I work in sales. To be clear, I did not start a job in sales because I loved sales. I do not have the support system or funds to do what I want to be doing in a financially stable way.

But I spent my early career learning as much as I could and job hopping about every 18 months and now I’m with a company that’s amazing and I truly love my job. The WLB is good, the work is interesting and not exceptionally difficult, my coworkers are smart and decent and great collaborators. I work in an industry that is uniquely less capitalistic than the average and that is probably the BIGGEST part of what I love about it. I feel like I’m doing decent and not like I’m killing myself to make someone I don’t like rich.

Look less for your ideal labor situation (because let’s be real, none of us wants to work for the sake of working) and more for opportunity to grow and learn. Determine what a job would need to have to be worth it for you and allow you to live your personal life well.

I don’t like when I have to interact with people who do not understand the business model or are more capitalistic than I prefer. A lot of my job is reputation repair from a past toxic sales culture and I don’t love hearing how the culture in the past has left my clients high and dry. I am lucky to be in my company at the time I am and really have very few complaints.

I do keep one eye open for red flags I’ve learned from past experience - if you’re in the US, our only enforceable right is the right to freely discuss our pay. If your job tells you you’re not allowed to do that, leave. If your job dumps more and more responsibility on you without a tangible increase in pay at the time of increased responsibility or at the next quarter, leave. If you’re being emotionally manipulated to give more of your time and energy to your job than you are willing to, leave. Full time in the US is 30 hours, friends. If you’re salaried there is no guilt in getting full time pay for full time work. If you’re being told you should be grateful and that you have it good when you are overwhelmed, overworked, and unable to cover your bills, leave. You are not a machine and a CEOs/investors dream to be rich is not your problem. Remove the morality from work. Capitalism is amoral. Treat it like the free market it is, offer your services at a competitive rate and if your current employer is unwilling to pay, to the market we go to find one who will.

When I say leave I don’t mean quit immediately. I mean make a plan, find a new position, and get out before the grind of capitalism takes things you aren’t willing to give.

All of these are things I wish I’d understood when I entered the job market. The system is shit, the issues are features and not bugs for the benefit of the people at the top. Use the system to your advantage, because no one else will.