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04-10-2010, 09:36 AM
Musicwhiz Wrote:The amount of politics in organizations can be mind-boggling and even if one works hard and smart, he may get "killed" off by the politics. Hence, I guess one has to learn how to be street smart, in addition to being good with his work. To be honest, I've seen many not-so-competent people rise up to high ranks in an organization due to either favouritism, or else they are scholars (and hence naturally assumed to be "gifted"). Oh well.
Politics is a fact of life. It exists in all organisations, whether large or small. In a large organisation (government or MNC) you need it to climb the hierarchy. You see it even in social organisations like country clubs.
If you don't want politics but want to work in a big organisation, choose a job that has clear performance metrics e.g. sales. That way nobody can deny you your due - salespeople can often outearn their bosses. Whether scholar or farmer, if you're in sales, all that counts is the bottomline. That's why so many self-made men who didn't have a good education became salesmen (of cars, insurance etc) to get their millions.
A small company also has politics, but instead of people vs people it's everyone trying to be on good terms with the boss. It may be easier if you have a good rapport with the boss, but then you have to deal with colleagues' jealousy. If you don't have a good rapport with the boss, you should leave quickly!
If you work for yourself you can avoid these issues, but that involves a different set of tradeoffs. You'll give up the psychological crutch of a regular income, in exchange for (probably) higher income overall since you don't have to support a hierarchy above you. Cash flow management takes on added importance because it's easy to overspend in good times and then starve in bad times. Likewise time management - you don't have to work on any particular day, but if you don't put in the work, nobody will do it for you and you will starve.
Musicwhiz Wrote:I guess I should add another point in here too - which is avoiding scams! This is one of the key reasons why people seem to lose tons of money, greed and being afraid to lose out to their neighbours and relatives.
Yes, a healthy skepticism (cynicism?) would be good. The usual adage that "if it's too good to be true it probably is" applies. People continue to lose money to fraudsters because they want to believe that they too can get the secret sauce that made person X rich. It adds some spice to their lives.
It's so boring to admit that person X probably got rich the old-fashioned way - by working hard, saving hard, and investing conservatively. Much more exciting to believe that there's a secret, and for only $XXX they too can have it. So they pay for options trading seminars, magic stones, guaranteed returns on exotic investments, plots of land on the moon, and so on.