Secure Corporate Job and Your Success

Many people believe that they can become successful with a secure corporate job.

A "JOB" means that you work for someone else. You spend 40 or more hours a week at a task that will help someone else accomplish their goals.

Yes, it will be their goals and dreams that you will spend your time accomplishing.

But, you may want more for your children. You may want them to get a better education. A good education means a good job. Higher income. A better lifestyle.

Perhaps you've spent 4 years in college to become a computer analyst. You are a whiz at "C" programming, can tune a database in your sleep, and can review someone else's program and pick out the logic error in a minute.

Your goal is likely to create a killer resume and get hired by that big conglomerate downtown. You'll soon be sitting in a window seat able to look down on the big city.

You'll be earning a nice salary and can afford a nice home and a new car.

You get to trade your hours for dollars. Sometimes you'll have to work some nights and weekends to help implement a large system on a tight schedule. You'll probably carry a pager so you can be contacted any time, day or night, to help fix a problem.

You'll probably have quarterly goals that you must achieve. These goals are sub-goals that help the corporate leaders achieve their goals. You'll then be evaluated on your performance in achieving "your" goals.

And what do you get for it?

You get a cubical of your own. At first, you are several rows in from the windows. Over time as your group moves from one location to another you move closer to the windows. After a few years you actually get a window seat.

You get a merit raise at the end of the year. You may also get a bonus if corporate goals are achieved.

So, you can hope for a raise at the end of the year.

Good news! The average raise this year is 3.2%.

Unless you work for state governments or the airlines where you will be asked to take a pay cut.

You hope to at least keep ahead of inflation.

But, at least you've got a secure job. A lot of people have secure jobs.

They work for well established companies. Well known corporations that treat their employees well.

Unless you happened to have worked for Enron. Or were laied off by some other companies such as:

It is unfortunate, but too many people have learned that their job was helping achieve someone else's goals. When your job no longer is important to someone else's goals, your job will be eliminated.

You can bet that education is important.

Bill Gates attended college. But, as you probably know, he never finished college.

Bill's dad was a businessman. He instilled in Bill a desire to find a marketable idea and run with it. During his college years, Bill found that marketable idea and turned it into the Microsoft fortune.

A job is also important. It represents a place where you can earn an income while you search for a marketable idea.

Henry Ford worked as an engineer for the Edison Illuminating Company (now Detroit Edison). He read in World of Science magazine about an internal combustion engine developed by Nicholas Otto in Germany. Ford spent his spare time building a motor driven car. His first car was finished in 1896 in a brick shed in his garden. After struggles for financing and several failures the Ford Motor Company was born.

Education is intended to prepare you for a job. You are taught the skills needed to earn your place in the workforce. Neither education nor a job are intended to make you financially independent.

Sure, there are executives earning half a million dollars or more. But, they had to put in an extraordinary number of hours to move up to that position. They made the company as important to themselves as life itself. They got to get to work early, left late, and exhibited incredible energy while at work.

In the corporate world, to reach the top you have to sacrifice. And wait for those at the top to die, retire, or get fired. That's the major problem with corporate life.

But, education doesn't have to lead to a career of achieving the goals of others. Rather, you should think of education and a job as providing you some time for you to develop your own idea and become successful.

You need to decide if you are willing to work for someone else for the rest of your working life. Working for someone else gives you the potential of modest increases in your lifestyle. You'll work to achieve someone else's dream and vision. You may have the opportunity of seeking another job if your company faces hard times or restructures itself.

Or, while you have a job, you can spend your free time finding and developing a marketable idea. For 40 hours a week you will be earning a living. You can develop a lifestyle in the remaining hours.

You can establish a lifestyle that those who merely watch TV after work cannot enjoy.

While other people are watching TV or bowling, you can be delaying some gratification to build a future for yourself and your family.

When you do what others are not doing, you will soon be able to live like others can only imagine.