Man Just Wants to Work Somewhere Without a Strong Company Culture and Forced Camaraderie

If you work in a corporate setting, you've probably experienced your fair share of pizza parties and team-bonding events. Some employees embrace these events, ultimately enjoying the free food and the opportunity to chat with their co-workers. However, others see through these corporate charades and are unfazed by the pepperoni pies and forced friendships. In fact, they'd rather eat lunch alone in their car every day than at a table surrounded by their co-workers.

Well, one guy on TikTok had a brilliant idea. What if companies just cut the act? What if they nixed the cheesy icebreakers and did away with company-emblazoned free swag? A lot of users on TikTok seem like they could definitely get behind this man's vision for a new type of workplace culture — that is, a workplace culture that doesn't exist.

A TikTok creator named Spencer Bland (@spencerspicyy) took to the platform to share his radical idea for how a company should operate.

“I would rock so hard with a company that just didn’t have values," he explained in his video. “A company that just didn’t invest time into like the minutia of like making people shake maracas and pretend that they’re so in love with the place that employs them."

While Spencer said he was "thankful to be employed," he admitted, "I don’t care about culture."

Instead, he cares about getting paid on time and getting home at the correct hour so he can do the things that he actually enjoys.

"And it sucks cause I can’t say that on LinkedIn or I’ll never get hired again," he says teasing the fact that he decided to put it on TikTok where it is more likely to go viral.

"But like for real. It would be so tight if a company existed that was just like hey man. You show up. You only talk to people that’s like necessary for the job function and then you just get to go home and live your life because that would be pretty tight. I’d rock with that," Spencer said as he ended his video.

In the comment section, users were all for @spencerspicyy's idea and began to vent about how their current company culture was bogging them down.

"I keep saying to people, 'work is not my real life.' My kids and family are my real life. What I go home to," wrote one user.

Another user shared they would constantly hear things at work like, “We’re like a family here." However, the only perks they received were company picnics and occasional sub-sandwich lunches.

Spencer piggybacked onto that comment with his own experience of working somewhere with an effervescent team culture.

"I worked for a company that made people use #lovewhereyouwork in posts and they fired me during a pandemic," he said.

One user, who seemingly tried to separate themselves from the company culture, claimed they were penalized for it during their performance review feedback.

"I apparently don’t participate in small talk enough," they wrote in a comment.

And one person noted that what Spencer is referring to is the mercenary culture. Per Robert Goffee and Gareth R. Jones's cultural model, "an organization with a mercenary culture is characterized by a clearly defined hierarchy and a definite separation between personal and work life."

Essentially, in a mercenary culture, employees are there to do their jobs and nothing more. What a concept!