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2. Get in to an Ivy League or at minimum a top tier school, going to anything less is at best, simply fulfilling some entry level throw away jobs min requirements, and at worst, a complete and total waste of money.
if that fails
3. Do your damndest to meet as many high level people you can and leverage them to no end. If you dont have your ticket punched by being rich or having an Ivy League degree, the only way you can get it punched is find the guy who punches them and be his buddy.
If that fails
4. Kiss as much ass as you possibly can, and get real good at office politics. If you cant get your ticket punched at all, you have to learn how to win at the tangled game of throwing other people under the bus, playing every side of the fence no matter how many knives you stick in peoples backs, and finding any person of influence and be their "yes man". If you can do this successfully, your quality of work will no longer matter, as you can push it off on others, and nor will your accountability, since you can throw them under the bus if its low quality. Remember, managers and their lackees never pay for mistakes, its always the guy on the bottom with no connections that gets tossed to the wolves.
If that fails
5. Just give up, because you are going to end up the first one laid off, the last one hired, and the last one to get promotions or raises even when you are working. You will become a workhorse, and will burn out no higher than middle management, if you can survive getting axed long enough to see that. The only way to deal with being here is to simply adjust your expectations on everything way down, and pray for the day something fundamentally changes in the good ol' USA.
1) Priority #1 is to get out of debt AND build up a sizable amount of savings (enough to pay your expenses for 2 years living a minimal lifestyle.. about $30-40K should do here in California.) So when you have little or no debt (less than $5000 or what you typically pay off every month) AND have $30K+ sitting in a bank or brokerage account, you've completed step 1. You WILL need this money to say "NO" if you're unlucky enough to have an exploitative/abusive/or any sort of nasty employer. This money is your "safety net". Live below your means at least until you have your safety net.
2) Concurrent to #1, get your career in shape. Prioritize learning the transferable skills over the non-transferable skills!!
3) If you have the "safety net" in #1, then start setting boundaries at work. You still do your job as you're expected to and learn new skills. But if your employer is being unreasonable, you have the power to say "NO" (i.e. being asked to stay late even when there's no work to be done, being asked to do unpaid overtime regularly, especially on weekends, being asked to do something illegal, etc.) And if you find yourself having to say "NO" regularly, it's time to look for another job. I'd rather work productively for 40 hours a week and have plenty of time to rest than do the same work during a 60 hour period and not have enough time to rest. Paradoxically, you'll get more done the next day this way.
4) Always be on the lookout for better opportunities. Hopefully you paid attention to #2.
Based upon over 10 years of corporate experience, I can safely answer this one:
1) Brown-nose: Yes, this is extremely important. Making connections is part of it, but this goes beyond that. Find out who is in power and happily be their... "female dog." If they are an idiot, crook, or thug, it doesn't matter. When a program manager curses you out for no reason, laugh! When a local big-wig pulls a knife on you and demands your donut, give it to him! If you just go to work each day and do a good job, you'll be laid off for it. No, what corporations want these days are brown-nosers who actively stroke the egos of the sociopaths in charge. Once your head is buried so far up their rear that you can't see the sun, you know you're doing well!
2) Lie: Make your accomplishments bigger than they appear to be, steal credit for the work of others, and do whatever it takes to appear to be critical to the team. Always prey upon people who are honest, too. It's funnier that way.
3) Lead - Don't Work: Whatever you do, avoid any position that has actual responsibilities. Get into "leadership" roles where you can walk around and shout orders while then blaming the peons for following those orders later. Spend lots of time in meetings to improve your own visibility in the corporations so when layoffs hit, they'll get rid of the honest sap who spends his days in his cube working hard vs. the useless bum who spends all day in meetings stealing credit for the first guy's work. Leadership training programs are great for this, and usually offer chances to escape the office for a day on "field trips" that amount to booze-filled parties... because that's what leadership is about!
4) Stab Other People in the Back: This is important! When first assigned to a project, you need to quickly determine who will take the blame for your mistakes. The best target is usually somebody without connections who is dumb enough to believe that hard work and effort pay off. It's extra funny since you can usually get these suckers to do your work in addition to their own, and THEN stab them in the back later. In a proper corporate setting, politics should be as complicated and messy as mafia family interactions - everyone should hate each other, and every project should be on somebody else's hit-list. Remember, nobody cares if you build a working product in the end since success is *relative* - if your own project is barely functional, but you manage to completely destroy the project of some guy you don't like, than you look like a hero in comparison, and this is a lot easier than doing real work.
5) Don't Rock the Boat: So, who cares if the latest design violates the laws of physics and will probably catch fire? Does it really matter if the sensor system will cease functioning in the middle of combat thanks to faulty memory chips, resulting in the pilot dying horribly? And if the White Elephant program ends up costing the lives of everyone onboard, does that really matter if you're not part of the crew? Just keep your head down and work on, noble slave! Management never makes mistakes, and the laws of physics - as well as actual laws - are only suggestions to keep in mind!
6) Get Lucky! Remember, everyone always gets what they deserve in life, and all of your successes are completely your own - there's never any luck involved! More precisely, do whatever it takes to bend the odds in your favor and then steal credit for luck. At the same time, blame other people for their misfortune, such as when they are out of work (because your butt-monkey friend laid them off), or when they are ill, or whatever. There's no such thing as luck - convince everyone of that - while trying to be as lucky as possible. NOTE: if you are unlucky by nature, as some people are, focus on dragging other people down with you, since (as mentioned earlier) success is relative.
So, there you go - enjoy!
Last edited by Rambler123; 06-28-2012 at 01:49 PM..
I also graduated in 09'. I went back to school and just graduated w/ my M.S. My first job after graduation, I realized I was never going to hit that 50k mark at that company even if I were stay for 10 years. Maybe it'll be better this time around.
My "ideal" recipe for "future" success:
1. Network - Keep on making new contacts and don't burn any bridges. It helps to play nice.
2. Hard work - Always try to improve yourself - the world is always upgrading, skill sets changing.
3. Positive attitude - People like happy people right? I'll tell myself I love my job which will increase my productivity. I'll be more likely to get promoted with that positive attitude.
It's a bit crazy, friends who graduated in 2007 are well on their way to making six figure salaries and I am still trying to hit the $50K mark. Oh well! Maybe I will appreciate it that much more since I am working extra hard for it.
If you take one of your friends that is making six figures - hypothetically and factor in
01 a higher tax bracket
02 a wife that spends some or most of that money
03 kids within a marriage or child support
04 college loans being paid back
Then one or some of them, assuming the above listed four factors are present then they are making as much money or less than you.
So keep your cards held a little closer, plan and start investing wisely and in a few years you could be doing better off than some or most of them.
And as far as "working extra hard". This is America 2012 Bro Bot. Nobody gets rich by working extra hard. You need to take it as well as being able to make it. Now that doesn't mean robbing banks or dealing drugs. You need to harness your inner narcissistic sociopath that lies somewhere within and go out everyday willing to do what 90% of the population is either too lazy or stupid to do. And it very rarely involves hard work. This isn't the old American that our grandparents grew up in. It's dog eat dog and a battlefield out there. Every guy that you meet is indirectly in competition for you for the resources that you want to obtain. Houses, assets, the next promotion at work and the woman (if she is hot) that you wake up next to every morning.
It's eye of the tiger on a whole new level now. And only the strong will survive - and the strong are way too smart to go out every day and work hard. They figure out how to make other people do that for them.
If you take one of your friends that is making six figures - hypothetically and factor in
01 a higher tax bracket
02 a wife that spends some or most of that money
03 kids within a marriage or child support
04 college loans being paid back
Then one or some of them, assuming the above listed four factors are present then they are making as much money or less than you.
So keep your cards held a little closer, plan and start investing wisely and in a few years you could be doing better off than some or most of them.
And as far as "working extra hard". This is America 2012 Bro Bot. Nobody gets rich by working extra hard. You need to take it as well as being able to make it. Now that doesn't mean robbing banks or dealing drugs. You need to harness your inner narcissistic sociopath that lies somewhere within and go out everyday willing to do what 90% of the population is either too lazy or stupid to do. And it very rarely involves hard work. This isn't the old American that our grandparents grew up in. It's dog eat dog and a battlefield out there. Every guy that you meet is indirectly in competition for you for the resources that you want to obtain. Houses, assets, the next promotion at work and the woman (if she is hot) that you wake up next to every morning.
It's eye of the tiger on a whole new level now. And only the strong will survive - and the strong are way too smart to go out every day and work hard. They figure out how to make other people do that for them.
Sky-0
Awesome post-and one more thing..be willing to obtain new skills-how many times do you hear this...."I'm never going back to school." Well guess what? You will always stay at your crappy job making the same crappy money..invest in you-
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