Loved yesterday’s Dilbert strip which gives some excellent career advice: If you want your company to value you, start by being valuable first.
I know way too many people who whine constantly about their jobs: The boss sucks, the pay sucks, the location sucks, they aren’t given enough responsibility, etc.
But the truth is, nobody owes you anything. You need to figure out how to grow your skills and be So Good They Can’t Ignore You before you start talking about benefits and raises.
What’s the one thing you could do today to improve your career capital?
Comic strip from dilbert.com
So naive
Millions of people are valuable yet get laid off to “cut costs” (meaning the people at the top didn’t get a big enough bonus)
True, capable people get laid off all the time. But imagine if you were really valuable and without you, your company wouldn’t be able to earn millions of dollars in revenue. Even if your boss was purely selfish, would he fire you? He’d NEED you to improve his fat bonus!
The point I was trying to make here is that people shouldn’t be complaining about things they can’t control. Instead, we should be focusing on things we can control, like our skills 🙂