I spent a couple hours with a client today who works for a company going through "organisational changes". Their position should be safe for now, but that of the direct supervisor is up in the air, as well as their very experienced mentor has lost his position at the company also. In fact, they have "let go" of over half of the VPs globally - which is a large number and the people are nearly all well-tenured, experienced and in key roles.
But obviously not key enough.
If the job has a component of repetitive work in it - it can be automated.
And pretty much all knowledge worker roles have repetitive tasks that can now be increasingly outsourced to machines to process with more speed, accuracy and in many cases, proficiency. Because they aren't drawing on years of experience - they are drawing on thousands of years of experience. They are learning the backgrounds, the rules and the desired outcomes, and making light work of what most knowledge workers would have previously hated doing anyway. And while this frees up time for more value-adding human activity, most roles are not designed for that space, and therefore it just becomes a way to reduce headcount, and therefore costs.
But what my client was thinking a bit about, was what these people will do after, since they are mostly in their fifties, and are far too experienced to start from the bottom, but are no longer in demand. They have families, they have their mortgage in the city, they have a life built up locally... starting again isn't easy. And even if they wanted to, no one is going to hire them because they are too qualified.
It is a shit situation.
And what we spent the time talking about past this was what kind of impact this has on them, their families and their own mental health. Something that I have considered a lot over the last few years. And in recent times, I have considered from the "loss" of a job angle also.
It definitely does have an impact on the psyche, as on top of the money situation, there are other factors, including the relationships with partner and children, the chase and rejection from applications, the dealing with different unemployment organisations (which is soul-sucking) and the change in self-worth, driven by not adding as much value as earlier. As I said to my client (who knows about my own current work situation), it is not that I am unemployed, but I am underemployed. I was doing much more earlier, and now I am doing what I was doing before I got another job on top, but it feels like I am doing nothing.
I asked my client what they had learnt from the situation so far, and the answer was they had learned they should be prepared that what is secure in work might change. What I added on top was that in terms of the money situation, prepare so that everything is covered with a pretty basic job - don't expand lifestyle too far, too fast. Always live well within means. Invest. Have multiple income sources.
We ran a mental scenario where he was back when they and their partner met at university, when they had just moved in together. Both of them were earning fuck all, yet they had money enough to have a good time with each other. And then I asked, if you lived like that now on your current salary, how much could you save? Essentially - they would be able to put away over eighty percent of their income. But there is no way they could now live on even 80% of their current income and maintain their current lifestyle.
Expense creep.
We keep expanding our expenditures in line with a growing salary, which is a natural way for animals to use resources. When there is plenty, that plenty gets spent, like kangaroos having babies when the rains come.
But when the droughts follow...
Most of us no longer have job security like in the past, yet most of us are also living our lives as if there is job security. We are expanding our expenses with the salary, under the assumption that if we lose one job, we could find something similar and earn about the same, if not more. But, I don't think that is the case anymore, and with the cost of living increases rapidly going up on top, it is even less likely.
We are spending based on future expectation.
And we are expecting too much from the future.
One day, things might be much better than today, but I believe that in the short term over the next decade or two, things are going to be significantly worse for a lot of us. With the changing technology, failing economic systems and corrupt governments and corporations that care nothing about humanity, things have to change. But, that change is going to take a lot of pain to get the ball rolling, and then it is also going to have to go through a lot of evolution to get a working system up and running.
It isn't going to be easy.
Corporate restructuring is going to become increasingly commonplace, but the legislation required to fill the void needed to provide for a healthy society just isn't in place, and isn't even yet mentioned in most mainstream circles. The lag in activity is ridiculously long, because even though people know things need to change, no one wants to be the change.
I feel like the majority of us are looking down at our feet, hoping that when we look up, everything will be better. But, better just doesn't happen by accident in a society - there needs to be a shift in activity toward things that lead toward it. We focus on the "better", but what we really need to pay attention and act upon is the "do" part of the improvement equation.
Only a limited amount can be accomplished, by staring at the ground.
Taraz
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