What would you do if one day you found yourself in the same position you started out from 10 years ago? Would you go screaming mad and start to pull all your hair out? Would your bang your head on the wall and cuss at yourself for not putting in the extra effort to make bring yourself a little closer to your goals and dreams.
I have a friend in the exact same position. In his late thirties where most people would have already achieved a certain level of success in their career or business, he still find himself in the exact same position he started out 15 years ago doing the exact same job while seeing those who started off the same time as him or later than him climb up above him and eventually becoming his boss or leaving the company for jobs which pays 10-15x more.
Well I know that many would say that thats the reality of life when you work with people, but the worst reality is, actually being in that situation and not being able to do anything about it. Talk about being helpless. It's like someone holding a knife to you and whatever is happening to you is way beyond your control.
I work in an office as well, and my situation is no better than the gardener with the lowest salary in my company or the CEO with the highest salary in the company, you know why? Because the 3 of us have to put in the exact same 8 hours a day or 44 hours a week into the job to be entitled to the paycheck at the end of the day be it the gardener, the CEO or me.
If I was the owner of a smart private institution of higher learning, I would come up with a program called "Professional Office Worker" or the likes of it. Or if the person was working with the telephone on the front line, we would call it "Professional Call Advisor" or some nonsense. My best bet is, with excellent PR and an even better marketing plan, we would be selling these programs like hot cakes as the tag line is 'continuous improvement to your work life' and somewhere in between the lines, we would sell the hope of jumping to a better job with a bigger paycheck just cos of the the cert has the word Professional or Certified in it. Wouldn't that be lucrative?
It may sound silly but I actually fell for one of those nonsense many years back when I was a call centre operator.. I mean, Customer Service Officer in Singapore. The company introduced a program called a "Certified Customer Service Professional" offered under the then National Skills Recognition System which was ran by the Workers Development Authority (WDA) of Singapore. The aim of the program we took was to train front line customer service agents to provide consistent service across the board (which we were already doing thanks to our stringent operating standards) and to give recognition and glamour to so called unglamourous and mundane/boring/routine jobs. Those who passed were given a recognition certificate in the presence of everyone in the department and a small little blue tie pin which immediately recognises you as one who have taken the test and had passed with flying colors.
But what got our tails wagging excitedly back then was the fact that, if we decide to change jobs within the industry later on, we would get a better advantage over others. Sadly, today, few years on I'd come to realise that all that was is just alot of hype and a browning toilet paper. I might even like to conclude that we had been taken for a hot air balloon ride back then. But I reckon looking back today, I'd say that it's all in the spirit of competitiveness eh.
Well between someone who will retire a clerk just as he was a clerk for the past 50 years or a clerk retiring as the president of the company, I reckon that there are goals and dreams far bigger than the ones we strive to achieve in the span of our careers. However big they may be, to me, being still young and brash and I may say a little naive, I fail to see whats more important than to make tons of money and look + feel rich. Maybe its bcos of the insecurity of not having enough growing up, or the insecurities I feel now still not having enough after so many year I have put in to my career.
At this juncture of my life, I don't respect mediocracy. I don't respect people who choose to be mediocre or normal. If I myself were to one day choose to be mediocre or normal, I would not respect myself either. Dreams are to be dreamt big, or else, why bother to even dream in the first place, we're just taking up precious time and may in a way obstruct others who may want to dream big ridiculous dreams. But who are we to say people's dreams are big and ridiculous? The airplane and telephone was once big ridiculous dreams... look who's laughing now? Only the ones heading to the bank with sacks of money with dollar signs printed on the sack.
I was once told, if your dreams doesn't scare you, it's not big enough. So why don't we want to dream big? It's free isn't it? We'd stand in line for hours just for free pens or meal vouchers... why not stand in line and start dreaming big? I want to make it a point to dream BIG HAIRY OBNOXIOUS RIDICULOUS OUTRIGHT IMPOSSIBLE DREAMS and i want to do it today without any delay. If Tony Robbins can become a rich dude with a castle at 21, I believe so can I. If Donald Trump can be so rich he travels around in his own personal plane, I believe so can I.
I have a friend in the exact same position. In his late thirties where most people would have already achieved a certain level of success in their career or business, he still find himself in the exact same position he started out 15 years ago doing the exact same job while seeing those who started off the same time as him or later than him climb up above him and eventually becoming his boss or leaving the company for jobs which pays 10-15x more.
Well I know that many would say that thats the reality of life when you work with people, but the worst reality is, actually being in that situation and not being able to do anything about it. Talk about being helpless. It's like someone holding a knife to you and whatever is happening to you is way beyond your control.
I work in an office as well, and my situation is no better than the gardener with the lowest salary in my company or the CEO with the highest salary in the company, you know why? Because the 3 of us have to put in the exact same 8 hours a day or 44 hours a week into the job to be entitled to the paycheck at the end of the day be it the gardener, the CEO or me.
If I was the owner of a smart private institution of higher learning, I would come up with a program called "Professional Office Worker" or the likes of it. Or if the person was working with the telephone on the front line, we would call it "Professional Call Advisor" or some nonsense. My best bet is, with excellent PR and an even better marketing plan, we would be selling these programs like hot cakes as the tag line is 'continuous improvement to your work life' and somewhere in between the lines, we would sell the hope of jumping to a better job with a bigger paycheck just cos of the the cert has the word Professional or Certified in it. Wouldn't that be lucrative?
It may sound silly but I actually fell for one of those nonsense many years back when I was a call centre operator.. I mean, Customer Service Officer in Singapore. The company introduced a program called a "Certified Customer Service Professional" offered under the then National Skills Recognition System which was ran by the Workers Development Authority (WDA) of Singapore. The aim of the program we took was to train front line customer service agents to provide consistent service across the board (which we were already doing thanks to our stringent operating standards) and to give recognition and glamour to so called unglamourous and mundane/boring/routine jobs. Those who passed were given a recognition certificate in the presence of everyone in the department and a small little blue tie pin which immediately recognises you as one who have taken the test and had passed with flying colors.
But what got our tails wagging excitedly back then was the fact that, if we decide to change jobs within the industry later on, we would get a better advantage over others. Sadly, today, few years on I'd come to realise that all that was is just alot of hype and a browning toilet paper. I might even like to conclude that we had been taken for a hot air balloon ride back then. But I reckon looking back today, I'd say that it's all in the spirit of competitiveness eh.
Well between someone who will retire a clerk just as he was a clerk for the past 50 years or a clerk retiring as the president of the company, I reckon that there are goals and dreams far bigger than the ones we strive to achieve in the span of our careers. However big they may be, to me, being still young and brash and I may say a little naive, I fail to see whats more important than to make tons of money and look + feel rich. Maybe its bcos of the insecurity of not having enough growing up, or the insecurities I feel now still not having enough after so many year I have put in to my career.
At this juncture of my life, I don't respect mediocracy. I don't respect people who choose to be mediocre or normal. If I myself were to one day choose to be mediocre or normal, I would not respect myself either. Dreams are to be dreamt big, or else, why bother to even dream in the first place, we're just taking up precious time and may in a way obstruct others who may want to dream big ridiculous dreams. But who are we to say people's dreams are big and ridiculous? The airplane and telephone was once big ridiculous dreams... look who's laughing now? Only the ones heading to the bank with sacks of money with dollar signs printed on the sack.
I was once told, if your dreams doesn't scare you, it's not big enough. So why don't we want to dream big? It's free isn't it? We'd stand in line for hours just for free pens or meal vouchers... why not stand in line and start dreaming big? I want to make it a point to dream BIG HAIRY OBNOXIOUS RIDICULOUS OUTRIGHT IMPOSSIBLE DREAMS and i want to do it today without any delay. If Tony Robbins can become a rich dude with a castle at 21, I believe so can I. If Donald Trump can be so rich he travels around in his own personal plane, I believe so can I.
