It was a day of good, good and bad news - firstly, I got a tiny, tiny raise in my monthly paycheck that should just about cover the inflation rate, though I am not sure if it will be enough with all of the "new money" that has been printed this year. The second and more important bit of good news is that I am currently "safe" in my job as my training delivery results are good enough to secure my position, which is good to know. The bad news is that due to the well-deserved promotions of a couple of my colleagues, the raise budget for our small department was mostly tapped out, so there wasn't more than the tiny raise. As I said to my supervisor this morning when I found out, I wasn't expecting anything this year anyway - so even a tiny bump is a nice surprise.
I haven't worked in a job where I get pay raises or bonuses for my work for a very, very long time, as I have been working for myself for quite a while now, a pay rise is securing a new customer, a bonus is not having an additional expense come in unexpectedly. There is also very little feedback working for myself other than client-side, as I have no colleagues. I like working for myself, I also understand and like the social side of working as an employee, as it provides a pool of relationships and experience that I can't get sitting alone.
Being good at something is valuable, but the argument always is going to be, what is of value - is me as a trainer more or less valuable than that of the person who manages me? In general, management is going to be paid more than employees, but is that the way it should be, or the way it is designed to be?
I was thinking about something my supervisor said today about looking forward into a career path, which ultimately would come with more money, but why should a career path that moves away from practical work attract more money, when it effectively does less. Yes, I know well enough that management aren't useless, there are plenty of skills that are required to effectively do those jobs, I train many of them in my own business - but it is interesting to think there is a ceiling on skill, unless one wants to cross over into management.
I am not sure if I want to do that, I don't know if I ever really want to "hang up my gloves" and give up on the practical side of things, even if there is more money involved. I know a lot of people who have done it and many of them are happy, but there always seems to be that sense of missing that the offset of money and power doesn't replace. I don't care about power, but I do understand the attraction of money, especially when it seems so scarce at the moment.
For many, this year has been a clusterfuck of issues that have raised all kinds of questions at the societal and personal levels. Relationships have been tested in the office and at home and a lot of the issues have stemmed around the uncertainty of employment, the potential to bring in income and the ability to cover the needs of daily life. For many, this has required a scaling back on some fronts and for others, it has meant putting the future on hold, very few are going to come out unscathed in some way and the long-term ramifications are going to reach far into the future.
There is little I can do about the state of the world, although there is plenty we could all do together. But at a very personal level, I do what I can, I work as I can, I improve where I can and keep on keeping on as best I can - sometimes that means putting how I feel aside, sometimes it requires making how I feel known to those who need to know how I feel.
The world we live in is complicated, doing one thing has unintended repercussions on our future options, staying in place, taking a promotion or where we spend that tiny pay rise will all have ramifications on what our future may hold. Just think what a tiny pay rise spent for a year on Bitcoin in 2010 might be valued at today? Is it still considered a tiny pay rise? Well, that would depend on whether it was held or sold at the next tiny rise in price. Just think about all the people who got a tiny pay rise that year and what they chose to do with their good work and good luck.
Everything has an opportunity cost - the good and the bad - the future ramifications of everything we do are an unknown, the unintended consequences always uncertain.
Taraz
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