Management reprimands new employee for not going to coworker's after-hours birthday party: 'If it's mandatory, it needs to be paid'

Do you go to non-mandatory work events?

Sometimes you have to do things that you don't necessarily want to do. This is one of the tenets of adulthood. When it comes to work, you have to make sacrifices in order to keep yourself afloat. But we can draw boundaries around what we are willing and unwilling to do when it comes to our jobs. Maybe you're a bare-minimum kind of person, and you're not gonna give any more effort than what is expected of you. You're happy to just coast along, collect your check, and not have to think about it too hard. There is a certain piece that comes with this kind of attitude. You don't put any of your self-worth into your job, so if things go wrong, you're protected. But if you're in a career that you care about, and you work with people who you want to impress, you might have a slightly different attitude. When they ask you to go above and beyond, you might be willing to do it. But even if you're this kind of person, and you put a lot of stock in your career, and you expect something in return, you can still be careful about setting good boundaries. Because if you never set boundaries, then the powers-that-be will continue to ask more and more of you, until there's nothing left.