. I can see it in his face expression. Heâs thinking âThatâs not what I wanted to hear. I wanted you to escalate on Carol so that I donât have to.â
Instead, he says âGreat Peter, thanks for the advice. Will do.â And leaves. The most important part of that conversation. He is out of my face and I have my coffee and sigh. I scroll through my Inbox and decide which email I will ignore first.Â
Thereâs something about emails and our fascination with them. In a time where more and more mobile messenger services are becoming increasingly popular, email still seems to hold on the past, refusing to die the same death Fax and Telex have died more than three decades ago. Itâs the same with SMS. These shitty little ugly text-only notes that buzz and compete for your attention over WhatsApp messages. I grew up in an era where faxes and landline phone calls were the only electronic way of communicating with other businesses or people. I remember sending my first email and how amazed I was when it arrived seconds later at my colleagueâs PC who sat three desks down the room. Naturally, that first email contained something as profound as a dick joke. Email quickly grew popular and became the dominant form of communication in the majority of businesses around the world and still remains so to this day. Emails are beautiful little things. You can craft a letter, put all your thoughts and emotions in them, and then press a single button, and moments later, your brain dump makes an appearance in someone elseâs inbox. Bold. Unread. On top of his email pile. Whether he looks at it or actually reads it is another story. Emails are so amazing, you can go about your entire workday without actually speaking to anyone if you donât want to. Letâs discuss this. Sure, send me an email. Afraid of face to face confrontation? Shoot an angry email! Are you dissatisfied with someoneâs performance? Drop him or her a note. Corporate strategy update to the entire company? Mass email to all staff explaining why it is important to slim down and tighten the belt. We spend days, weeks, months, and years reading shit and sending shit. All of us contribute to the global electronic waste of trillions of kilobytes clogging up server space around the world. I wonder if there were no more emails, how this would contribute to a reduction in global warming (insert hands-on-chin-thinking emoji). Anyone interested in communication science knows that a simple face to face communication between two people is already a huge challenge. Sender vs receiver. How do I structure my content and deliver it in a way that the other person can receive it, accept it, and process it in a way that is aligned with my intention? With all the issues of non-verbal communication and often also cultural differences. You can say âwell doneâ in a way that implies genuine appreciation. You can tap someone on his or her shoulder when saying it, smiling and looking the other person in the eyes. Or you can say âwell doneâ while raising your eyebrows and giving him the thumbs up (an insult in some Asian cultures by the way). And then roll your eyes. Obviously a sarcastic statement. None of this exists in emails. Sure there are emojis, but thereâs only so many emojis you can use in a professional context, and even if you do use emojis, they are still not capable of delivering the right emotion in the context of your written words. And so we collectively promote misunderstandings and oftentimes evoke negative emotions that people dwell on for days. Often without the sender even knowing that he offended someone.
I donât know the global average of daily emails received per employee, and I assume it heavily depends on the industry, job seniority, and function. But letâs agree, âtoo manyâ is the blanket answer to that question. Inboxes are like digging sand. No matter how many you answer, thereâs always more. Go on leave for two days and you spend an eternity catching up. It constantly creates stress and anxiety. I havenât replied to so and so yet. I need to send my report. I havenât sent an email to HR yet for x and x. Etc etc. It just never ends. A day is filled with a million distractions preventing you from cleaning up your inbox. The only tangible measurement of one's productivity output.
Yes, there are a dozen different ways of managing this. You can sort by sender importance. You can block a certain time frame in your calendar for answering emails. You can color-code them, set automated reminders and whatever else your OCD makes you think will work. The bottom line is that we all freaking send and receive too many emails. My favorite email management system is the ignoring strategy. If you ignore emails and their senders long enough, in the majority of all cases, two things will happen. The issues will have either been magically resolved without your doing, or the urgency will have reached a point where you really need to deal with them. In either case, ignoring emails will have either saved you time or increased the perception of your âtoo important to have time for emailsâ status.
Cc. In Copy. Ohh how I love Ccs. Most people forgot that it stands for carbon copy. A term that has nothing to do with what it is being used for in an email context. Back in the days (circa the 1800s), carbon paper was invented to transfer ink with pressure from the paper on top to the one below. The first old school copy machine. Hereâs that little trivia for you, youâre welcome! Now obviously it has taken on an entirely different meaning. Ccs are used in many ways. One use case is the threat level scenario. If you are unhappy about someone or something someone has done, you can send that person an email. Only to that person. Or, you can choose to be a dick and copy his or her boss. Thatâll show him! You can raise the threat level and also copy your own boss. Depending on hierarchy levels, you can also go out all guns blazing and copy the boss of his boss. Uhhhhhhh (handshaking gesture), now we have ourselves a checkpoint-Charlie-facing-tanks kind of showdown. Sometimes itâs funny to observe who makes what email move first. Modern-day office battles are fought with emails. He who masters the art of email strategy wins all glory. Tactical and strategical moves are planned in chess-like calculations. The number of people in Ccs is another thing that amazes me. Sometimes you see emails sent to a couple of people at first, and by the time the threat levels have increased, entire departments end up in that Cc field. Oh, so you copy your co-worker in the email? Cool, Iâll do the same. And your boss. And my boss. And the PA of my boss. Just to be sure. Insert monkey face emoji with hands covering his eyes.
Bcc. Blind (carbon) copy. The sneaky little brother of Cc. Wanna show to someone how amazing your email is without making it too obvious? Bcc that person. To me, Blind copy has absolutely no meaningful purpose whatsoever.
The âToâ field also has a not-to-be neglected science to it. In some organizations, the order of people in the âToâ field is also of significance. Iâve worked in companies where it is a big no-no to ignore seniority in the sequence of recipients. First, the highest-paid asshole, then the one beneath him, and so forth.
Since we are talking about communication tools, let us not forget the entry WhatsApp and its colleagues have made to the job world in the last five to seven years. Gone are the good old days of landline phone and fax where physical distance from the office was equal to unreachability. Stuff just had to wait until the next day. Unless it was a matter of life and death, and then landline phone calls were the last option. But now? Now, emails compete with WhatsApp over our attention. 24/7. Literally. Some people confuse WhatsApp with emails and send entire novels worth of text in one or several messages. I am a particularly big fan of people who accentuate their messages by breaking them up into several messages. Every word, every line a new message. Buzzing your nervous system to the moon and back. I read somewhere that user interface designers in big social media companies have long discovered that red notification bubbles appeal to the amygdala part of our brain, signaling danger and thus increasing anxiety and the need to remove the perceived threat. So now we got email inboxes, WhatsApp, Slack, and text messages driving us insane. Depending on who likes which tool better, you constantly have to navigate between all of them. And the worst thing is that even though no one officially says it, the âround the clock reachability comes with an implied âround the clock availability expectation. Even worse, and somewhat evil, is the âreadâ receipts messages have. Those devious little blue double tick marks. A new communication etiquette was developed and somehow internationally agreed upon. If you have read it, then you must reply. Immediately! You can even see if someone is typing something, and thus you can tell how long it takes you to phrase and then re-phrase your response. This in itself can imply many things and adds to the stress levels.Â
Language used in corporate emails is another thing that amuses me. Both in emails and in meetings. No one calls a spade a spade. You donât say the things you actually want or mean to say. You replace dickhead with disappointing choice. Shitty work with room for improvement. And so forth. An entire language called office speak has been developed over the last decades, creatively replacing candidness with flowery sounding synonyms and phrases.
Have you ever listened to your alarm clock? I mean really listened?
09 to Life opens with a detailed morning experience a lion's share of the population endure most days of the work week. For anyone unfamiliar to the office job reality, this comprehensive guide reveals the bare facts and the loopholes Peter Ribbons used to make it through each day of a standard work week.
A guy in my team. He stinks. I can't stand him. And now he earned my undivided anger. I haven't had a single sip from my coffee yet. It's dark and beautiful substance hasn't touch my lips yet. White-collar man's cocaine as I call it. Survival essential.
Part II breaks down the excuses people cling to, often times becoming their biggest obstacles. Any possible reason why not, Peter is there to say why, yes.
Many of us have the same issue. We know what we don't want to do anymore. And we either know what we'd rather do instead, but we don't know how to do it. Or we don't even know what we want to do instead, and so we resign to the status quo.
Office job background is irrelevant when consuming this much needed content in today's 'fake it 'til you make it' society. Everyone is currently putting up with some distressing fragment of life. 09 to life is an uplifting and encouraging piece with something to offer anyone searching. Unlike other draconian self-help titles, Ribbons keeps things incredibly real, in all of its unhallowed glory, using mild profanity that has crossed the minds of most on any given week day. At 159 pages, chapters are short, making this read is quick and easy, making this a perfect bathroom bit, or easy to keep while on the go.
This bite will be easy to chew for anyone looking to make a change anywhere in life. With the ability to reach any person of any age, the audience is large and very in need of material of this nature. Life is not a spectator sport and picking up this book will inspire you. Use it wisely.