Stay with the boss who hates you. With work that keeps you chained. Until you set yourself up for success and you are locked up in prison.
Translation of a controversial article from TechCrunch by James Altusher - an investor, programmer, author of articles and a bit of an entrepreneur.
Stay with the boss who hates you. With a job that keeps you chained, tempting with constant pay rises and promotions. Stay in a culture that is quietly replacing the entire middle class. This is not anyone's fault. These are the tectonic plates of the economy, destroying an entire provincial culture that has been going on for almost 100 years. Until you set yourself up for success and whatever that choice entails, you will be locked up in prison.
People read TechCrunch because they want to create something, they don't want to follow orders all their lives, and they want financial freedom. Let's be honest. These three points seem attractive. God bless you. I hope that when you get them, you can keep them. Most people (like ME) just need to take a little roller coaster ride because we're dumb. But some people are smart.
Getting what you need is difficult, but for reasons I will explain below, you now have no other choice. There are no more myths about corporate security, about climbing the corporate ladder, about buying a gold watch, about getting applause from your colleagues. Not because the economy is bad. Because innovation and the global economy are better than ever.
He said, "Look out the window." We examined all the office buildings around us. "What do you see?" - he asked. - "I do not know". “They are empty! All the offices are empty. The middle class is devastated. " And I looked closely. Entire floors were dark. There were floors with one or two offices, but most were empty. “It's all outsourced or technology has taken over the scribblers,” he said.
“It's not all bad,” he said. "More people have joined the upper class than last year." But more people are becoming temporary employees than ever before, he said.
And here is a new paradigm. The middle class is dead. The American Dream never really existed. It was a marketing ploy.
I'm on the board of directors for a temporary employment company with $ 600 million in revenue. I see this happening in all sectors of the economy. Everyone is fired. Everything is just toilet paper now.
Into the furnace.
3) Corporations don't like you. The executive editor of a major news release called me over to lunch to ask for advice on how to get more traffic to their website. But before I could speak, he started complaining to me, "Our top writers keep twittering their articles and then when they get more readers, they start asking for a promotion."
“So what's the problem?” I asked. "Don't you want popular and respected authors?"
When I say "top news release" I mean the TOP.
Leaving aside the question “Should I get a job at all,” let's talk about money for a second. Science first: Research shows that increases in wages produce near-zero increases in "happiness" above a certain level. Why is that? Because of a simple fact: people spend whatever they earn. If your salary rises to $ 5,000, you spend an extra $ 2,000 on accessories for your car, you have an affair, you buy a new computer, a bigger sofa, a big TV, and then you ask, "Where did all the money go?" Even if you don’t need any of the above, you still need one more thing: another salary increase, so go back to the corporate casino for another turn of the salary roulette wheel. I have never seen anyone postpone surplus wages.
The only way to avoid this situation is to diversify your business, when no one particular person - a buyer, boss or client - can make a decision that can make you rich or destroy you, fulfill your lifelong dreams or destroy them. I understand that this will not happen overnight. Start planning to create your own destiny now, instead of letting people who don't like you control it. When counting, make sure that the number goes up to 20. In this case, when you spin the roulette wheel, the chances of winning numbers will be on your side.
6) Does your job suit your needs? I will explain the concept of "need" as I always do, based on what I call "daily practice." Are your physical, emotional, mental and spiritual needs being met?
The only retirement plan is to Find Yourself. Start a business, project or new way of life in which you can forget about the constant thoughts of money. Some might say, "Well, I'm just not an entrepreneur."
It is not true. Everyone is an entrepreneur. The only skills you need to be an entrepreneur are the ability to fail, the ability to have ideas, push those ideas, launch those ideas, and be persistent enough that even when you fail, you learn and move on to the next idea. Or being an entrepreneur at work. "Hired entrepreneur". Take control of who you report to, what you do, what you create. Or start a business on the side. Create some value, any value, for someone, for someone, and see how that value is embedded in your career.
What other choice do you have? Staying in a job where the boss is trying to pull you down will end up replacing you, paying just enough just to survive, flailing from compliments to insults, so you will be baited with a fish, while he will pull the rod. Is this your best bet? You and I have the same 24 hours every day. And this is how you will spend it?
WHAT? Who are you?
I said, “Hello! I have everything in order. " But I had no idea who I was talking to. Why is this woman talking to me? I was too ugly. I had to play along in the conversation for several minutes to find out who she was.
It turned out that this was the old-fashioned woman who quit her job six months ago, where we worked together. She cried as she took her things from her office when she was fired. She was always disheveled and looked about 30 years older than she really was, and at that time her life was going to hell. Until … she realized that she got out of the zoo. In the George Lucas film, THX-1138 (that was the name of the protagonist), everyone's aspirations are suppressed and all people live underground because the earth is "radioactive." Finally THX decides that it is better to die on earth than to suffer forever underground, where he is not allowed to love. He was not free.
He made his way to the ground, dodging all the guards and police. And when he got out, it was sunny. All people on earth are beautiful, and they are waiting for him with open arms and kisses. The preposition "but there is radiation!" was just to keep him down.
Make a list now. Every dream. I want to be a bestselling author. I want to reduce my material needs. I want to free myself from many of the troubles that I have been victims of all my life. I want to be healthy. I want to help all people around me or people who come into my life. I want everything I do to be a source of help for people. I want to be close only to those people whom I love and who love me. I want to have time for myself.
When you wake up every day with this drive for improvement. Do better for your family, friends, colleagues, clients, potential customers, readers, people you don't even know yet, but would like to meet. Become a beacon of improvement and then, when it gets dark, all ships will move towards you, bringing their inexhaustible wealth.
Don't trust me. Stay with the boss who hates you. With a job that keeps you chained, tempting with constant pay rises and promotions. Stay in a culture that is quietly replacing the entire middle class. This is not anyone's fault. These are the tectonic plates of the economy, destroying an entire provincial culture that has been going on for almost 100 years.
Until you set yourself up for success and whatever that choice entails, you will be locked up in prison. You will gaze into your partner's eyes, looking for a clue as to whether he or she loves you. But gradually the light will fade away, the heat of another body will grow cold, and you will once again fall asleep without dreams in this darkness.
James Altusher "Private Correspondent"
