Corporate Captivity Definition: Corporate Inmate Dictionary

Full Definition

Corporate Captivity is the Corporate Inmate^® term for what it feels like when the job has your time, your attention, and eventually your sense of who you are, and the door is open anyway. Nobody is holding you there. There's no lock. You just can't picture the version of your life where you walk out.

It builds slowly. First it's the calendar: the hours you're on, the hours you're reachable, the hours you spend recovering. Then it's the identity. The title becomes the answer to “what do you do,” the work version of you is the only one you practice, and the person you were before the badge goes quiet. Money is part of it, because the bills are real. It's rarely the whole cell.

Golden Handcuffs make leaving expensive. Corporate Captivity makes leaving unimaginable.

The Golden Handcuffs, the Ankle Monitor, and Coping Hours are the bars. Corporate Captivity is what living behind them does to a person.

Signs You're Living It

You plan your life around the job's calendar instead of the other way around. Vacations, appointments, and plans wait for a gap that never shows up.
Someone asks who you are and you answer with your title and your company. They ask what you'd do with a free Tuesday and you go blank.
You've tried to picture leaving, and the picture won't load. It's not that you can't afford it. You can't see yourself on the other side.

Survival Move

Take back one block of time that has nothing to do with work or recovering from work. Put it on the calendar and treat it like a meeting you can't move. Captivity feeds on your time and your sense of self. You don't have to blow anything up to start taking both back.

Field Manual