Are We Creating Shitbag Marines?

A Marine graduates boot camp disciplined, motivated, and ready to take on the world. Then they hit the fleet. A year later, they're counting down the days until EAS, doing the bare minimum, complaining about everything, and everybody around them has decided they're a shitbag. But were they always like that? Or did we help create them? In this episode of the Meech Speaks Podcast, we're taking a hard look at the environments we create for young Marines. We talk about what happens when good Marines are rewarded with more work, poor performers are given less responsibility, toxic leaders are allowed to flourish, and organizations become more concerned with getting results than the people actually producing them. But leadership and the environment aren't the only things that deserve scrutiny. How much energy are you giving to the bullshit around you? That argument with your coworker might last ten minutes, but you're still thinking about it on the drive home. You're thinking about it at dinner. You're thinking about it before bed. Eventually, something that happened at work starts taking time and energy away from everything outside of it. And then there's the question of how we cope with all of it. I also discuss recent research examining workplace stress and after-work alcohol use, my own experiences using alcohol to decompress earlier in my Marine Corps career, and why we need healthier ways of leaving work at work. This episode isn't about absolving Marines of personal responsibility, and it isn't another excuse to blame everything on "toxic leadership." It's about asking harder questions: When did that Marine become like this? How much did the environment contribute? How much energy are we giving to things we can't control? And maybe the most uncomfortable question: Am I that Marine? Someone may arrive at your unit motivated. What happens to them afterward is something all of us have a hand in.