How to Keep Your Job (and How to Lose It Fast)

Destiny built it 𓍯

4 min read

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Just now

“You don’t get paid for the hour. You get paid for the value you bring to the hour.” — Jim Rohn

I’ve packed this guide with relatable stories from the Aussie workplace—delivering the hard-earned lessons you need to navigate challenges and secure your role.

I need to be straightforward with you: I have a deep-seated aversion to being an employee. Yes. I’m dead serious here. I’m fighting hard to make myself unemployable every single day that passes.

It has always been my aspiration to be my employer.

I held this position until I was compelled to re-enter the workforce to finance my new venture, ePower Australia, an energy storage company.

Establishing a business involves significant financial investment, and my initial project, Amazon FBA, demonstrated a considerable initial capital requirement merely to commence operations.

If you’re curious to learn exactly how I did it, you can join over 1,000 others who’ve already transformed their approach by reading the guide here.

While building ePower Australia and Nigeria, I took on a job at a production company to keep the bills paid. And that’s where I met the subject of this letter—Josh.

Josh had only been there a couple of weeks before I joined.

The first time we met, we introduced ourselves like normal coworkers.

But one thing became immediately clear: Josh’s resistance to authority was a persistent problem, and it was starting to define him.

And not in the “be-a-free-thinker” kind of way. I’m talking about the kind where my boss says stop—and something in me just won’t. I keep going… You know exactly what I mean. Josh was relentlessly rebellious.

Let’s get to the exodus of the big problem—our supervisor, Royney, wasn’t exactly the top boss, but he was the one the bigger managers turned to for feedback. But Josh wasn’t smart enough to realise this subtlety in his surroundings.

If you wanted to stay around, you made sure you didn’t piss off Royney. Unfortunately, Josh didn’t quite get that.

Josh didn’t realise that casual employees are likened to prostitutes.

You hop in here and there for a living. And unfortunately, Josh forgot that his name and mine were written with a pencil rather than ink. Easy to erase without raising a finger.

There was a moment when Josh told our supervisor to clean the floor while he was on something else. I remember thinking, Is he serious or something? The boss raised his hands, full of surprise and disgust.

That kind of attitude just doesn’t work in any workplace. I mentalized.

A week later, Josh was out the door—fired!

The big boy said he was given so many chances, and I saw it crystal clear.

No surprises there. The real lesson here is that hard work alone isn’t enough. While Josh isn’t a bad worker per se, his attitude let him down.

How I escaped the workplace saga.

Psychology played a big role for me.

People—especially bosses—want to feel respected.

They can sometimes forget who they are, and what you’ve got to do is remind them of who they are, and you’ll see your likability shoot through the roof.

Even God Almighty wants you to praise him, let alone humans with flesh and blood.

Your boss wants to know you see them and that you’ve got their back.

Your boss wants you to be an intrapreneur.

So instead of fighting the system like Josh, I did the opposite.

I have a compulsion to always look busy. I’ll clean invisible dirt or patrol empty aisles like a fisherman hunting for his sunken ship—all because I know bosses hate nothing more than an employee with nothing to do.

I let the boss know I respected his authority. I stayed loyal, polite, and consistent.

And guess what? That worked like hell.

The Australian workforce can be tough, no doubt—people get hired and fired every single day.

It’s a revolving door here. The person you met yesterday? Gone today. Sacked, most likely. Prince mentioned it was an e-sack—no phone call.

Just a message: “No role for today.” And just like that, the job is gone.

As if I saw that coming. I told him, “Comply anyway; we leave at two.”

But he couldn’t surrender, even temporarily. There was something in him—pride, maybe, or pure stubbornness—that refused to yield.

But I’ve learned this:

How to Stay Employed

Respect your supervisor, even if they’re not the “big boss.”

Make their job easier, not harder.

Show initiative without being a show-off.

Understand that it is a game of psychology: praise, respect, and consistency win.

How to Get Fired Fast

Be like Josh. Ignore instructions.

Show no respect to authority.

Act like you’re above the job.

Push back without a backup plan.

Look, I get it. Some jobs are miserable af.

I once walked out of a role at lunchtime and never came back.

But unless you’ve got a strong safety net or another income stream, you don’t want to play that game.

You’ll always regret it. And any paycheck is better than no pay at all.

If you’re stuck in a job, there is a way out.

Work it smart, stack your money and skills, and build your way out.

That’s what I’m doing with ePower.

And until then.

I know exactly how not to get fired. But if I get fired as a result of a silly mistake, I don’t beat myself up.

So be it.

Thanks,

— Destiny