7 Reasons to Ditch Corporate Life

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published 17 March 16

We've all, at some point or another, thought about marching up to our bosses and quitting via the kind of rousing, life-affirming speech that ends with either a slow clap or the whole floor standing on their desks in solidarity (just me?). Few of us will ever follow through with it, but the brave souls who seem to love scooping mint chocolate chip on white-sand beaches (opens in new tab)—so much so that most of them never, ever come back.

Here, with thanks to writer and social media entrepreneur Natalie Zfat (opens in new tab) (formerly of Rolling Stone and Elie Tahari), we've compiled a comprehensive list of things nobody misses when they leave corporate drudgery behind. Consider this motivation.

WHEN U DEAD AND U REALIZE U AINT GOTTA GO TO WORK NO MORE CUZ U DEAD pic.twitter.com/qzAimzuCzQDecember 13, 2014

This would be my main reason for saying a permanent sayonara to #worklife, TBH. Just imagine not having to set seven different alarms in 5-minute increments starting at 6:50 a.m. Yeah, I'm having a hard time too.

Science says the farther away you live from your office, the quicker you die (opens in new tab), so why aren't we all working from home already? Plus it can get expensive, and did I mention the whole death-by-stress thing?

Depending on how unlucky you are, you might have to sit across from your boss while she lists the ways you've disappointed her multiple times a year. She might also use a cool numbered rating system and make you set fun goals for yourself. At least you get to practice your *drama* and *diplomacy* skills because, like Zfat says, "I deserve an Academy Award for the performances I've given pretending to care about people's opinions of me."

See here (opens in new tab).

Which could be sooner rather than later, because 88 percent of the things around/touching you right this minute are trying to kill you (opens in new tab). Good luck reversing decades of sitting and eating and sitting and eating with some newfangled company-mandated fitness (opens in new tab).

Yep (opens in new tab). (And emails that could have been 9-second phone calls.)

Your work isn't really your own—even when you're not making presentations for your boss to put her name on, you are feeding an unknowable behemoth that in turn gives you money with which you can temporarily drown your sorrows on the weekends. I'm not even mad about sounding like a Marxist right now, because when it comes to alienation, dude knew what he was talking about.

All the more reason to finally become your own boss, right? Catch the premiere of new show Quit Your Day Job on March 30 at 10/9c on Oxygen. Keep an eye out for Marie Claire executive editor Lea Goldman!

http://player.theplatform.com/p/n43BAC/z6mHcSh6IY2_/select/media/yPNBMZOWprMs?form=html&playAll=...

Follow Marie Claire on Instagram (opens in new tab) for the latest celeb news, pretty pics, funny stuff, and an insider POV.

Chelsea Peng

Chelsea Peng is a writer and editor who was formerly the assistant editor at MarieClaire.com. She's also worked for The Strategist and Refinery29, and is a graduate of Northwestern University. On her tombstone, she would like a GIF of herself that's better than the one that already exists on the Internet and a free fro-yo machine. Besides frozen dairy products, she's into pirates, carbs, Balzac, and snacking so hard she has to go lie down.