Yes, you can become as slave. It isn't illegal to give up your life to another human being. In fact just the opposite, slavery is encouraged in today's society. We just have another word for it, we call it "Full employment with benefits." However, instead of buying slaves in the slave market as was the case a few hundred years ago, today slaves are bought on the job market.
Here is how the process works.
Step 1. Make yourself look good for whomever is going to be buying the merchandise. This could be in the form of getting better skills than the next slave, it could be writing a nice description of yourself in the form of a resume, or it could be simple grooming to make a good first impression on your future master.
Step 2. Find someone you think might benefit from your services. If you can't find anyone, you are not looking hard enough or you're not really ready to be a slave. Remember, like a used car, you can always find a buyer if you just lower your price enough.
Step 4. Show the person you would like to serve why it would be advantageous to have you as a slave. Like slaves of old in the slave market standing naked so that the buyers can see all they have to offer, bare your soul to your future master and show him why you will offer to give him more than what he is paying to get you. Explain why your whole existence up to this point has led you to seek this position and how you think you will serve him best.
Step 5. Respectfully negotiate your living conditions while serving as slave. Show how much better you will work if your master pays for your doctor bills should you happen to get sick. Explain how much more productive you will be in the rest of the year if you would get 12 days paid vacation instead of 10. Beg for better food and clothing in the form of more green scraps of paper.
Step 6. Work until your master says it's okay for you to go home. Work until your master says your work has not been up to his standards. Work until your master decides it's time he became a slave himself.
Step 7. Recognize that you are a worn out slave and hope your master still cares enough about you to put you out to pasture and not send you to the glue factory.
Sunday, September 25, 2011
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
When it come to Careers.... It's all BS
Let's start by laying the cards right on the table. Nobody wants a job. Nobody wants to spend hours and hours at an office day in and day out just to come home and sit in front of a 73 inch widescreen home theater system. People might get jobs because they want what the money a job will provide. But people don't get jobs just for having a job's sake.
It might be true that some people may say that they want a job for getting a job's sake, but what they really mean is that they want something to do on a daily basis that will give their life a sense of purpose while at the same time providing a steady income to pay for other things that give life meaning or sustain life. This is not the same thing as getting a job.
A job, or a career as some high minded people might like to call it, is just a simple market exchange. It can be a long term exchange, as when you get a salaried position with a firm, or it can be a short term exchange, as when you get a contract to do some work on someone's house. The purpose of the exchange is to provide some sort of value, and to get paid for providing this value. However, while altruism might be a strong motive when writing a resume for a non-for-profit organisation, what really motivates people's choice to get a job/career is the paycheck.
What is the problem with the idea that people are only in it for themselves, and only in it for the paycheck? The problem lies in actually choosing who to hire for the job. If at the end of the day everyone just wants a paycheck and no one actually wants to be there to do the job that you need to be done, you end up with a job poorly done. The only way you can actually make sure that the person hired for the job is going to do a good job is if you have some way of knowing that the person values the job intrinsically for something beyond the salary.
And so arrives the BS.
Because if everyone knows that the only people getting the jobs are people who want the job for some other reason besides the paycheck, everyone will have an intensive to give off the signal of wanting something more that the paycheck even though all they really want is a nice salary. Basically, everyone will lie. And the honest people who just want to make a living will be without a job. (or they may end up owning their own business.)
The problem with this system is that nobody has intrinsic motivation to do ________________, people just want to get paid so that they can ______________________,____________________________,________________________, and ______________________.
Barack Obama, Corporate America, Rush Limbaugh, and others like them have people convinced that what they want is jobs and careers. What people really want is a sense of purpose, love, security, adventure, and a better car than your neighbors wife's first husband who only comes around on weekends. People are convinced that getting a job will get them these things because this is what they are being told by the invention of the unemployment rate. Why else would the unemployment rate exist except to paint a grim picture when people are out of jobs? Why else would such a rate exist unless one of societal. corporate, and governmental goals was to encourage employment?
To summarize...And to rephrase...
I am sick and tired of looking a want ads that seem to think I have to make my dream in life working for their company. I am sick and tired of the only people being straight forward about the fact that people are only really in it for the money are the scam artists sending me emails asking for me to do money laundering. I am sick and tired of the concept of a cover letter where I have to explain to someone why I'll be a good fit for the job. The biggest disgrace in this country is not that so many people don't have jobs. The biggest disgrace is that so many people do have jobs.
Companies fear lawsuits. They fear the hassle of letting people go. They fear hurting people's feelings and disrupting their idea of safety and security. So they spend ages making sure they have the perfect candidate for the job. They waste time, effort, and energy looking for signaling mechanisms to make sure that they get the perfect employee. What they end up with is the person who can give off the best signals, and not necessarily the best employee.
Instead of worrying about hierarchy and hurting people's feelings, hire and fire till you find the person that does the job best. A seven second impression, a personality test, a college degree, and even the person telling you why the job is their life's dream, on top of all the other wonderful selection mechanisms in the world are nothing compared to seeing how the person actually responds when getting the job done.
And the job will be done, after all you are paying me aren't you?
(as usual... Unproofed ;)
It might be true that some people may say that they want a job for getting a job's sake, but what they really mean is that they want something to do on a daily basis that will give their life a sense of purpose while at the same time providing a steady income to pay for other things that give life meaning or sustain life. This is not the same thing as getting a job.
A job, or a career as some high minded people might like to call it, is just a simple market exchange. It can be a long term exchange, as when you get a salaried position with a firm, or it can be a short term exchange, as when you get a contract to do some work on someone's house. The purpose of the exchange is to provide some sort of value, and to get paid for providing this value. However, while altruism might be a strong motive when writing a resume for a non-for-profit organisation, what really motivates people's choice to get a job/career is the paycheck.
What is the problem with the idea that people are only in it for themselves, and only in it for the paycheck? The problem lies in actually choosing who to hire for the job. If at the end of the day everyone just wants a paycheck and no one actually wants to be there to do the job that you need to be done, you end up with a job poorly done. The only way you can actually make sure that the person hired for the job is going to do a good job is if you have some way of knowing that the person values the job intrinsically for something beyond the salary.
And so arrives the BS.
Because if everyone knows that the only people getting the jobs are people who want the job for some other reason besides the paycheck, everyone will have an intensive to give off the signal of wanting something more that the paycheck even though all they really want is a nice salary. Basically, everyone will lie. And the honest people who just want to make a living will be without a job. (or they may end up owning their own business.)
The problem with this system is that nobody has intrinsic motivation to do ________________, people just want to get paid so that they can ______________________,____________________________,________________________, and ______________________.
Barack Obama, Corporate America, Rush Limbaugh, and others like them have people convinced that what they want is jobs and careers. What people really want is a sense of purpose, love, security, adventure, and a better car than your neighbors wife's first husband who only comes around on weekends. People are convinced that getting a job will get them these things because this is what they are being told by the invention of the unemployment rate. Why else would the unemployment rate exist except to paint a grim picture when people are out of jobs? Why else would such a rate exist unless one of societal. corporate, and governmental goals was to encourage employment?
To summarize...And to rephrase...
I am sick and tired of looking a want ads that seem to think I have to make my dream in life working for their company. I am sick and tired of the only people being straight forward about the fact that people are only really in it for the money are the scam artists sending me emails asking for me to do money laundering. I am sick and tired of the concept of a cover letter where I have to explain to someone why I'll be a good fit for the job. The biggest disgrace in this country is not that so many people don't have jobs. The biggest disgrace is that so many people do have jobs.
Companies fear lawsuits. They fear the hassle of letting people go. They fear hurting people's feelings and disrupting their idea of safety and security. So they spend ages making sure they have the perfect candidate for the job. They waste time, effort, and energy looking for signaling mechanisms to make sure that they get the perfect employee. What they end up with is the person who can give off the best signals, and not necessarily the best employee.
Instead of worrying about hierarchy and hurting people's feelings, hire and fire till you find the person that does the job best. A seven second impression, a personality test, a college degree, and even the person telling you why the job is their life's dream, on top of all the other wonderful selection mechanisms in the world are nothing compared to seeing how the person actually responds when getting the job done.
And the job will be done, after all you are paying me aren't you?
(as usual... Unproofed ;)
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