Q: “Gimme one damn reason for staying past 5:01.”

Q, continued: “I have a life! I may get a paycheck from my company, but really I work for myself… what, they’re not happy with the 40 hours I give them during the week and now supposedly I’m only loyal if I go beyond and unilaterally hand over my personal time, too? I’m supposed to anticipate their inability to manage me and use my time effectively, and let their problems impact MY personal time? Really? Because that’s the definition of stoopid. Just ask all those United workers who lost their pensions, or my older brother who’s been busting his butt for 20 years and STILL hasn’t been promoted to Vice President. C’mon, Jase. You’re totally full of it if you think for a minute that some customer’s last minute crisis is more important than my time. As if I’m responsible for their inability to plan ahead! If I’ve learned one thing growing up watching this crazy world, it’s that if I don’t protect my own time, no one else will. Everywhere I turn, someone’s selling me something, just like you’re trying to sell me on giving up my time. Well, world, consider yourself on notice: you can’t have my time. So there. If you think you’ve got a good reason for me to stay past 5:01pm, I’d love to hear it. I won’t believe a word you’re saying, but I’d still love to hear it. I want to hear what crazy sounds like!”

A: You just made chills go down the spines of managers from coast to coast.

Here’s the short of it: if you view your job as something you have to do to feed yourself and keep a roof over your head, you are 100% right. Maybe I’m not being duly respectful to the status quo by saying this, but then I have been known to smash a sacred cow or two.

Here’s the longer of it: To the extent that your boss is an autocratic blowhard, I think you’re well within your rights to stick it to him by adhering strictly to the letter of your employment agreement. And to the degree that the leader of your company can’t paint a vision for you that you connect to, well then, let the chips fall where they may. Just know that if you go that route, you’re going to end up exactly where your grandfather ended up. Sure, his path was different–he was a one-company man while you flit about from company to company–but at the end of your runs, both of you will have toiled fruitlessly, getting passed over time and again for promotional opportunities.

Is that what you want? Is THAT your end game? To run away from poor old Granddad’s quaint loyalty so hard that you end up running full circle to the same outcome? To work so hard to represent your generation as different from the past that you totally overlook the fact that every generation does that… and winds up in the same place as the one that preceded it? (What do you think the “Greatest Generation” thought of itself? They saved the world from Nazism, for crying-out-loud… you really think that your perspective is new and different?!) For all your bravado, I don’t believe for a moment that this is the outcome you want. Nor do I believe that you need to settle for that outcome.

Here’s an option: get a job where you can connect to the mission; where staying past 5pm isn’t an obligation foisted upon you, but a badge of honor you gladly wear because excelling at work is a meaningful part of what keeps you balanced.

Here’s a better option: create that passion for the job you currently have. Because let’s face it: the problem isn’t the job, or the boss, or the mindless client: it’s you. It’s your lazy-bones, indecisive self who never learned to commit, who is so busy avoiding your grandparents’ and parents’ and siblings’ mistakes that you haven’t for one minute thought about what you might be running away from or where you yourself might be running to. You haven’t thought about why it’s important to define yourself in terms of generational tags, or what the alternative might be. So, you are going to have the same problem in every job you hold until you crack the nut that the problem is you. It’s not that the last three bosses didn’t understand you, or that you’ve worked for five mercurial, petty tyrants in a row. It isn’t that no one understands you or that the world is out to get you. It’s that the people you work with got over their emotional garbage in high school and don’t feel like dealing with yours now in the workplace. The sooner you realize that for all your promise, you are still a rookie making rookie mistakes, the faster you’ll be able to realize that your little treatise above is the rant of someone who is going nowhere in life (at the moment).

I’ll give you that you are a product of your environment; it’s not your fault that you are the way you are. To wit:

1. During high school, the dot-com boom raged, where anyone with half a brain made a million bucks and retired.
2. During college, it became clear that nearly every company is run by a crook or a crook-in-training.
3. You were the prize your divorced parents fought over… or maybe you were the casualty of their war.
4. You missed out on educational opportunities as your teachers were neutered by an awful educational system.
5. You were ignored by coaches who didn’t tell you the truth, opting instead to give you a trophy for “trying your best.”
6. You have been conditioned to accept what you see and read in the media, giving away for free the only thing you have control over: your mind.
7. You were encouraged to take “what have you done for me lately” to the extreme of voting weakest links off the island.
8. You have never had a leader whom you could trust: the president of your childhood was impeached, and his successor lied to you outright about a number of issues.
9. You’ve known since day one that the Baby Boomers siphoned funds away from Social Security and are sticking you with the bill.

How, here, were you supposed to learn the value of having a meaningful relationship with a boss? Don’t worry, I don’t see it, either. But, how you got here isn’t nearly as important as where you go from here. Your situation is a tough one: you’re a trained Narcissist now facing a situation that requires empathy. You’re ill-equiped for the challenge. Sucks to be you.

The irony of this is, the person you think is your enemy is actually your best friend. Make that your BESTEST friend. The owner of the business where you work is no slouch. He or she didn’t scratch and fight to the top only to allow it unravel now that they’ve arrived! To business owners, The 5:01 Syndrome is symbolic of a bureaucratic world in which otherwise capable individuals turn themselves into pencil-pushing, clock-punching drones, and they think it’s a waste… just like you. They’ll do anything to support you in your desire to turn your job into a crusade you can be proud of.

What do you need to do to engage them? Start by knocking on their door at 5:02 to letting them know you want to talk.

Jason Seiden is Co-founder and CEO of Ajax Social Media, a training company that shows professionals how use social media to work more effectively.