Bamboo You

What is Job Security?

In 1995, I was teaching job search skills to laid-off workers in the Allentown/Bethlehem area of Pennsylvania. At that time, we were seeing a ton of former Bethlehem Steel workers who had made a phenomenal living doing relatively unskilled labor. We were also working with the last of the sewing machine operators from the garment industry.

Both the (largely) men from "the Steel" and the (largely) women from the sewing plants had been living the American Dream for many years. While by no means wealthy, they had been able to send children to college, have a decent home and a second house at the shore and generally live a solid middle-class life with little more than a 6th grade education, nimble fingers (or a strong back) and a willingness to put up with a LOT of crap from supervisors. In return, they had expected basically one thing (besides the wages, of course)--job security.

During my classes, we spent a lot of time talking about the death of job security and the fact that the only security they could have for the future was skills security. They got this, although they weren't happy about the fact that the skills they were in a position to develop were only going to get them jobs that paid at best half of what they'd made in their heydays at 'the Steel" or "the factory."

I think that in the past 11 years, though, we've seen an even bigger shift, one that I'm not sure we've fully absorbed as workers. Yes, most of us get that the road to job security is having the skills that are in demand in the workplace. But what we DON'T seem to get is that using those skills at just one company may be just as suicidal as not having them at all.

Dan Pink has been talking for several years  about living in Free Agent Nation and Tom Peters has been preaching the realities of working for "You Inc." since 1997. I've been a fan of their thinking for a while now and many of their ideas have guided my own career path. But  Cathy Seip's discussion (via the Dynamist) about "job security"  got me thinking about this whole issue again.

Cathy says:

"But I've always felt more job security as a freelance writer than I did as a newspaper staffer. And even [Barbara] Ehrenreich admitted at the PBS press conference that as a freelance writer, she's probably better off now than most of the traditional media types in the audience.

I know how she felt. If I were to lose one of my regular gigs, for instance, I'd be unhappy; but unlike the laid-off staffer, my income wouldn't suddenly plummet to zero. In a world of constant corporate downsizing, anyone who doesn't realize this is sadly out of date.

Several years ago, as it happens, a veteran editor doing some consulting work at a local mid-sized newspaper offered me a staff job. Knowing the paper's legendary cheapness, I explained that I doubted they'd be able to come up with as much money I made freelancing - and it would have to be a LOT more for me to even bother thinking about it.

"Why would it have to be MORE," he asked, sounding genuinely shocked. "What about the SECURITY?"

Now I was shocked. This guy had been in the business half-a-century, witnessing God knows how many tanking media enterprises and in-with-the-new, out-with-the-old staff reorganizations, and he still could use the words "security" and "newspapers" in the same sentence without laughing?

I guess so. But as I explained, he'd have to count me out of that particular deadpan club."

I've been on both sides of the fence and I get where Cathy's coming from.

About a year and a half ago, I went to work for a former client of mine after spending several years as a freelancer. With a daughter going to college and my mid-40's with no savings staring me in the face, I thought that it made sense to get some "stability" in my life. What I had forgotten about, though, was the fact that when you work for someone else, you are at the mercy of their business decisions. Rather than learning from the experiences of most of my friends who had been laid off not once, not twice, but several times within a 10-year span, I thought to myself that being an employee brings greater security, so I went for it.

But the reality is, as Cathy points out, when you rely on your employer to be your brand, then you're limiting your options in ways that may ultimately be career killers. Freelancing is scary, sure. No health insurance (fortunately I'm on my husband's), you can't count on regular paychecks, and the job of getting clients falls squarely on your shoulders. But if you've done the work of diversifying your client base, then when work slows or disappears with one customer, you don't end up in the unemployment line.

Somehow I recognized this (without the thought being as cogent or conscious as Cathy's perceptions) and a few months ago I re-joined the freelancer ranks. I continue to do work for my former employer, but I'm now able to pursue other clients as well. And even better than that, I'm able to use a larger set of my skills because instead of doing the work that my employer wants me to do, I'm able to look at myself and say "This is what I have to offer--how and where do I want to use it?" It's a very freeing realization and one that I think will, in the end, bring me far greater security than I ever had as an employee.

What I wish, though, is that more people realized the realities of this new world. There is still a somewhat mistaken belief that working for a company will be more secure than working for yourself. For a large segment of jobs, this is simply not the case. And more than that, it ends up being the company that benefits from the value you bring, rather than you reaping the total benefit of the skills you have to offer.

In the end, I think it's time that we re-evaluated the meaning of "job security" and looked at what that really means in the new economy. As part of figuring out what to do with our careers I think we need to get a better handle on the environment in which we're conducting them.

In the Long Run . . .

For about 10 years after my younger daughter was born, I worked out religiously. Every day (even Christmas!) I would get up at 6 a.m. and either ride my stationary bike or walk for 30 minutes. It wasn't anything major, just enough to get me moving. But it kept me in reasonable shape and combined with my vegetarianism, also kept me slim.

Almost 3 years ago, as my ex-husband and I were divorcing, this routine that had lasted for so long, that had made me healthier and saved me from middle-aged spread,fell by the wayside as I went through so many other changes in my life. There was really no reason for this, as my apartment complex has a decent workout room and a great pool. I work from home most of the time, so my schedule is fairly flexible. I was already in the groove of working out, and it definitely made me feel better. So I'm not sure why it stopped except that I was going through so many changes, NOT working out somehow got added to the list.

I thought of that this morning as I read Jim's post over at Human Being Curious. I've been waking up each morning with a stiff, aching back and my body is no longer the svelte thing it was a few years ago, so working out has been on my mind. But what really struck me was what Jim said about committment:

"The thing you have to remember is that by choosing not to live up to a commitment you’ve made, whether it’s riding a bike everyday, or something else, is that you’re choosing short-term relief over long-term results. You’re choosing the short-term relief of not having to endure the mild pain of the bike ride over the long-term results of getting leaner and in better shape. That’s it. Choosing results over relief is always the more difficult path, and it’s always the most rewarding as well."

"Choosing results over relief is always the most difficult path."  I ask myself, how often am I choosing  short-term relief over long-term result?  It's not just in physical fitness, either. I keep doing work that doesn't make me passionate, nor does it capitalize on my strongest assets but it does pay the bills and help me avoid conflict with some of my clients. I don't do as much to build my business in the longer-term because it's easier to focus on the work that's coming in now. I will often keep quiet about things, avoiding conflict, only to find later that I've made the situation worse by not speaking up sooner. Short-term relief over long-term results. The problem, of course, being that you don't build a very strong future. If I'm always choosing the short term, I don't build a strong long-term for myself. It's a matter of looking at those choices I make and seeing where I should be sacrificing my short-term relief for longer-term gain. Something for me to think about . . .

Where do you need to think longer-term?

When Choice Paralyzes

    My 14-year old daughter can be a study in indecision. Ever since she was old enough to make choices, she has agonized over them. Worse, she has never been able to identify the choices that really matter, putting the same energy into what she should wear to school as she does into how to handle the situation when two of her friends are locked in the mortal combat known only to teenage girls. It's painful to watch her struggle with herself as she seeks to find the "best choice," and her father and I have long wondered what to do to help her through the maze of "important" decisions she makes for herself.I'm beginning to understand her better though, now that I'm reading  The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less by Barry Schwartz.

Here's the problem. We're faced with a million choices every day, and as Schwartz indicates in his book, for a variety of reasons these choices make us LESS willing to choose. There's too much information, too many things to consider, we worry that we'll make the wrong choice or that we won't be able to change our choice, causing us irreparable harm. Many of us end up shutting down completely, refusing to choose. In some cases, no damage is done. If I walk into Old Navy and I'm overwhelmed by my jean options, so I walk out 10 minutes later, so what? But in other cases, refusing to choose can have some major consequences.  It is particularly bad for the people Schwartz calls "maximizers"--those for whom every decision is a search for the perfect solution. For these people, there's always something else to consider, some other piece of information they should look at. As a result, they are usually overwhelmed by their choices and paralyzed with indecision.

In the past 10 years, I've done a ton of work with people who have been laid off. When you talk to many of them, you find out that they saw their lay-offs coming from a mile away. Unfortunately, like a deer in the headlights, they were unable to choose to do something about that before a choice was made for them. I think that part of the reason for that is simple fear and our infinite capacity for denial and self-delusion. But I also wonder if it's not because they are so overwhelmed by other choices on a daily basis that they find themselves unable to identify and focus on the major ones. I wonder if buying a pair of jeans at Old Navy doesn't become equivalent to deciding what to do about the fact that I could lose my job in six months.

Schwartz argues that one of the ways we can become better decision-makers in a world with overwhelming options is by becoming a Chooser:

"Choosers are people who are able to reflect on what makes a decision important, on whether, perhaps, none of the options should be chosen, on whether a new option should be created, and on what a particular choice says about the chooser as an individual. It is choosers who create new opportunities for themselves and everyone else. But when faced with overwhelming choice, we are forced to become "pickers," which is to say relatively passive selectors from what is available. Being a chooser is better, but to have the time to choose more and pick less, we must be willing to rely on habits, customs, norms and rules to make some decisions automatic."

So when we are able to operate in "chooser" mode, we are able to make better quality decisions for ourselves. Since "choosing" requires more time, however, we would presumable reserve the "choice" mode for our more important decisions, relying on other methods (habits, rules, etc.) to make choices for us in areas that are less important.

It's been my experience, though that many people have not figured this out. I have seen people put more thought into their wardrobe or into selecting a wine to go with dinner than into selecting a career. Ironically, I find that people will use habits, rules and customs to make their career choices, while using the chooser mode to decide where they'll eat tonight. But when people operate as "Pickers" of careers, they are generally unhappy with the choices they've made. They falsely limit their options, using outdated customs like "women dont' work in construction." Or they use rules like "I'm too old to change careers." Rather than becoming choosers, who actively create options for themselves and who put the right kind of energy into a decision that has the power to impact so many other facets of their lives, they become pickers, selecting the "lesser of two evils." And for many people, this means that they are faced with the same career decisions again and again because they pick something that doesn't work for them, rather than choosing something that does.

This is heartbreaking to watch and I spend much of my time trying to teach people how to make informed choices and to break the bad habits of "picking" a career. I keep thinking that if I educate them about how to make good career decisions, maybe they will be able to do that. But now I'm beginning to wonder if I don't have to take a step back and get them to see that this is the kind of decision that requires more energy, get them to see this as a "chooser" opportunity, rather than as a place to pick. 

The trick, of course, is to help them create the space in their psyche for choice. Which means getting them to pick in other areas. But how do I get people to pick a restaurant and choose a career?

(Painting by Beverly Kaye)