Mechanics of Filling the B.S. Bucket

[Dean56]

Two things I learned from old-timers early in my career, but didn't believe until I became an old-timer:

"Cost, quality, and time to market. Pick any 2."

"A pessimist is an optimist with experience."

You nailed it. That sounds like the MegaCorp I currently work for.

 

[Teacher Terry]

Walt, it was smart of you not to take the job.

 

[Big_Hitter]

I found that there was an inverse correlation between FI and BS tolerance. Rsquare = .876

good one

 

[pacergal]

Oh, there may have been some self construction. But let me give a different perspective.

Awareness from experience.

Your situation is very sales oriented. For those of us process oriented, it probably goes differently. And here's one way BS is generated. The Company, or The Founder, or The Boss, or The Man -- whoever -- declares that some new process, or problem, or situation, or meeting is the new way that will lead us to the promised land. As youngsters, we dutifully eat it up and drink the kool aid.

Years go by.

Not much happens. Or maybe things go in reverse. Maybe you change companies or departments. Then, The Man, The Boss, The Company declares that some new process, or problem, or situation is going to get us to the promised land.

Hmm. That sounded familiar. OK, maybe we'll give it a try again. The first one was a glitch.

Years go by.

Not much happens. Then, The Man... declares a new way to the promised land.

Eyes open up. What? This is BS. My bucket is starting to fill.

Years go by.

Not much happens. Then... well, you know. The BS bucket is now full.

Oh,my! This was my life. It seemed every 10 years or so, some "new" way of doing the work was presented. During the last one I went through before retirement, I brought a notebook with flowsheets/matrixs etc. from the "previous new way" that had been abandoned. Everyone loved them--they would make the work so much easier! Where did I get them?
Management was flabbergasted when I showed them that they were what we did 10 years prior

 

[pdxgal]

About 15 years ago a coworker and I put together a business case to develop a company-wide "Do not contact" process. Customers would get pissed off that they'd opt out of one department's marketing, only to continue to get stuff from another dept. There was no coordination across the company. Our plan got shelved. About every 3 years since, someone else has rescusitated something similar. But it's still piecemeal. Last year at a company meeting the CEO touted the 'win' that we had resolved the issue. I raised my hand and gave some examples of how that wasn't quite true. He expressed surprise. Our company is so siloed that it can be hard to get the big picture. Anyway, we still don't have a company-wide DNC process. And yet we now talk internally about how we're "consumer obsessed". Yeah, right. SSDD. The good news is that all this has pushed the BS bucket to just about overflowing, so mentally I'm ready to FIRE!

 

[JoeWras]

Do it. Welcome to the FIRE-hood. Don't hold back.

I'm serious. This crap will drive you the grave. Sometimes quitting versus making another 30k is lifesaving.

 

[SeanPizzle]

I'll chime in on this. I am not yet FIRE (51 now, still have a high schooler). I have one of those high paying sales jobs making well over the high end of your range. I will say this: your days are numbered, and fewer than you think. Salesforce dot com dictates that. Everything is metric'ed now, every email, every sales call, every expense report. It all correlates to your productivity. They know your pipeline growth initiative is weak, especially by relative comparison to your stack ranked team. The 30 somethings are rising. They are hungry for your job and patch. And they will schmooze clients 3 or 4 nights a week when you want to be home. What you and I have is our relationships with clients that sustains us. I am one of the top performers on my team in the US. But I know folks will work harder at my job than I ever will.

I guess you need to take a long look in the mirror and decide if you want another year or three of 300K. Me? Yeah, I have about 5 to 6 more years and i know i have to serve The Man to do so.

Your whole post may be a humble brag, but I think you are very very fortunate to be in your situation.

 

[Hopeful]

I found that there was an inverse correlation between FI and BS tolerance. Rsquare = .876

I think you hit the nail on the head. That is the situation I am in, and my guess a big part of the OP’s situation.

 

[HFWR]

Mechanics? They just kept filling it until it overflowed...

 

[Teacher Terry]

A good friend of mine has just filled her bucket. She works for the state and is 57. She gets a penalty for retiring before 60 but between the long drive and good pension she is hanging it up in 3 weeks. It’s never the work but always the people that drive others to retire.

 

[Eyesman]

A few days ago I informed my company that I intend to take a one year sabbatical and will, during that time, decide if I want to come back, cut back or simply end my career. The interesting thing is that my situation was great....I'd been working a high end sales job, from home, where annual pay averaged $200k - $300k, BUT the workload only amounted to around 5 hours a week of real work. Additionally, I am generally well-respected at my firm and no one bothered me to take on more assignments; they all sort of understood that I do what I want and I've been in wind-down mode for a while. Obviously that's a pretty good gig if you can get it, so I started wondering what inspired me to make the move. I started thinking about the mechanics of what fills up the b.s. bucket.

In my case....

1. Because of my choice to have a rather lax work week, others at the firm (who are very skilled, but hungrier) were getting better results. Even though I'm totally fine with my results objectively, when they're put into the lens of "how are you doing vs. others" it made me feel bad.

2. We became more professional. When I joined this firm 10 years ago, it was a small, relatively unknown firm in our industry. But over 10 years, we've become the go-to name for what we do. This has led us to have more corporate meetings (about once a month via video conference.) And during these, I always felt bad, again for my "relatively" poor results vs. others. The irony is that NO ONE did anything to try to make me feel bad; they all know my situation. But it's challenging to sit there, know I could do better, but choose not to. It became a struggle with myself asking, "How come I'm not more motivated?"

3. I think this is the important one: Even though the actual workload was only a few hours a week, the mental workload was much higher. I found it hard to let my deals out of my mind at night. I felt a need to almost always take a call from a client, or return a missed call within 30 minutes. And those few, important calls that I had to be on to save a deal seemed to always occur when I was on vacation.

4. When I started 10 years ago, we were just coming out of the Great Financial Crisis. I was hungry because my stocks and home values had dropped in half, and my business had recently gone under. Nowadays, it's pretty smooth sailing financially, so the criteria to go out and hustle for each additional dollar got higher, and my tolerance for anything other than "perfect" clients got lower.

So the interesting insight I had was that the "b.s. bucket" was entirely of my own-making....everything is clearly in my own head. No one put pressure on me, tried to make me feel bad, or anything like that. But at least in my head, the pressure probably felt as real as for someone who has legitimate reasons to gripe, for instance someone who works a hard physical job, someone with an unappreciative boss, etc. (And yes, I get how lucky my situation has been and I'm very grateful for that.)

Anyway, I'm curious how others view the "b.s. bucket." For me, it was interesting to realize that I had constructed it myself.

The way I see it, you are focusing on your situation from a perspective that is hurting yourself. From your writing, it seems that you are fully aware of this, which is a very powerful realization. There are many ways of viewing things, and it really is our own responsibility to view things in an empowering way.

From what you wrote, your company has been very good and gracious and accommodating to your needs and wishes. You say you are grateful, but consider really focusing on the gratitude for your company and colleagues. Stop making up slights where there are none. Your colleagues are in a different stage in life where they are hungry and building their nest egg, so they will hustle. You are in a different position where you have saved up enough where you don’t need to work. So if you are walking/jogging, accept the fact that you won’t make as much as those who are jogging/running. Why feel bad about it? That is just ego/identity talking. Yeah, of course you could do better, but you don’t want to and it’s okay. You are in a different life stage and it is not worth it to you to be in that much of a grind. Be happy for them that they have the opportunities they have to provide for their families like you did.

The bottom line is that you already won the game. You have enough saved up. You are working not for survival, but perhaps fun, enjoyment, decent money, mental challenge, etc. If you want to retire, then do so. If you want to work, then do so. But do it knowing that your situation is your creation, and you are very fortunate and blessed to be in that position. Many others would love to be in your spot. Don’t play victim to whatever made up slights you came up with.

Congratulations and please keep us updated.

 

[brett]

My BS bucket felt much lighter when I hit the requisite age and service milestone to take advantage of all of the DB plan extras.

My BS bucket completely evaporated when I realized that we were essentially financially independent and could retire at any time. My entire attitude to work changed. The dial moved very much to the positive side 14 months later when I realized that I would be in line for a significant golden shake.

I was very fortunate....25 years with a first rate employer.