I mean, you can get reasonably far by working hard without sucking off the corporate drones. Find something you're good at, or passionate about, and find a relatively large company that does that work. Work your ass off day after day so your coworkers and boss and his boss get the picture that you're there to do a job for them and do it right. They'll start to treat you with leniency and favoritism. Squeeze them for it: work overtime when you're not supposed to, dictate your own schedule, demand raises, etc. As long as you consistently deliver results and don't cause HR trouble, they won't care about much else. That's doing everything "right" nowadays.