A few months ago I received an interesting email from a well known head hunter for financial professionals that brought back memories of my former life as a financial executive in the corporate world. Below is an excerpt from the email:
“…We have an excellent opportunity with a large well known public corporation. They are in need of a Director of Finance who holds a CA, CPA designation… The environment is energetic and very fast paced and will definitely require some overtime hours (as you can expect the typical work week to be 50-60 hours, and at quarter end: you can expect to put in around 80 hours)… If you thrive in a fast paced ever changing environment and you encourage the ‘all hands on deck’ positive attitude, then this is an exciting opportunity for 2015. We would love to hear from you!”
A great title? Check! Fast paced ever changing environment (read: rules, policies and procedures change constantly)? Check! Large well known company combined with an irresistible offer of slaving 50-80 hours a week! 80 hours a week? Really? That’s like fitting 2 weeks worth of full time hours into only 1 week!
Now that I think back, in my old life as a financial executive I would be jumping all over job such as this one. Crazy right?
To be fair, at least this head hunter actually provided realistic working hour expectations. Unfortunately, the norm is to advertise and offer “great work life balance” in the job descriptions. However, once hired it would become blatantly obvious that 50-80 hour work weeks were the real “normal” rather than the exception.
What about that “work life balance” advertised in job postings and continuously propagated to new and existing employees in most companies today? Maybe they should change the term to “work for balance of life”? At least that would be the truth.
Incredibly, I am not aware of any incidence of anyone reporting these types of false advertising in job postings, corporate policies or propaganda.
The reality is most companies and managers expect loyalty from their employees, yet do not, and quite frankly cannot in all honesty, offer the same to their employees. Long gone are the days of working and staying with a company for your entire career. Long gone are great employee benefits and pension plans. In their stead employees are now faced with a very uncertain financial future where their seemingly stable full time jobs have literally become contract positions with indefinite terms.
In today’s economic reality and environment, few public companies are actually growing their business through real productivity and real growth. Pressured to continuously increase profits, companies are instead cutting costs. And yes, that means employees just like you. In fact, just this week Hewlett Packard, the global printer giant announced that is it plans to fire 30,000 employees from their enterprise unit, or about 10% of its work force! “The employee departures will save the company $2 billion annually, the company said.”Source
In HP’s Enterprise unit, I am certain that within the 30,000 being let go there are some awesome employees who worked hard, very possibly 50-80+ hours per week, all to further HP’s interests, profits and bonuses of its executives, while sacrificing various important aspects of their own personal and family lives.
All those missed kids birthdays, little league games and vacations that they will never get back. Leaving to go to work before anyone in the family was up and returning from work when everyone was already asleep in bed also being the norm. For what? To what end?
What have all those HP employees accomplished and sacrificed working like crazy year after year, for many, many years? What is their reward for working like slaves for money? Not a retirement with a plump pension, not a golden handshake, not even a gold watch! Instead they are rewarded with pink slips, a non-personalized template thank you note along the lines of “Thank you for all your years of service, we wish you success in all your future endeavours!” and a very uncertain financial future!
Yet we have all been taught to go to school, get good grades, get a good job and to work hard as “the plan” to get ahead in life. How has that been working for you?
Have you ever truly asked yourself : What exactly is normal about all this? I know I have. In fact, back in my corporate life as a Chief Financial Officer 60 to 80+ hour work weeks plus weekends were very much my normal. And just like the 30,000 unfortunate HP employees, I too was rewarded with ultimately being laid off.
This is when I made a conscious decision that “this” would never be my “normal” ever again! I made the decision to take control of my own life and my own financial destiny. After all, if I would not do it for myself who would? The companies or the company CEO’s I worked for? Ask any of the HP employees about to lose their job how that has worked out for them?
The stark reality in today’s world is that without money working for you, you will always be working for money. Yet with fewer and fewer good paying jobs out there, working for money is becoming less and less of a viable option in and of itself for most of us.
From my won personal experience, most companies and employers view employees solely as a means to their ends only. Regardless of how important you may feel within the company, the truth is we are all dispensable in the eyes of the company. The company or its executives will rarely think twice about letting you go if they feel it is in the best interest of the company, regardless of how great you are as an employee. And the harsh truth is that most people who are let go are barely an afterthought a few weeks after the fact.
And as for those who remain? Well they are now doing the work of 2 or even 3 employees due to these ongoing corporate cost cutting measures. Is it any wonder why working 50-80+hours per week is now the new normal?
If you, like so many of us, let other people and companies control your financial destiny, do you honestly believe you can realistically accomplish your goals and dreams? Ask yourself, whose best interest, profits, wealth, family, etc. are they looking after? Yours or theirs?
So how was I able to accomplish my retirement goals in under 4 years? By now it should be no secret to anyone. By investing in great, stable, low risk (even down right boring) cash flowing real estate properties. I realize that this path to financial freedom may not be for everyone. However, it has been and continues to be the most effective path, no only for myself, but for hundreds of other people just like you.
In fact, this path to wealth has been proven to work for over two thousand years and continues to be a realistic path that can lead my clients to achieve their own goals and dreams of financial freedom.
Truth be told, as a real estate investment coach and active real estate investor there are still times that I work 60+ hours in one week. The difference is that assisting my clients in realizing their dreams and goals of financial freedom is something I find extremely rewarding and am very passionate about.
The reality is that, unlike my previous life in corporate Canada, these types of work weeks are now truly the exceptions rather than the rule. Most importantly, the difference is all about my having the power to choose. I do what I do not because I have to, but because I want and love to do it.
At the same time, my income does not go up and down like the stock market and mutual fund roller coaster. However, my income generally keeps on going up in tune with inflation. How many people who work for someone else can say that their wages go up with inflation? Usually, their wage increases are based on company performance. So if the company they are working for is not doing well, while inflation is going up they are not very likely to get any annual raises at all!
I also do not need to invest thousands upon thousands of dollars continuously in my RRSP’s year after year and every year until I retire in the hopes of possibly achieving my financial and retirement goals. I buy a property, put systems and teams into place to operate it effectively and efficiently and just hold on to it with minimal effort FOREVER!
That’s right, the “buy and hold” strategy to investing likely started with real estate ownership thousands of years ago. How’s that for a retirement plan that actually works? Simple right? No stock or bond analysis, no management expense ratios to consider and very little transaction costs, especially if like me, you never plan to sell. Let’s face it, it may not be sexy. But most people understand it and, most importantly, it works!
So ask and be honest with yourself: “Are you are a happy slave?” Are you getting closer to your goals and dreams of financial freedom? If not, perhaps it is time to regroup, look deep within yourself and re-evaluate what is most important to you, your dreams, goals and aspirations.
Most importantly, ask yourself whether you truly believe that the path you are on today will get you to where you want to go, be what you want to be, live the way you want to live. If the answer is no, then how do you plan to get there?