We ALL Work for the Money. Period.
Why does no one want to admit that the only reason they work is so they can buy stuff? Even if you enjoy what you do for a living, you are doing it because you have to. Whether it's the roof over your head, the hot meal in your tummy, or health benefits for your family - we work because we have to- we need the money.
And your boss, you know, the one who lectures you on a regular basis and takes himself too seriously? He too, is only there for one reason - a paycheck.
But we all dance the dance, pretending that other factors are keeping us at work. We are living in a society that fools us into thinking we must "like" what we do or that it should "satisfy" us. Those are bonuses, not requirements. If you are lucky enough to touch them throughout your work travels, hold on for dear life. But the rest of us will continue to work as a means to an end.
Personally, I don't think being honest about your work motives should cast you in a negative light. In fact, I would appreciate the honesty. After all, employer/employee loyalty is all but dead. In a world where the best chance to get a pay raise is by hopping to another job, how could you expect the system to operate any differently?
If you are think about how to make more money, besides asking for a raise, sometimes it might be better to look for another job. So admit it - people work for the money. Case closed. Come clean in the comments section below.
Job Vent
Reader Comments (5)
Again, I apologize for the blog link in a comment bc I typically despise that practice, but it is relevant!
I hear you on outing the hypocrisy that pervades much of the old standard career advice canon. But paradoxical and uptight as the following may sound, there's even a trick to being upfront. Choose the wrong targets, or too-easy ones, or give TMI, and you'll come off not like Harry Markopoulos or Jeffrey Wigand, but like Holden Caulfield.
It's certainly true that most people don't have the option to stop working. And mainstream news outlets too often ignore that fact in their choice of slice-of-life portraits of recession victims. News feature profile subjects who were ejected from good careers (via layoff) and unable to resume them, so often seem to be people who have the luxury of sitting back and pondering what will be most "fulfilling" to do for their next gig - rather than real people who simply must get back to work as soon as they can because they need the money.
Yet it's also true that there are many people out there who don't need the money. They've either earned enough already to support themselves for a year or longer without work, or have a working (and decent-earning) spouse, or inherited wealth, or are just so fixated on their own emotional needs that they're willing to work for minimal pay in order to do something they enjoy.
Bottom line: Your blanket statement oversimplifies reality, invalidates the experience and personal values of hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of people, and comes off as rather naive.
Here are three other tractates from the Career Experts' Canon of Hidebound "Truths" that everyone knows are bogus but few in the career business dare to publicly question, let alone contradict. The next time you feel like exposing hypocrisy in the job-search business, how about taking a whack at one of these?
- That more than 0.5% of employers expect anyone (other than perhaps the EEOC, if it still exists) to take seriously those HR-platitudes about having (or wanting) a "diverse" work force.
- That the coming Baby Boomer retirements will make employers any less prone to rule out job candidates on the basis of having too much experience, being overqualified, or being over 50, over 40, or even over 35 in some industries.
- That every layoff was a "blessing in disguise" for the victim, who thereby learned a "valuable career lesson," or was handed "an opportunity to start fresh and build my own business," or ... (Well, name whatever excuse you've been using in YOUR job interviews because coaches and headhunters urge you to lie in order to come off as the sort of "positive, upbeat" personality that's a core requirement for advancing to the next stage of any employer's interview process in any industry.)