Lifecycle of the (Sad) Regular Worker

Has it ever catch your mind that, why your col­leagues are able to work in this screw up com­pany for almost close to a decade?   Have you ever been pissed with a new col­league that has recently grad­u­ated from uni­ver­sity, which he barges into everyone’s zone with his high level of energy and “will­ing­ness” of indi­rectly cre­at­ing more tasks for you?  Have you ever been feel­ing down in office or expe­ri­enc­ing career dilemma?  Then when you look back, you thought, “Hey I was full of energy like Jack, man… what’s happening …”

It’s amaz­ing to expe­ri­ence dif­fer­ent ups and downs of life.  This is so for a nor­mal worker as well.  If you take some time to observe the whole orga­ni­za­tion (Sit­u­a­tion fac­tor), you find wis­dom in what we call it Worker Life­cy­cle.  The Worker Life­cy­cle is able to answer why some peo­ple man­aged to stay with the orga­ni­za­tion or why your new col­league is piss­ing you every now and then.

There are three main groups of work­ers in any orga­ni­za­tion, namely the rookie group, the senior worker group and the dinosaur group.  We will leave the man­age­ment group out for this time round and focus just on the work­ers.  Know­ing the groups of the Worker Life­cy­cle will give you a clue on how you can bet­ter path your career direction.

The 1^st group is the rookie group.  It con­sists of the new employ­ees join­ing the orga­ni­za­tion.  They are aspired to learn, to climb the cor­po­rate lad­der, to a make a name for them­selves.  The entire, if not all, most of the orga­ni­za­tion energy comes from this group.  They are pas­sion­ate to work.  They do not mind over­time.  They do not have fam­ily com­mit­ment.  No strings attached… They have noth­ing to loose.  They are eas­ily influ­enced (manip­u­lated) to get things done.  They do not know the lim­its.  How­ever, how long will this energy level stay?  How long will they be hit by real­ity that pro­gres­sion is not that easy as 1–2-3?  How long will they be bonded by com­mit­ment?  Our expe­ri­ence so far tells us that it takes 1 to 2 years for them to accept real­ity.  Main bulk of the rook­ies will have died down on their energy level and tran­sited them­selves into 2^nd group of work­ers.  Those that are able to per­se­vere, main­tain energy level and pas­sion usu­ally break the lim­its into another field of opportunity.

We will be skip­ping the 2^nd group for the time being and talk about the 3^rd group.  You will under­stand clearer the 2^nd group with the 3^rd group being dis­cussed first.  The 3^rd group of the orga­ni­za­tion con­sists of the dinosaurs.   Who are the dinosaurs?  They are those that remained in the orga­ni­za­tion for sev­eral years and have no inten­tion to quit.  They man­aged to sur­vive all the ups and downs in an orga­ni­za­tion yet have no inten­tion to progress into man­age­ment.  There are those that are truly pas­sion­ate and there are those that are just wait­ing for the day to end.  They can be regarded as “loyal” to the orga­ni­za­tion but not all truly loyal.  By being “loyal”, they have ben­e­fited from the orga­ni­za­tion in terms of pro­gres­sive pay, addi­tional employee ben­e­fits or even pen­sion schemes.   They can del­e­gate.  They can choose their assign­ments and pass the non-strategic ones to his junior co-workers.  The orga­ni­za­tion is unable to remove them even as they are draw­ing a high monthly salary.  Much of it to say, they are pretty com­fort­able at where they are.

Now, in between the 1^st and 3^rd group of the orga­ni­za­tion, is the 2^nd group of work­ers.  The 2^nd group con­sists of the senior work­ers that have tran­sit from the 1^st group but yet unable to achieve the same type of wel­fare like the 3^rd group.  They are nei­ther here nor there.  Unlike the rook­ies, the 2^nd group work­ers do not have the pas­sion and energy.  They have seen the “real world” and they know the lim­its.  They know climb­ing the cor­po­rate lad­der is not as easy as 1–2-3.  They limit their abil­i­ties to excel.  They have com­mit­ments and strings attached every­where.  They have risks.  They are being com­pared with the rook­ies on work per­for­mance which they lose out on pas­sion and moti­va­tion.  At some point of time, the senior worker will won­der by him­self if the job really suits him… And unlike the 3^rd group of dinosaurs, they are not in a com­fort­able posi­tion.  They do not have fat pay checks like them.  They are being del­e­gated and needed to prove them­selves in order to be tran­sited into the 3^rd group.  In sum­mary, their choices are lim­ited in terms of pro­gres­sion and they have to live with reality.

Of course, not all orga­ni­za­tions are like this.  But this is com­mon among big orga­ni­za­tions.  This may devi­ate from sales-driven orga­ni­za­tion as mak­ing money is fair among dif­fer­ent groups of peo­ple.  All you need is the abil­ity to make money.  We hope we have answered why you are hav­ing career dilemma some way or another through iden­ti­fy­ing the dif­fer­ent groups in an orga­ni­za­tion.  Which group do you think you belong too?

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