The social networks are ripe with chatter about how we should understand our employers.
The dilemma, as commonly presented, is whether we should look at our employers as “Sports Teams” or “Families.”
While smarter humans than I might look for a more nuanced third option, shredding the entire narrative to bits, I’ll here suggest the only realistic option from among the two.
Personally, I love the "Sports Team" analogy for a place of employment… but it does work a whole lot better when the players are making average salaries in the millions.
Hell, I’ll settle for that measly $410,000 Major League Soccer salary.
“Making millions of dollars” is slang for “being in extremely high demand from a multitude of employers.” Unfortunately, the U.S. economy rewards team-athletes far more than astrophysicists. Society is in good hands.
It’s much harder then, for the lowly cubicle worker such as myself, to embrace the “free agent” mentality that makes the sports team analogy work. Yet, regardless how challenging it may be for you to change employers in your own situation, you must acknowledge that you are indeed—even when employed—a free agent.
You never belong to a company the way you belong to a family.
I can see why the “Family” analogy would have considerably more proponents. We Americans are not famous for having job security. There’s a reason our politicians run their campaigns on “Jobs, Jobs, Jobs!”
For those of us getting paid any amount below the plural *hundreds of thousands*, there’s great appeal to searching for a “home” in a single place of employment. If our wages won’t grow, at least we should look for comforts such as stability, harmony, security, and the other benefits of a happy family. Right?
Wrong.
Don’t look for that.
It’s an illusion.
You will almost certainly never find it.
So? So, protect yourself.
Howard Payne.
Remember Dennis Hopper’s character in Speed?
Payne spent an entire career with the Atlanta Police Department on the bomb squad. He lost a thumb in an explosion. He ended up with a “cheesy gold watch” and a sunken pension. Then he went crazy and started blowing people up.
Yeah, yeah, he’s a villain. But #1: he probably wouldn’t have started killing if he had been taken care of in retirement. And But #2: Relax, it’s just a silly metaphor.
The point is: even firemen and police officers have retired into squalor. Some family.
The unfortunate reality is that virtually zero employers actually provide you stability, harmony, or security. So when some employers pretend to care about such things, it would be far safer for you to recognize it as bullshit straight away. Roll your eyes and let it happen. Let them think they’ve got you fooled, too, as you navigate shrewdly to protect yourself.
Some examples.
Your Human Resources (HR) department wants to change the rules of social behavior in the office. For harmony? No. For productivity.
By adding social rules, forcing so-called “conventions” not-yet-established through mass behavior, they curtail natural tendencies toward play and free socialization. They don’t want you fucking around, even though that might build comradery. They’re looking at data. They’re maximizing THEIR time. The time they pay you to work.
Your HR department encourages you to opt into “extra” stock option plans. For your security and retirement? No. To make them stickier to you, to make it harder for you to leave for another opportunity, even if you might be able to get a higher salary today.
In order to vest your stock option, you need to spend more time at the company. If you quit ahead of your vesting period, you’re made to feel like you’re losing or giving away money. See how that controls your decision-making related to choosing where to work and when?
The only choice.
Whatever analogy you prefer for a place of employment, is irrelevant. Only one option is accurate. The sports team.
Corporations are not families.
Even family businesses are not families. (They’re run by families.)
Treating your employer like a sports team is good for you. By acknowledging your own lack of job security, you will be far more secure in that you’ll be prepared to make better decisions, and you’ll make them when you want and on your own terms.
Remember that you are a free agent.
More importantly, remember that your employer sees you as a free agent.
Families don’t do lay-offs when the going gets tough.