Much talk about employment lately, as Obamanomics takes its toll. If you think you have a problem with 10% unemployment, just wait till the next part of the double-dip recession, when these will be the good old days.
One of more destructive aspects of class warfare/wealth envy is that it villifies the most exemplary among us. Instead of being told to do what achievers do in order to have what achievers have, we are told to vote for someone who will simply redistribute from the achievers to the rest of us.
Society takes those who best understand economics -- those whose values most closely conform to reality -- and makes virtual criminals of them when they should be lauded as heroes. What we should be taking from achievers is not their money, but their work ethic. It's a matter of values.
Think you know what a job is? Well, let's look at the difference between how you might view your job and how an achiever might view it. I'd argue that the best candidate for a job is the one who best understands it. How do you stack up?
A job is what happens when an employer doesn't have enough hands, time or skills to serve all his customers himself. Nobody wants to write paychecks, but if that is the cost of doing business, then an employer may try it. Whether the benefit of hiring you turns out to be worth the costs is entirely up to you.
An employee is not a slave, he is a steward. He is entrusted with some task, not for the sake of his employer's ego, but so that the employer (or other employees) will not have to do it themselves. Not because they don't want this responsibility, but because their time's better spent on other responsibilities. If you want to move up, then it's up to you to convince your boss that your time's better spent on other responsibilities as well.
"Your" job isn't yours at all -- it's your employer's. Don't believe me? Then imagine leaving your employer and taking the job with you. Good luck.
Nor should you expect to make a career of it. If a high school kid can do your job, then you will spend your "career" competing with high school kids to keep it -- kids who don't have mortgages or families, and who already have health insurance from some other source. If you want a career, you need a skill few people can do.
If a 12-year-old in some third-world country can do your job, then what does that say about you? Let it go. You have opportunities as an American that they will never have. The sweatshop does not steal your job -- it sets you free. Learn to do something they can't do in the third world.
You work because you need food, shelter, clothing, and for many other things that you probably don't need as much as you want them. You do not work for money -- money is just a convenient thing for your employer to give you while you make your own decisions about what to buy.That said, real prosperity is in the difference between how hard and long you must work for what you consume. You may want ten dollars an hour so you can buy something. If you only made five dollars an hour, but everything you saw cost half as much, then where's the harm in that? That 12-year-old in the sweatshop goes a long way toward lowering the prices of the things you want to buy -- and it frees you up to make things that 12-year-olds can't.
Your employer is not the last word -- he has people he has to work for, too. He may like your tattoos and piercings, but he also has to think about customers who might not. Or clients who are racist, homophobic, xenophobic -- or whatever -- and who could take their own business someplace else on a moment's notice. Your employer is not in the business of teaching his customers tolerance. Your special needs are not a benefit -- try not to make them a cost.
They say you can't get a job from a poor person. Similarly, making rich people poorer costs jobs. Every "unnecessary" dollar that a wealthy person invests gets lent to somebody who creates a job. That's what "saving" is. If you think someone has "too much" money, then look around: Are there "too many" jobs?
You are not underpaid, but you may be under-employed. If you're worth more, then go out and get it -- from someone else, if necessary. There may be people working at Walmart who can do much more, but maybe that's not what Walmart needs. Walmart worked very hard to get to the point where it doesn't need many highly skilled people. If your skills are wasted at Walmart, then Walmart isn't "exploiting" you -- you're just wasting your talents in the wrong job. Why not do everyone a favor and give the job back to Walmart?
Remember, a job is not a benefit -- it's a cost. Your job is your employer's cost of getting the job done, and it's your cost of not taking some other job, and the cost of getting everything you buy with your salary. If your job isn't setting you free, then find one that does. Life is too short to hate your job.
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