Digital painting of a writer working calmly at a wooden desk by a large window in winter, warm lamplight illuminating books, papers, and a laptop as snowy trees glow outside, while faint shadowy office figures fade into the background, symbolizing reclaimed focus and freedom from corporate work.

On-the-job coercion is the ultimate energy drain

ByTC Marti

On-the-job coercion is by far the biggest drain on your life. Luckily, there’s a way out, and it doesn’t involve being a Marxist.

Getting a job or starting a career is simple. Or, seemingly. You apply, go through a series of interviews, get hired, then it’s “welcome to the madhouse.”

Over the past two years, I’d seen more than my fair share of the “madhouse.” While I exchanged my time to perform sports writing services for a salary voluntarily, the landslide of on-the-job coercion is nevertheless a real thing.

That old day job of mine wasn’t just “work.” Any job is work. But this one contained:

  • Externally assigned priorities
  • Arbitrary deadlines detached from meaning
  • Output measured by someone else’s incentives
  • Constant low-grade surveillance (metrics, expectations, editors, algorithms)
  • Beiger than beige prose

That created cognitive tax.

Even when I wasn’t actively working, part of my brain was still occupied with:

  • “What do they expect?”
  • “Will this be approved?”
  • “Is this safe to say?”
  • “How much time do I really have?”

Once I seceded, that tax disappeared.

By how much? Flashback to this past Saturday, and my mind was like a refueled rocket ship. My brain fully reclaimed its bandwidth in not just time, but mental energy. It’s why I managed to:

  • Edit 8 chapters (4 in Astray Mage and 4 in Beyond the Lost Assault)
  • Write 2 articles on my author blog
  • Revise a full chapter (Witch of Thornvale)
  • Spend 4.5 focused hours building a sales landing page

That’s called unblocked cognition.

I kicked out on-the-job coercion and welcomed intrinsic motivation

Astray Mage by TC MartiAt my old job, I was paid to comply while my output existed only to feed the corporate machine. Success was abstract, delayed, and barely recognized despite record numbers in Nov. and Dec. 2025.

Over the past 10 days, every task I’ve engaged in compound my own ecosystem. Every article, whether it’s here or at the blog, feeds a target audience that I sought. Oh, and every hour I spend on the AI Toolkit increases its asset value.

At the old job, my motivation was, “I should do this.” Now that I’m free from corporate chains, everything I do for between 8 and 12 hours on weekdays moves my life forward. Fitting, since I’m writing this piece as the dog days of winter are in full force.

It took no willpower to edit those eight chapters, along with another four and a half chapters of Beyond the Lost Assault this morning. I didn’t need discipline to keep working on and perfecting my sales page for the Toolkit.

When I went to sleep that night, I wasn’t exhausted. Instead, I felt like I accomplished something on my terms.

Enjoying this piece? There’s a lot more of it to read at my Substack, The Rogue Scribe. And make sure you subscribe to the Scribe so you never miss a kick-ass post like this one.

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