Does anyone have an advice for those who stay employed by a megacorp? I’m on a vacation this week and have just realized that I was effectively in isolation outside of my work.
* Team sports. Soccer, volleyball, ultimate frisbee, basketball, etc. There is a pickup game somewhere in your city every day/week.
* Outdoors. Group hike, backpacking, cross-country skiing, sailing. E.g. mountaineers.org in PNW, surely there are similar orgs all over.
* Partner dance. You don't need a dedicated partner, events cater to singles too.
* f3nation.com / fianation.com The ultimate free outdoors workout, rain or shine. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/24/us/f3-workout-men-texas.h...
* Running group.
* Pick a church and go to Mass every Sunday morning. Hang around for coffee and Bible study too.
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At one point in my life I was dabbling in like 30 different things and never really getting good at any of them or feeling connected with any of their local communities. I made a decision to narrow that down to rock climbing and guitar, and get really committed to those two things. The improvement in my quality of life just from that change was honestly pretty huge.
Of course you need to try a bunch of stuff to find out what you like, but once you find something you're really passionate about, it's okay, beneficial even, to limit how much you try other things so you can really delve into the activity and community you're passionate about.
* Cult. People in cults are very supportive to other cult members.
* Black metal band. Blast beats, tremolo picking, shrieking vocals, pick your poison.
* Cult black metal band. Best of both worlds.
* Mongolian throat singing group.
* Artistic burping club.
* Discord server with guys wearing knee long socks and speaking with voice modulators.
* Trap house. Nothing solves a burnout faster than a psychonautical trip!
* Bird watching club. See what them birds are up to.
* milk the wellness benefits as much as possible - including any therapy cover
* look at leave of absence / sick leave (larger corps are better able to accommodate)
* transfer to a better team
* adjust your hours downwards either explicitly or tacitly
Megacorps aren't great at the whole empowerment and outcome control thing, but you can at least use the benefits to recover and then maybe move to something more meaningful
High performers underestimate how long you can get away with BS at a megacorp. Quarters to even years is the correct answer.
Guy on my team who we took on from the "layoffs list" of his old team. We were forced to hire from this list before hiring externally. Lasted about 2 years with us & then comes to me one day "Hey I'm gonna get laid off, I don't know when but it's been discussed with HR.. oh anyway I thought it would have happened last year". Suddenly it clicked why his work product had been diminishing by the month with us. It still took them a few months to go through with it. So the guy spent 3-4 years in the firm in the process of trying to / being laid off.
We had another guy who we inherited from a wound-down project, basically didn't count against our budget for the year. His choice was to join our team or be fired. Anyway just weeks into it, he called me one day and said "I have a thing with my family, I can't tell you what it is but I'll be gone for a month". I asked him if he talked to HR and he said yes. I called HR and they asked ME what I wanted to do... I was ~25 years old and this dude in his 40s had a family thing.. sure whatever.
Anyway, as you can imagine he basically disappeared and only touched base on the phone to say he need another month, over&over, etc. I punted it up to HR & my manager. He basically just disappeared for the rest of the year (~6 months) until new years layoffs season..