upworthy

corporate culture

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One man holds his head at his desk; a man jumps for joy.

Saad Akhtar has been documenting his life on TikTok for a while now. From the outside, he's got it all. He's 25, living in New York City, and working his way up the ranks in finance. He's also engaging and funny enough to rack up hundreds of thousands of followers on social media through his updates.

But there was definitely a sad pattern emerging in his videos. His stress and anxiety over his soul-sucking corporate job was leaking into the content. One update, a lengthy early-morning rant, was captioned "Try not to crash out with me before work." In others, he laments the never-ending barrage of work emails and the poor treatment by his boss. For weeks, he openly toyed with the idea of quitting.

And then one day in early May, he finally pulled the plug on his "finance bro" career.

Akhtar bought himself a cake to celebrate the occasion. On his last day of work, he filmed a giddy video before heading in to ultimately clock out for the last time. The next day, he woke up at the usual time—5 a.m.—just to experience those same early morning hours as a free man. The video he filmed is pure magic.

As a free, unemployed human being, Akhtar literally and physically frolics through the streets of New York. You might think he's running at first, as in, for exercise. But no. This is a frolic.

"My days of being a finance bro are over," he shouts excitedly. "I'm free! I'm free"

"I quit my job. I can do whatever I want. I can live my life. ... I can be a baker. I can be a painter. ... I'm gonna go see the sunrise right now from the Brooklyn Bridge. I've never been able to do this in my life."

It's actually pretty emotional and beautiful. There's a whole wide world out there. Akhtar's been too busy "staring at the back of other desks" to go explore it. Until now, anyway.

@sodakhtar

my first 5am morning as a free man #quit #quitmyjob

Over four million people tuned in to watch Akhtar's joyous celebration of newfound freedom and it struck a nerve in all of them.

Commenters couldn't contain their excitement for him. Others found that his bravery to cut the cord gave them hope for their own lives:

"I haven’t been this happy for a stranger in a minute"

"I’m crying. It shouldn’t cost us this much to exist."

"May everyone experience this in their lifetime"

"Every goodhearted person in a corporate job desperately wants to quit"

"being up at 5am knowing you don’t have to work is such a good feeling"

The freedom of unemployment is absolutely intoxicating, so it's no wonder people are mesmerized by the viral video. When my wife and I moved to a new city a little over a decade ago and had a week before starting at our new school and job, respectively, it was incredible. Waking up with each day full of possibility and exploration and adventure was really the thrill of a lifetime. Living life like a tourist, seeing new parts of the city, eating good food, making time for rest and play.

It's a damn shame we don't get to live like that all the time.

@sodakhtar

1:32 am biking cuz im free, Alhumdulillah for it all ❤️ #freedom #unemployment

Job burnout is at an all-time high, studies find. That means a majority of people find the demands of their job impossible to meet, and all the while they're working extra hours and struggling to keep up, they can still barely pay the bills.

A majority of working Americans find that they barely have the capacity to go on. Akhtar is far from the only one feeling that way.

What's exciting is that Gen Z—which includes people like Akhtar—is really leading the charge for better work-life balance. They're a generation that refuses to settle. That means they get mocked for setting hard boundaries with work, not wanting to answer emails after hours, and maxing out their vacation days, but honestly... good for them. They're the ones who will ultimately, hopefully drive some change and bring us back to a world where working 9-5 and leaving work at work is the norm.

As for Akhtar, he may have to return to the corporate workforce eventually, especially if he wants to keep living in New York City. But for now he's making the most of his unemployment with a recent trip to Australia, whimsical bike rides through the city, time with friends, and documenting it all for his growing TikTok channel.

Best of all, he's staying up late living his life to the fullest, and leaving the 5 a.m. wake-ups in the past.

Brittany Pietsch documetns being fired from Cloudflare.

A video making the rounds on TikTok is a prime example of how American corporate culture can be downright cruel. Even the company CEO said it was “painful” to watch. The video was posted on TikTok by Brittany Pietsch, who was fired from her job as an account executive at Cloudflare just 3 months after being hired.

Cloudflare is an American company that provides content delivery network services and cloud cybersecurity, based in San Francisco, California.

After hearing her coworkers were getting fired through video calls, Pietsch prepared herself to push back against the bad news, when one was scheduled for her. But she had very little ground to stand on in the conversation because the HR people doing the firing had little knowledge of her situation and all of the answers sounded scripted.



The video, titled "POV: You're about to get laid off," featured Pietsch looking at her computer screen and although you cannot see the people firing her, their voices can be heard.

@brittanypeachhh

Original creator reposting: brittany peach cloudflare layoff. When you know you’re about to get laid off so you film it :) this was traumatizing honestly lmao #cloudflare #techlayoffs #tech #layoff

"We finished our evaluations of 2023 performance and this is where you've not met Cloudflare expectations for performance and we've decided to part ways with you," the HR representative can be heard saying.

Pietsch was shocked that she was being laid off because she had just started the job in October and her 3-month ramp-up was interrupted by the holidays. "I'm going to stop you right there,” she said. “I've been on a three-month ramp, and then it was three weeks of December, and then a week of Christmas and here we are. I have had the highest activity amongst my team."

The 3-month ramp-up is the allotment of time a company gives a salesperson to get up to speed on their new assignment. She also thought that she was meeting expectations at her new job.

"Every single one-on-one I've had with my manager, every conversation I've had with him, he's been giving me nothing but that I am doing a great job,” she said.

 

Even though Pietsch may have a case for keeping her job, she soon realizes she has no chance to save it because the HR people know very little about her performance. The HR representatives say they aren't giving her any "clarity or answers” that will “meet the expectations that you're communicating to us." The HR people add that they are happy to follow up with her about her performance, but Pietsch doubts that will ever happen. "But then when?” she asks. “If it's not as I'm getting fired, it's certainly not going to be after when I'm no longer part of the company." Eventually, the exchange ends when the HR representative concludes that there is nothing they can do for her.

"So I don't think there's anything we can say in this moment or today, Brittany, that's going to change the way that you feel,” the HR representative said before moving the conversation toward the next steps of the firing process.

The video has been seen over 4 million times on X, so the CEO of Cloudflare Matthew Prince, responded to the video on the platform. He admitted that the video was painful to watch but reiterated that Pietsch was let go for her performance.

The positive takeaway is that the CEO noted the process wasn’t “kind” or “humane” and that he will look into “improving” it “going forward.” The video is also an excellent example for other companies on how not to let someone go, especially at a time when people are very sensitive about workplace behavior on social media.