Why Do People Hate The Corporate World?

Is It Just A Fad Thing To Say?

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

Most of my friends from university weren’t exactly passionate about the courses they were studying. They studied them, yes, but not out of love. They chose them because they were the safest bet. Engineering colleges boasted about their 100% placement rates, and in one way or another, everyone was promised a job. Stability first, purpose later.

Now, years later, the same people complain about their corporate jobs. How boring it is. How soulless. How it’s draining the life out of them. But the truth is that they never knew what they wanted in the first place. They just went where the tide took them, and now they’re upset that the current isn’t thrilling enough. But is it the job that they resent or the fact that they never stopped to question if it was the right one for them?

I’ve seen the tech world up close for as long as I can remember. My dad has worked for a major computer brand, so it was never unfamiliar to me. Growing up, I stumbled along the way, trying to figure out my place in the world. But somehow, tech was always a natural place to fall back on. Maybe because familiarity feels like home. Or maybe because we carry a little of our parents’ influence with us.

And honestly? I enjoy my work on most days. Not the flood of meetings, not the corporate jargon, but the work itself. It gives me a purpose on the days I don’t have one of my own. It doesn’t make me feel small because even in my own way, I’m contributing to something bigger than myself. It may not be revolutionary, it may not be poetic, but it matters. And for now, that’s enough.

Yet, if I tell someone that I enjoy my job, they look at me like I’ve said something radical. Almost suspicious. Because today, everyone preaches about the 9-to-5 curse. That you haven’t broken free unless you’ve started your own business. But what if you don’t have an idea? What if you don’t burn with entrepreneurial passion? What if, for now, you want to do your bit and get paid for contributing? Is it so wrong?

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We all play a part in this world. Some people build, some people heal and some people create. And in the age of technology, our contributions often come in the form of tech. It’s not glamorous, but it’s real. And if we look at it without the weight of our own dissatisfaction, we’ll see that it’s just another way to make an impact.

That’s not to say that the corporate world is perfect. It has its flaws with the hierarchies, bureaucracy and the ever-present expectation to do more with less. But is it as bad as people make it seem? Or do we lack the perspective to see beyond our own complaints?

Ask an architect if they enjoy working under their boss. Ask a doctor about their 36-hour shifts. Ask a small business owner if they’d trade their instability for your stable paycheck. Every profession has its struggles, but for some reason, we have made the corporate world seem like the worst. Maybe because we like to compare and complain while we haven’t seen anything else.

We complain about what we have because we’re wired to seek more. The human mind rarely settles. We always want the next thing. And when we don’t find it, we blame our circumstances. We call them dull and monotonous.

But maybe monotony isn’t in the work. It could be in us. We wait for the world to give us an adrenaline rush when we do nothing to create it for ourselves. We expect excitement to be packaged in our job descriptions and happiness to be a guaranteed feature of a job rather than something we actively build.

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If I had an idea I truly believed in, I would chase it without hesitation. I would take the risk and find the kind of freedom that corporate life can’t offer. But until that moment comes, I choose to contribute in whatever way I can.

Because not every path needs to be an escape.

Some are just a choice.

Maybe the corporate world isn’t the problem.

Maybe it’s just the mirror.

I don’t mean to sound like I’m asking anyone to “settle” and be happy with the job they have. It’s perfectly fine to wish for a better job while having one.

But being part of a hierarchy is just the natural order of things. Maybe someday, one of us will climb up and be at the top of this hierarchy. Maybe one day, one of us will escape the ‘matrix’ and finally find freedom from the rigid structure of the corporate world. But everything has its own set of problems. We just have to find the problems we don’t mind living with.

And while I enjoy my own corporate life, I know that this isn’t all that I want from my life. My life is more than my work and I’d like to live two, no three, no thousand different lives in whatever measure I can.

So let’s not define ourselves by the job we have and live a thousand different lives, a thousand different times.