Can you really work a 9-5 and still claim that you aren't a lotus eater? Lotus eating isn't endulging in company meals or taking their Ubers, lotus eating is being lured into a sense of security and letting yourself be surrounded by walls of safety to strong for you to break.
I think this is a pretty twisted definition of lotus-eating - in the Odyssey lotus-eating isn't never equated to toiling endlessly on the open sea reaching for a thing that might not be attainable, it's giving up a will to move, eat and simply bask in idle hedonistic pleasure.
So the modern day lotus eater isn't a 9-5 worker, those are the folks on the ships struggling to help fulfill this one dude's hope while being beaten, tempted and killed - and being entirely ignored in the epilogue as if they never even existed... The modern lotus eater is those that sink into depression and drug abuse, able to survive in society but just eeking by while trying to escape reality - And it is certainly good to avoid falling into it.
Same goes the other way, the idea of getting superb freedom and empowerment by running your own company is equally self-delusional. There's cons and pros to both, and they depend on many variables, especially the age and a particular moment in one's life.
