What Job?

by Winnie on Jan.24, 2010, under Favourites, Posts

Note: This was written for the Engineering Week edition of the nEUSpaper – the undergraduate Engineering newspaper at the University of British Columbia

Definition from Dictionary.com:

Job: 1.(noun) a piece of work, esp. a specific task done as part of the routine of one’s occupation or for an agreed price

2.(noun) anything a person is expected or obliged to do; duty; responsibility

My Definition:

Job: (noun) Just-Over-Broke

Yes, that is my definition of a job. A job to me means being just-over-broke. I sound negative, eh? Well, the other definitions aren’t that much better either. Is that how you want to live your life- being just over broke, being obliged to complete specific tasks at specific times for a specific price? Let’s face it, that is the reality. Employers never pay workers the full value that the employees deserve from what they bring to the company in comparison to the profit these companies make off of their hard work. They pay you just enough to keep you happy and enough to keep you alive.

Let’s walk through your life as a typical university student. After spending 5 years of your life at school partying…erm…i mean studying, you go out into the industry to find a job. You wake up early everyday to make it to work at 9:00am sharp – not at 9:01am, but at 9:00am. Then, you spend the next 8 hours sitting in front of the computer, quickly switching to the window with the Excel spreadsheet every time someone walks by, hiding what you were actually doing. Repeat this day…every day… for the rest of your life. Of course, there will be the day when you will have made enough money to take out a mortgage to buy a house, or the day when you will have saved enough money to go on a vacation. But even then, you will find yourself living in a constrained life.

So why do you want a Just-Over-Broke when you can be rich and leading a comfortable life? I am not saying the road of an entrepreneur is any easier. But one thing is for sure: you will never have to work in life nor show anyone your resume nor apply to jobs. You will never have to worry about getting fired for showing up a minute late for work or being called into your boss’s office for replying to a message on Facebook. You will only be doing what you enjoy and feel passionate about. I don’t know about you, do you enjoy working with everyone at your JOB? Isn’t there that one guy who you can’t stand because he is such as snob? As an entrepreneur, YOU form your own team, YOU can fire that snob and YOU can come into the office whenever you want.

Too good to be true? Well think again. Think Bill Gates (Microsoft), Mark Zukerberg (Facebook), Steve Jobs (Apple), Michael Dell (Dell)… and the list goes on and on. And on and on. In fact, there are so many successful student startups that you may have never heard of before, but have yet managed to all sell their ventures for several millions of dollars. As proven, student startups are much less likely to fail. So there is no better time to start than now.

Still uncertain? Consider again: freedom vs the alternative. Remember, you don’t have to be “Just-Over-Broke”.