C&R: Freedom to Move On

Good Charlotte Guy sent this again.. Hmm… Something fishy's goin to happen…

"For long decades, we were shackled by a system under which no worker could quit work of his own accord… it was an insane piece of daring to protest in the place where you lived or worked."

- Alexander Solzhenistyn, The Gulag Archipelago

There is nothing to feat but fear itself

"But I can't leave this job" you say! Perhaps this job is not as bad as your last and you're afraid that your next move could end up taking you backwards? Or perhaps you fear that your next step will be onto a career escalator that will whish you upwards faster than you can cope?

"Free mean are the oppresed who go on trying."  This observation has been already codified in the United Nations Declarations of Human Rights.  It states that "every individual and organ of society" should strive to promote the basic rights and freedoms to which all human beings are entitiled, regardless of who they are of where they found themselves.

By exercising your right to quit your jjob and biting the hand that holds your lead, you will leave behind whatever holds you back and crushes your spirit, action that will make the world a better, more liberated place. In stark contrast, deciding to do nothing, to stay put or give in your anxiety about moving on an dyou become just another means for despair and stagnation to gain a firmer foothold on society and the world at large.

Quitting your job is an exercise in freedom

Quitting is the purest expression of personal freedom at work and one of the few means of protesting against poor conditions or stupid management.  Big business has longs for flexible employment markets that are compatible with the economic liberalization and frictionless flow of capital that exists between companies and nations.  Organizations that are free to hire and fire employees at will have an advantage over their more cautious competitors: they can shed personnel to boost profits in hard times and limit the cost and rights of employees when the order book is full once more.  This dual strategy of fragmenting, disarming and then shrinking the workforce at wil;l have flourished wherever workers have become disunitied and unable to organize themselves effectively.

Of course, it was never meant to turn out like this.  One conception of the flexible workforce relied on well-trained employees who were able to adapt to changing commercial conditions and technology throughout their working lives.  In fact, this may be the case for portfolio people with qualifications and connection who are able to spread themselves thinly across a number of projects.  Unfortunately, for the rest of us, flexibility means that employers prefer to dip into the labor pool when they know workers can be laid off or given unfavorable terms and longer hours.  The training that any meaningful career relies upon is dispensed with as un unprofitable luxury - several studies have argued that a "flexible labor market" and the "learning society" our politicians insist is the way forward are mutually exclusive.

Employees need to think about adopting a similarly ruthless approach when dealing with their employers.  Corporations currently benefit from many of the legal rights that people enjoy, but as an individual, YOU are what matters in the sort of society most people would prefer to live and work in.  If you think you are a valuable employee but are being treated on a par with stationary or office furniture, it's time to go somewhere better. Your present employer will surely reap what they sow eventually, why stick around?

Winners Quit

You certainly would not be reading this article if you were entirely happy with your present circumstances.  No, you'd probably rather be somewhere else right now, doing something more interesting, surrounded by people you like and respect.  Well, what are you waiting for? Are you pushing that pen or is it pulling you into the grave? After all, winners do quit.  Succesful, contented people do not waste their time doing things they don't like or leave them hopeless.  Continued exposure to a bad job and nasty boss can ravage the mind and body with stress related ailments and so it's absolutely imperative that you get out under your own power before you die with your tie on.

A human being at rest generates a kilowatt of heat.  There is no internationally recognized unit of human potential, talent, or imagination, but the chances are that your employer is not paying what they owe you.  Convince yourself of your worth and charge accordingly.  Even if you have a rotten personality and looks that would cheer two tied sacks of shit, for the sake of millions of years of painstaking evolution, make the best of yourself.  Is your current job setting you up for a bright future in fertile, sunlit uplands or is it a rocky slope down to the shadowy gully of career extinction?