Bad for Good
Jun. 4th, 2006 02:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
peterbirks"Work hard at your job and your boss will appreciate you" is one of those well-worn conventional wisdoms that probably springs from the naive belief that life is fair. Do good and good will be done to you. What goes around, comes around.
But, is any of it true? Perhaps in the days of small companies and situations where you had a personal, non-economic, relationship with your boss, as well as a strictly economic one, it might have been. These days, I think that things are different.
My bosses are uncomfortable with me being good at my job. More specifically, they are very uncomfortable with the thought that I might be irreplaceable in my job. Now, as we know, the cemeteries are full of people who thought that they were irreplaceable. But with two senior people leaving from Insurance Day, both of them very knowledgeable about insurance and both of them good journalists, it has come home to roost that, as a breed, we are not that common. In times of full employment, we are no less common and are even harder to find in an "available" state.
Economically, if you could make the same profit on a product that was less good because it employed less competent people, that would be the sensible way to go.
In times of full employment, being unusually good at your job can be a bad idea on at least two fronts (from the point of view of your employer). In the immediate sense, it might make your boss feel bad about the fact that he or she isn't working as hard as you are (a point I wish I hasten to add doesn't apply to my case personally) and in the more general economic sense, you are creating a monopsonistic situation which no sensible company wants to find itself in. Just ask all the farmers who supply Tesco, and no-one else, what happens when you have only one buyer.
So, kids, the next time someone (such as a teacher) tells you to work as hard as you can at your job because then your boss will appreciate it, point out the economic flaw in their argument. Far better to be just a little bit better than everyone else. But don't, whatever you do, make yourself irreplaceable. Because, if you do, there's a good chance that a sensible employer will simply change his business structure so that your "irreplaceable" job doesn't exist.
But, is any of it true? Perhaps in the days of small companies and situations where you had a personal, non-economic, relationship with your boss, as well as a strictly economic one, it might have been. These days, I think that things are different.
My bosses are uncomfortable with me being good at my job. More specifically, they are very uncomfortable with the thought that I might be irreplaceable in my job. Now, as we know, the cemeteries are full of people who thought that they were irreplaceable. But with two senior people leaving from Insurance Day, both of them very knowledgeable about insurance and both of them good journalists, it has come home to roost that, as a breed, we are not that common. In times of full employment, we are no less common and are even harder to find in an "available" state.
Economically, if you could make the same profit on a product that was less good because it employed less competent people, that would be the sensible way to go.
In times of full employment, being unusually good at your job can be a bad idea on at least two fronts (from the point of view of your employer). In the immediate sense, it might make your boss feel bad about the fact that he or she isn't working as hard as you are (a point I wish I hasten to add doesn't apply to my case personally) and in the more general economic sense, you are creating a monopsonistic situation which no sensible company wants to find itself in. Just ask all the farmers who supply Tesco, and no-one else, what happens when you have only one buyer.
So, kids, the next time someone (such as a teacher) tells you to work as hard as you can at your job because then your boss will appreciate it, point out the economic flaw in their argument. Far better to be just a little bit better than everyone else. But don't, whatever you do, make yourself irreplaceable. Because, if you do, there's a good chance that a sensible employer will simply change his business structure so that your "irreplaceable" job doesn't exist.
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Work Smarter
Date: 2006-06-04 04:08 pm (UTC)The Poker Prof told me that instead of working harder, I needed to "work smarter." It was something that one of his former Law School professors told him once.
The first rule
Date: 2006-06-04 04:59 pm (UTC)I think the key point is to be not too good at exactly one thing. I've always tried to make myself valuable for what I can do tomorrow, not what I did yesterday.
OTOH it a takes a much more enlightened and perceptive than the average employer to understand all this. let alone act upon it.
'The best is the enemy of the good.' Discuss.
Re: Work Smarter
Date: 2006-06-04 05:14 pm (UTC)A significant number of people in the office building seem to work their arses off, go home knackered, and feel that they have had a productive day because they are tired. Only when you get down to the nitty-gritty do you realize that they haven't actually added one iota of value to the company that day. Basically, it doesn't matter how knackered you are; what matters is the relevance of what you have achieved.
So, as Joseph said, don't bust a gut 18 hours a day. Get up in the morning, think about things. Decide what you are going to get done. Focus on that. Get it done, and give yourself the evening off.
I know that creative writing is a problem because you are never really "off-duty". But I think that it's necessary to try to "make" yourself off-duty, at least for a couple of hours a day. Put the notepad away and only bring it out if there is something that you absolutely have to write about because it is so-fucking-brilliant that you would never forgive yourself if you didn't. Elsewise, sometimes just have some fun. If something happens that you could write about, well, hell, something else that you can write about will happen tomorrow.
PJ
Re: The first rule
Date: 2006-06-04 05:20 pm (UTC)I'm afraid that "the best is the enemy of the good" sounds like a bit of management-speak that, when broken down to its component parts, doesn't actually mean anything.
Quite a few pithy phrases are like that. I mean, the person has something relevant (and often quite complicated) to say, but the pithy one-liner which they reduce it to fails to sum up the complexities of the idea that they are trying to express.
When I hear the phrase "project management" these days I fear that my mind immediately moves to property development. Sigh. Of course, it applies to many other things in the business world.
I guess it's nice to know that most employers are too stupid to realize that having someone who is vital to the company, no matter how good he or she is, is a bad idea. I guess that it's easiest to shove it to the back of one's mind and to worry about more immediate problems. Therefore the strategy of the "irreplaceable" employee should presumably be to make sure that your employer always has lots of immediate problems, so that he doesn't think about potential long-term ones.
From this we get employee rule number two:
"Create immediate problems in your workplace. This will safeguard your job".
I dunno; it all seems very different from the conventional wisdom.
PJ
Re: The first rule
Date: 2006-06-04 11:27 pm (UTC)I have only once been in the situation where my employer was desperate to ensure I was not going to leave them: they gave me a pay-rise, a guaranteed bonus and removed my immediate boss, with whom I was frustrated. Any one of the three would have done. Happy days.
Mike
Big Employers
Date: 2006-06-05 06:35 am (UTC)One of the true drawbacks of my firm is that the only truly indispensible person is me. The clients think this too and they think it's because I'm good at stuff (when I'm not). I know that it's because I provide the fairy dust of communication and empathy. Leaves me feeling overvalued for something concrete and makes me undervalue what I do deliver.