Office Jobs: The Art of Bullsh*tting for a Living
Think you’re being authentic at work? You're not. Learn why office jobs are often just high-effort theater in a branded lanyard.
Congratulations! You’ve secured an office job, a position in the human assembly line known as corporate employment. You now have access to a steady paycheck, a vague benefits package, and the privilege of spending 40+ hours a week faking an interest in PowerPoint decks. What a time to be alive!
But let’s not get carried away. Before you get too comfortable, there’s something you need to understand: The real you: the person who listens to music with actual swear words, who has opinions that weren’t pre-approved by HR, who experiences joy beyond a Teams notification saying “Friday happy hour is back!” is no longer welcome here. That person? Consider them gone.
In their place, you will construct Corporate You™, a beige, enthusiasm-simulating entity who speaks in workplace-friendly phrases and finds deep, profound meaning in “team-building exercises.” Your new hobbies include feigning excitement over budget meetings, pretending to care about casual Fridays, and nodding attentively while mentally planning your grocery list.
But don't worry, you’re not alone. Every employee around you is engaged in the same grand theatrical production, all wearing their own version of the “I totally care about my job” mask. So, let’s break it down: how does one master the art of professional pretending without losing their last remaining scrap of dignity?
Step One: The Work Persona
The moment you step through the office doors (or unmute yourself on Zoom, if your company still believes in remote synergy), it’s time to retire the real you. The actual you, with strong opinions, real emotions, and an internal monologue that would make HR clutch their pearls, is no longer suitable for professional environments. Instead, you must become Work You, a sanitized, inoffensive, and endlessly agreeable version of yourself, optimized for career survival.
Work You doesn’t question things. Work You doesn’t challenge nonsense. Work You exists solely to nod along at meetings, provide just enough input to seem engaged, and perform exactly the right amount of enthusiasm when someone suggests an “optional” after-hours networking event. It’s not optional.
And humor? Humor must be carefully curated. Gone are the days of sarcasm and wit unless it’s the company-approved variety, usually revolving around “Case of the Mondays” jokes or making fun of the printer. Anything riskier than that, and you may find yourself in a mandatory sensitivity training, learning why your offhand remark about Karen from HR was deeply problematic.
Work You also must maintain the illusion of camaraderie, which means pretending that potlucks are a meaningful bonding experience and that company icebreakers aren’t a violation of basic human dignity. When management decides that everyone should bring in a dish from their “cultural background” for “diversity appreciation,” you’ll smile and nod while calculating exactly how long you need to linger before making an escape.
This is an ongoing performance. And unlike real actors, there are no awards for the best portrayal of an Engaged Employee; only the vague promise of “potential career growth” if you just keep pretending a little bit longer.
Step Two: Corporate Culture
Now that you’ve successfully buried your real self under a thick layer of Work You™, it’s time to master corporate culture. Corporate culture is an ecosystem designed not for productivity, but for pretending things matter when they absolutely do not. Here’s what you need to know:
The Language of Nothingness
If you thought communication was about clarity, it isn't. Words aren’t meant to convey meaning; they’re meant to fill time in meetings. That’s why no one ever says anything outright. Instead, they sprinkle in phrases like, “we need to leverage our synergies,” and the classic “let’s table this for now” (translation: we will never speak of this again).
Decisions? Never clear. Meetings? Designed to discuss other meetings. And if something actually needs to be done? Expect an email that reads, “Just circling back on this!” which is just a passive-aggressive way of saying, “Why haven’t you done this yet?”
Mandatory Morale Boosters
Corporate logic dictates that the best way to boost morale is by forcing employees into awkward, humiliating activities they’d never willingly sign up for. Think karaoke night (where you’ll be forced to endure your manager’s attempt at Bon Jovi) or escape rooms, which are really just trust exercises in disguise. And, of course, there’s the classic potluck, where you’ll politely pretend that Susan's “family recipe” doesn’t taste like expired glue.
Workplace Relationships That Aren’t Real
Your work family is a collection of people you would never voluntarily spend time with outside of office hours but are now contractually obligated to tolerate. Your manager? Not a boss, but a mentor. Your deskmate? Your work spouse. Nothing solidifies a fake bond like making small talk about weekend plans you’ll never invite each other to.
But once 5 p.m. hits, all these “relationships” cease to exist. That work wife? She won’t even make eye contact at the grocery store. That mentor? He’ll forget your name the second you change departments. It's an illusion of corporate camaraderie.
Step Three: Office Politics
You’ve successfully shed your true self, mastered the art of nodding at nonsense, and cultivated a workplace persona so inoffensive it could be printed on a corporate brochure. Now, it’s time for the next challenge: Office Politics, a game where promotions are won through strategic illusion-crafting rather than competence.
To rise in the ranks, you must understand one simple truth: your actual work doesn’t matter; only the perception of your work does. You're balancing just enough visibility to appear indispensable while avoiding the fate of being “too available” (which, ironically, makes you dispensable).
Master the Performance of Caring
Your company has just launched a Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Initiative. Does it actually do anything? Probably not. But that’s irrelevant. Your role is to act like it’s the single most transformative social movement of our time. Attend every awareness seminar, post a LinkedIn essay on the “importance of workplace inclusivity,” and make sure to clap first when leadership unveils the new “Sustainability Task Force” (which, coincidentally, has zero power).
Strategic Agreeableness
The key to surviving office politics is knowing when to agree. If the higher-ups decide that the new company mission statement includes a day of mindfulness meditation in the breakroom, congratulations! You now believe in mindfulness meditation. If HR introduces Thoughtful Thursdays, where employees must share a personal struggle before the morning stand-up, guess what? You suddenly have a deep emotional story to tell. Vulnerability is encouraged, but anything truly real makes people uncomfortable.
Speak in Corporate Poetry
Directness is a career killer. Instead of "I have too much work," try, "I’d love to take this on, but I want to ensure I can provide maximum impact." Instead of "I don’t understand why we’re doing this," go with, "I’d love some additional clarity to ensure we’re aligned on key priorities."
This is the game. Play it well, and you might just get a title change without a pay increase.
Step Four: Where Does the BS End and You Begin?
At first, it’s subtle. You laugh politely at the right moments, adopt corporate lingo like a second language, and convince yourself that, yes, you do care about the company’s latest “Wellness Initiative” (which is really just a glorified newsletter reminding you to drink water).
But then, one day, something shifts. You find yourself staring blankly at your reflection in the office bathroom mirror, clutching a company-branded stress ball, wondering who the hell you even are anymore.
Your hobbies? Gone. You used to have real interests. Maybe you played guitar, wrote short stories, or had a weirdly impressive knowledge of ancient history. Now, your primary passion is complaining about meetings that could have been emails.
Your interests? Replaced. You used to care about things outside of work. Now, your evenings consist of compulsively checking Teams, “just in case,” and getting emotionally invested in whether Marketing actually followed through on last quarter’s action items.
Your ambitions? Downsized, outsourced, and restructured. Once, you dreamed of doing something meaningful. Now, your greatest hope is a 3% raise and finally getting through an entire Monday morning without hearing the words “let’s pivot our strategy.”
The scary part? You don’t even realize it’s happening. The transformation is slow, like boiling a frog... except the frog is you, and the pot is a lukewarm conference room where you spend half your life nodding along to things that don’t make sense.
And maybe this is why corporate spaces are so easy to manipulate. You’re already pretending. What’s one more layer of fiction? If they tell you to believe something, to align with the vision, to embrace the culture, you will. Because at this point, who even is “you” anymore?
And so, the charade continues. The illusion of progress, the mirage of fulfillment, the ever-elusive promotion that's always within reach but never quite yours. Just a few more late nights, just a little more enthusiasm for “cross-departmental synergy,” just one more strategic LinkedIn post about the importance of workplace collaboration. Surely, this time it will pay off.
But let’s be honest: You’ve seen this movie before. You know that the corporate game isn’t won through merit, but through strategic participation in the fiction. You get ahead by looking like you’re good at your job. And the moment you stop playing along, the moment you let even a flicker of your real self slip through, the system turns on you.
The longer you play, the harder it is to remember where the act ends and where you begin. At some point, you’ve become the very thing you once mocked.
At StratEx - Indonesia Business Advisory we help organizations find and develop leaders who don’t need to fake it to engage teams and deliver results.. Contact us to replace performative culture with clarity, purpose, and leadership that people actually follow.