10 lessons to learn from the workplace
GERARD O'NEIL
Last updated 05:00 20/01/2015
OBSERVATIONS: There is no such thing as a secure job when you work for someone else, says Gerard.
One day, almost 30 years ago, I stopped
reading the document I was working on and looked out the office window. From my
desk, I had a privileged view over the wharfs and down the harbour. It
seemed that no matter the time of the day there were always yachts out sailing
or people fishing from the pier.
After daydreaming for a period about what it
must be like to be outside while most of the population was cooped up in some
office, I returned to reality. Instead of returning to the document before me
however, I swung round to my typewriter and began typing. When I had finished I
got up and made my way downstairs to the human resources department to hand in
my letter of resignation.
It was not a decision I had taken lightly. For
months, I had been considering it. Even though I had a good, well-paid, secure
job, deep down I knew that 99 per cent of what I was doing was pointless.
Spending my days moving paper from one side of a desk to another was not what I
really wanted to be doing for the rest of my life.
I soon discovered resigning was the easy part.
During the following month, while I worked out
my resignation, colleagues took every opportunity to try to convince me that
throwing away a secure job for an insecure one (in fact at the time I did not
have any job to go too) was an act of madness. Even the people from human
resources tried to convince me to stay, suggesting that it was better for me to
take an unpaid leave of absence until I sorted out my lack of career judgment.
Within two days of leaving my job, I had a new
one working for the Apple and Pear Board in Nelson at their port cool stores.
My job was to support the quality control department. It was a mixture of
inside / outside work and I loved it!
I soon learnt that seasonal work offered the
opportunity to do many hours of overtime. By the end of the apple season, I had
earned more than the equivalent of a whole year's salary in my previous job.
During the next 12 years, I worked seasonally
in various industries. In the off seasons, I would travel overseas or
concentrate on my university studies (sometimes studying full time and
sometimes part time).
On one of my overseas trips, I met my
foreign-born wife and eventually became fluent in her native language. By the
time we married, I was working as an independent translator and business
consultant.
For the first couple of years, my wife and I
worked together but when we began to think about buying a house we imagined
that no bank would give us a mortgage if one of us did not have a "real
job". My wife therefore went off to work for a company and I
continued to develop our business.
The surprise came two years later when we had
saved the deposit for a house and went to see our bank manager.
I explained to the manager what I did and
showed him details of my income. My wife did the same. The manager ignored
my wife's income and began to calculate our mortgage based on the figures I had
presented him.
When my wife interrupted and said she was the
one with the permanent job, he responded: "That may be true, but
at any time you can lose your job. Your husband may lose some clients, but he
can never lose his job."
I think this was the first time I realized
that my decision to give up my supposedly secure job was the correct one.
Over the years, I have consolidated what I do
and today, via my business consulting activities, I get to see firsthand how
companies function and how they interact with their workers - especially during
times of restructuring, merges or buyouts.
Here are a few observations:
1. Despite what employees may believe, in
general, workers are no more than units of production and they are one of the
easiest things to cut if cost-cutting measures become necessary.
2. Few employees have plan B’s if they lose
their jobs.
3. From an employee's point of view, age,
length of service and experience are liabilities as employers often considerer
older workers as being too expensive and too set in their ways to adapt to
change.
4. The rumours that circulate around a
company during a restructuring process, in relation to which positions will be
cut, are usually wrong.
5. Even after employees receive their
dismissal letter they expect to be reinstated within a few days, as they
believe they are indispensable.
6. The enterprise may have a master plan,
but the economic storms that buffet companies or unexpected events, such as
earthquakes, can outdate it in an instant.
7. Company failure does not necessarily
equal bad management.
8. Even though the lowest worker believes they
can run the company better than the directors, they cannot.
9. If you divide the hours managers work,
including the time spent on their computers at home or when they are
travelling, by their fixed salaries, managers often earn less than the people
they manage.
10. There is no such thing as a secure job
when you work for someone else!
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