Work, work

Hi guys! Told you I’d be back soon!

Eck – not this fuckwit again.

Wait, hang on a minute – I just said hi.

Had enough of you wacko smacko.

Gee, someone is in a mood tonight.

That’s right guys – I am in a mood tonight, the mood to PARTY PEOPLE, WOOP THERE IT IS.

No wait, what am I saying, I’m not in the mood to party at all – I’m just delirious from jet lag still.

But it’s been 4 days? How can you still be jet-lagged? Isn’t it a 3hr time difference?

Sigh, I know – I’ve been trying to cure it with 5 hours of sleep every night and still feel tired when I wake up.

Took me all of half a day on Monday to lose that holiday glow and now I’m firmly back in the fight as if I never left at all.

A long time ago I used to be very happy with work, I held no beefs with it, I could stand back and admire it all day.

These days the story is different, I’m older, wiser and more curvaceous.

There’s a lot of articles out there which highlight job dissatisfaction, here’s one with a foxy Jennifer Aniston – which I feel is part of the problem. Jennifer Aniston is TOO foxy.

You see, we became so accustomed and exposed to job dissatisfaction this, and hate my job that, it becomes a self-perpetuating cycle.

Millennials (my generation) tend to have an itch in our respective roles which needs a good scratching around the 2-3 year mark.

A few of my friends have been in companies and roles longer than 2-3 years of course.

Some have even been with the same firm for the duration of their career but they are in the distinct minority.

Have a look through your CV, sum up your entire career and divide that with the number of roles you have held – does it come to be around the 2-3 years mark?

(This is a hypothetical question, I don’t really want to know as much as you should know but am not adverse to knowing if you want me to know, you know?)

Why 2-3 years? I think it’s the stage when you learn all or most there is to a role, are too accustomed to it and want more.

When the itch comes it’s very hard not to scratch it.

How can you not? It’s a new challenge, a fresh beginning, a clean break. It should also mean a higher pay packet.

I mean most of us know that successful external candidates receive higher pay offers than internal candidates. Why should I accept a 5% pay-rise when jumping ship gives me 20%?

Scratching that itch also gives us the feeling of being wanted again, of not being just another employee with the “work hard and you’ll receive a bonus” tag.

It also means that we get to see what’s on the other side.

And you know, sometimes the grass isn’t greener, the work isn’t any different, the new manager doesn’t like you as much and your bonuses aren’t as much as before, you might not even fit in to the culture and/or role and “waves goodbye motion with hands”.

Not many of us reflect on that.

Hey fuck you TheFrugalSamurai – I got that 20% payrise! I reflected BITCH.

True, true, but I find…

No FUCK YOU.

OK, OK calm your farm let me finish. A lot of the time I find that if your pay increases by X% our spending increases by X% – so net result is the same as before.

Before long we are back to where we started from.

So what are you saying?

Maybe a different approach suits just as well?

I’m lucky to have met and talked to plenty of individuals from the “older generations”. You know the ones who rode the wave of interest rate cuts which caused multi-asset booms. Those lucky bastards.

Most of them have been with the same job for decades. They’ve ridden the good, the bad and the ugly with their jobs and you know what they say?

Stick it out – times are never as bad as they seem and never as good as they seem. (I lied, no oldie said that to me, but it sounds cool).

Yeah but they are of the older generation, you can’t compare us to them!

Of course not – but there’s something to be learnt here. Be patient, maybe let the itch pass, bide your time and build your networks – your reward will come.

There will always be openings within your organisation and chances are, you will know the in’s and out’s, who’s who, pros and cons better than any external candidate – you’ll be better equipped to make a judgement call as to whether you are the right fit and if its a 5% increase, well its up to you to position yourself worthy of that 20% instead.

It’s a slow climb up that corporate ladder – that’s why its called a corporate ladder and not a corporate jet pack. (Missile, projectile, spaceship, fireworks, zoom zoom – all good and wholesome words I could have chosen).

We all have our goals and wants from our working careers, even if they are to just stand still and smell the roses.

Both on $80k a year and 4 weeks annual leave.

But please, don’t make such important decisions on a whim and equally as important, don’t make such important decisions without being fully informed first.

The grass will always be greener on one side – please make sure it’s the one you’re standing on.

Love to hear your thoughts on this topic!

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