Perks for Work

Work perks can turn us in to slaves if we are not careful.  An excellent article was shared with me by a good friend of mine from work.  The article at CNBC is entitled:

Don’t be fooled by these so-called work perks.
(click on the linked title to read it)

To entice us into a job position, employers are offering things like

• free dinners at your desk
• free yoga classes in the lunchroom
• free rides home for those staying past 8pm
• free nanny care
• unlimited vacation

These enticements are meant to ensnare us into thinking we work for such great companies.  Meanwhile the company asks more and more of us so that we feel obliged to work more.  We wind up spending less time with our friends or family.  Instead of managing the biz of you, we wind up dumping the majority of our primary resource, time, into the company with little or nothing to show for our expenditure.

Any business maximizes its bottom line.  One way to do this is to offer work perks.  This assumes individuals do not manage themselves like a business.  Companies can get away with this because we let them.  We let others manage our business instead of taking the responsibility and managing ourselves.  This is the dark side of not managing ourselves like a business.  Companies, organizations or any group of people for that matter take advantage of our resources to serve their own purposes no matter what that purpose is.

We can use these perks to our own benefit provided we manage ourselves like a business.  Knowing how much time and energy we can spend allows us to go home when we need to in support of our own business.  Certainly we may not get the awards for working long hours or the recognition for sacrificing so much, but we will be vindicated in our own minds knowing we are doing what’s right for our own lives.  If the companies we work for don’t accept this then they have a decision to make.  What’s important is to maintain our emotional center of gravity and not get caught up in our employer’s or peer’s approval of our commitment.  When we take any job whether that be day labor, McDonald’s or becoming a doctor, it is a two-way contract.   When we interview, we should be asking just as many questions of the company as they do us to decide if the company is a good fit for our business.  Do they make the biz of you more “profitable” in whatever way you may decide success is?  As you stay at a job, this question is something to consider on a regular basis.  If your company does not provide the means to create the life you envision then you have a decision to make.

Closing thought: Do you have a contract with yourself?