I retired at age 35 — here are 7 lessons I learned working in the corporate world

In some ways, it was better, but in others, not so much.

1. Showing up is half the battle. As a child, my dad preached to me how important just showing up for work truly is, and my experience has shown that he was absolutely right. The fact is in many areas of corporate America, it is not hard to look good. Showing up seems so simple. As a child, I took for granted that people who have jobs actually do them, but in reality, it’s not so simple. Believe it or not, just being there – with your butt in the chair contributing whatever you can along with your co-workers, is more than 50% of what makes up success in American industry. Yeah, the bar is set pretty low.

2. Emotions, not actions, speak louder than words. Keeping a cool head and open mind, especially during periods of stress, looming deadlines or conflict at the office, goes a long way to separating yourself from the rest of the pack. Emotional people rarely get what they want, and even if they do, it is often temporary and rarely results in respect. Your co-workers notice those who get emotional, and that is definitely not good attention. However, those who remain calm and think rationally are the foundation of progress within organizations, meticulously getting things done and influencing others to do the same. They are the role models.

4. You’ll see the people that you screw over later in life. It’s amazing how small our world really is. The truth is many of us will wind up engaging with people from our past in a later life — whether inside or outside of the office. It happens. It most likely will happen, and the bridges you burned 10 years ago with the assumption that you’ll “never see those bastards again” will come back to bite you squarely on your backside. Moral of the story? Never burn your bridges. Naturally, we won’t get along with everyone, but positivity goes a long way to maintaining a sense of calm and progress when you see those people later in life, and you never know when those same people might be able to provide the opportunity that you need down the road. Be as professional as possible with other people, all the time. I have never met a person who has ever regretted taking the high road.

5. Your network is far more important than your knowledge. The phrase “it’s not what you know, it’s who you know” is spot on accurate in corporate America, more than I could possibly describe in words. And now that I think about it, I have only worked for companies whom I was personally referred to by a respected member already within that organization. Yup, every time – to include my FIRST job straight out of college with the help of my dad. The opportunities you get through your network will likely far outweigh those directly from your knowledge or experience, or by applying for a job “cold” at another organization. Job referrals are more important than ever before.

The problem stems from the sheer number of candidates who want to work high-paying positions in respected organizations around the country. Most hiring managers at well-known organizations receive hundreds, and sometimes thousands, of job applications for each position. Even if you submitted a kick-ass resume, a hundred others probably submitted equally kick-ass resumes. What separates you from the rest? How does a hiring manager pick you over the flood of candidates with similar resumes? The answer is very often referrals.

6. Moving around helps to maintain and acquire skills. In 14-years working corporate America jobs, I’ve worked for five different organizations. Each company did things differently. I got exposed to different development processes, meeting schedules, work attitudes and company cultures. Of course, the work itself differed from place to place and my experience interacting with a variety of technologies and computer environments continued to expand nicely.

Moving around gave me a huge leg up in my career.

For example, a couple years ago I got to spearhead and implement a brand new IT helpdesk tracking system as the Director of IT at a not-for-profit in Tucson, along with assisting to put in place an “agile development process” for their development staff…but only because the organization I worked at before that already used the agile development process and exposed me to its inner workings and how the pieces fit together.

There are exceptions, but the more that people move around, the more exposed they become to new ways of doing business. I like to think that each organization makes us smarter and more equipped to tackle problems that might seem unique to some. Move around enough and you will likely see it all. In the end, no problem is all that unique anymore.

Then, I got the opportunity to direct an entire IT department, as I’ve written about before. Management: It’s not for everybody, especially for those who actually get pushed into it, but that wasn’t the case for me. I wanted the job. I wanted to be the boss, and I quickly realized that management isn’t for me. The crap that managers deal with is ten times as frustrating as before. As a regular staff member, you need to impress a couple people to get promoted. But as a manager, the number of those people tends to increase, and they are at higher positions within the company, demanding more progress, more efficiency, more production.

And not only do senior managers need to be impressed, staff members demand attention. Conflict resolution. Priorities. Missed deadline. Employee A said something that hurt Employee B’s feelings. Employee C didn’t show up for work yesterday, which made Employee D late on her assignment.

In large part, managers are corporate babysitters, dealing with suit-wearing professions on one side and the petty problems of lower-level staff members on the other. If you are cut out for this type of work, bless you – because corporate America needs more good managers. But more times than not, I worked with managers who are only there for the money. They are overly stressed and hate their jobs – and not particularly good at what they do, either. Their heart isn’t in it because they want to be “The Boss“, not accept the responsibilities of management.

Sometimes, it’s better to just do the work rather than manage it.