I meant to post some time beginning of this month but got distracted with work. :p
But nothing can take me away for too long from learning and sharing my financial knowledge and managing my own finances. So here I am with a story titled ‘The Stark Reality of Being an Employee’.
This is a very important story that I want to tell, especially for us employees out there because this can potentially be happening to you right now or in future, if you do not have the financial freedom or haven’t start planning for one.
Before I carry on, I need to clarify that I’m not saying that being an employee is not good or that one should start quitting (unless there is a strong compelling reason to quit). I, myself, is an employee currently. To me, the income from being an employee forms the most basic of the basic source of income for all my investments.
So here’s the story. Just last month, there was a big hooha in my department – over the promotion of a “newbie” to the post of the manager. Almost everyone, if not all, did not feel that this was a justifiable promotion.
How many of us can relate to such an experience?
I have experiences with some people where they worked very hard for their companies, but did not plan for their own finances nor plan for their money to work hard for them. When I mention about investments, money protection or growth to them, they commented to me that investments are risky.
And here’s the irony.
If they think they are safe in their job or that there’s security in having a job or that there’s no risk in their job as compared to investing, the following stark reality of being an employee should shock them (you).
1) You do not have control over your pay, increment or bonuses. If your boss decided that there isn’t enough to share and decided to cut your share, there’s nothing much you can do, really.
2) You do not have control over your promotion or transfer opportunities. If your boss favours another person, even though that person’s caliber, experiences are lesser than yours, you are still out of the game.
3) You do not have control over type of work that you do. Neither do you have control over the amount of work that you do. As a result, you may have to put in extra hours to complete the work, if you want to please your boss.
4) You also do not have control over the time you’ll receive work-related messages or phone calls.
5) Most importantly, you do not have control whether you’ll remain in employment. You could still be working today, but got terminated tomorrow, maybe simply because the company wants to cut costs.
Now, do you still think that being in a job and not doing anything else is indeed as safe or secured as you thought it was?
With reference to my story, I won’t go into the details why we felt it was unjustifiable promotion because the more important question was – What can we do?
The truth is, there’s nothing we could do. NOTHING.
If we are not happy with this decision, with our work, our boss will gladly tell us – You are welcome to leave.
So the question is – Can you leave? Are you ready to leave?
If you have financial burden that you cannot get rid of, the obvious answer will be a ‘NO’. You can only start answering ‘YES’ if you have made some kind of financial planning or changes. If you haven’t done anything, start doing something NOW.
