Why are we still working for jerks?

Why are we still working for jerks?

A few days ago, a popular podcaster posted something on LinkedIn that stopped me mid-scroll. She shared the exact words she’d heard from senior leaders that week: He was a complete narcissist. It’s a toxic environment. I felt humiliated and shameful.

It wasn’t just a vent. It was a plea: How do you work with leaders like this? And the comments—hundreds of them—were full of strategies. I read through, chimed in with my own two cents, and still kept circling back. Something didn’t sit right.

And then it hit me: why the hell are we still working for these assholes?

We’ve normalized it. We’ve decided that misery is simply the cost of doing business. As if a paycheck justifies being degraded, humiliated, or drained of joy. As if the fair exchange rate for your mortgage, your health insurance, or your kid’s braces is your dignity.

But here’s the truth: money is renewable. Time is not. Every hour you spend with a toxic boss is one you will never get back. Worse, those hours bleed into the rest of your life—the way you show up for your partner, your kids, your community.

And yet we tolerate it. Hell, there are entire industries built around helping people cope at work. Make it make sense.

And here we are, in the year of our Lord 2025. You can earn money fifty different ways. We have more knowledge than ever at our fingertips. Flexibility is everywhere in how people earn.

So why are we still trading our most precious, nonrenewable asset—our time—for crumbs?

Part of the answer is that we’re clinging to a playbook written for a different era.

My parents’ generation, the Baby Boomers, had a simple formula: Get a job. Work hard. Stay loyal. Retire with a pension. That strategy “worked” for one of them—but it also ravaged his health. Not exactly a great trade, but the propaganda was sold hard.

The mythology went like this: loyalty was rewarded with stability. Health care and retirement were tied to employment. One boss for decades was not unusual.

Fast forward a single generation and that entire contract is gone. Pensions? Nearly extinct. Loyalty? Rarely rewarded. Long-term stability? A myth.

Meanwhile, whole industries and ways of working have sprung up that didn’t even exist when our parents were climbing the ladder: influencers, creators, remote work, fractional executives, portfolio careers. Entire economies now run on options, flexibility, and side hustles.

And yet—despite all that—most of us are still gripping the old playbook with white knuckles. Still telling ourselves the story: Find a job, put up with the boss, stick it out.

It’s absurd

I’m well aware we need to work to keep a roof over our heads and food on the table. I like shelter and groceries too, thank you very much. So before you come at me with pitchforks, let me be clear: I do not come from wealth, I do not have a wealthy partner, and the only financial parachute I have is my own imagination. 

I know what it’s like to be broke—not “ugh I can’t afford brunch” broke, but the holy shit, I might lose my home kind of broke. I’ve taken soul-crushing jobs and said yes to clients when I really wanted to say no because the rent was due and there were no other options. I get it. Truly.

But here’s what I’ve learned: when you accept crumbs, when you tolerate assholes, when you project desperation into the universe—that’s exactly what comes back. More crumbs. More assholes. More scarcity.

Layered on top of this scarcity thinking is American cultural conditioning. We’ve been taught to believe that good work is hard work, that suffering builds character, and complaining about a job that strips you of your dignity means you’re ungrateful. So it’s no wonder misery feels normal. And if every workplace you’ve ever known has some level of toxicity bubbling beneath the surface, you assume that’s just how work is.

And this scarcity thinking feeds itself. Apply through the old playbook—résumés into the void, competing with hundreds of applicants for a single role—and of course, it feels scarce. You send 100 applications, hear back from none, and your brain says: See? Scarcity is real.

But it isn’t the whole picture. Opportunity isn’t scarce—it just doesn’t look like it did for our parents. Here’s what I believe: opportunity is infinite. There are eight billion people on this planet and millions of new businesses launching every year, including startups, small companies, independent founders, creators, and entire industries that didn’t exist a decade ago. If you can position your skills to solve real problems, learn to talk about your skills, get over yourself, and put yourself out there, I can guarantee you there is more than enough to go around. The bottleneck isn’t opportunity. It’s imagination and our own fear of being seen. 

And if I still haven’t convinced you that spending another moment of your life working with a soul-sucking boss is just the cost of being a grown up here’s something I want you to consider. Time is the one asset you can’t replenish. You can always make more money. You can always find another client. But you will never get back your time. Are you willing to lose a year, a decade, a lifetime of working for people who drain, demean, or dismiss you? Are you willing to miss out on your life? Your kid’s life?