You Still Have a Job. Will You Keep It?
Completely trusting any company is a bad move.
I wouldn’t trust a company to look after my firstborn child.
I don’t care how good their mission statement is, or how noble their plight is to save humanity from itself — or even how collaborative their supposed #culture is meant to be.
Relying on a job in a global recession is proven to be a bad move. You deserve better than that. Seeing people lose their jobs and be left with nothing breaks my heart. That has been my reality these last few weeks.
Even some of the companies I thought were human are proving to “do evil.”
A recession shows us a company’s true colors. And those colors are often black and white rather than rainbow colored with unicorns waiting in the employee car park ready to whisk you off to a company cocktail party.
What Separates You from The Exit Door?
The truth is, at best, four weeks’ pay.
In a global downturn it’s easy for an employer to fire you. All it takes is another unexpected Black Swan Event or a continuation of this current economic crisis and you could be next.
But it’s not doom and gloom. Highlighting how close you are to losing your job brings me no joy and it’s not designed to scare you.
What I want for you is to never depend on a company again.
If times get tough, no company is coming to save you because they will always save themselves first. That’s capitalism.
No Company Owns You
I was chatting to a young writer I’ve been helping yesterday. He was worried about continuing with his writing because he thinks his employer might stop him from doing so. It scares the heck out of him.
I had to remind him that at the end of last year that same company gave him one week’s notice to find another role internally; otherwise, he would be fired and on the street with bread crumbs for dinner.
Now, he got lucky and found another job internally which actually led to a promotion. Things worked out well for him and he was thankful. Then last week his department started laying people off again to save money.
Like a cat and mouse game his future was then thrown up in the air yet again, leaving his life and thoughts in a hot mess.
One minute you have a job. The next minute you’re not sure. And surprise! — You’re goneski.
I said to him: “Man, with all due respect, this is no way to live.” Finally he understood what I’d been trying to tell him.
Build Something Small that You Own
Now not everybody can go out there and quit their job and become an entrepreneur. I get that. Entrepreneurship is not practical for everybody.
But all of us can build something small that is all ours, which can’t be taken away. All of us can diversify away from having one company pay our bills and put friend noodles on the table.
If you have a job, you might keep it. But how can you cap the downside and protect your livelihood? Well, you can build something you own. But how? By deciding on which skill you can sell to more than one business. Each of us has a set of skills that we sell to the open market.
Selling your skills to one buyer is risky.
The days of job security are over.
Again — all that separates you from the unemployment trap door is four weeks pay. Four weeks pay is peanuts.
The average job search is going to take you longer than four weeks. And if you have savings, do you really want to use them all up while you find a job? Do you want to search for a job with limited resources and come across in interviews as desperate because you have to be? That’s no way to live.
So now is the time to start building something — anything. What can you build?
- A social media page
- A small business
- A skill learned from books
- A skill learned from LinkedIn Learning
- A network of people just like you
- An email list
- A back catalogue of content
- A “completed project’s” list on a freelancing site
There are literally endless things you can build. Now is the time to start building something because otherwise, what you build working for someone else’s company could be taken away, making you Starvin Marvin. I hate seeing people lose when they don’t have. You can protect yourself.
Complacency is Bad for You
People tell me all the time, “I have a job so it’s all good.”
The time to start planning and protecting your family is not when you lose your job. The time to plan your life and career is now. No company truly cares about you because the modern-day business model requires companies to be nimble and flex their workforce.
It’s not personal when a company fires you; it’s business.
Just like it’s not personal when you are unemployed and have to cut off your Netflix Subscription to save money. You don’t email them to cancel because you think Netflix is evil and want to see them burned at the stake; you cancel because you have to.
Seeing so many people get fired over the last few weeks has been hard. Many of them were complacent and thought it could never happen to them. Hearing how they had to explain it to their partner or kids is enough to make any person cry. Why put yourself and your family through that pain?
If you’ve lost your job, I feel for you. If you still have a job, then it’s time to act on this opportunity and invest in yourself while simultaneously backing yourself.
Build something. Build it as tall as you can and then at the very last minute, charge money to anybody that needs that skill. The longer you can work for free, the faster whatever you’re building will grow.
Trusting a single company with your future is riskier than playing roulette at the local casino. Whether you keep your job is not up to you. What you control is what you can build in your own time. Now is the time to build something.