The Ridiculous Expectation of Profit Sharing

 I have to rant a little here.

There is a systemic mindset these days of "How come I can't make as much money as the people I work for? I do all the work!"

Actually, no, you don't. And you didn't. You never did. And you never will, either, if you keep working for someone else. Not by a long shot.

Before YOU ever came along, the person that started the business you work for had a vision. He or she also had brains. And drive. And ambition. And determination. They put in MASSIVE amounts of time and effort to bring that dream to fruition. Time and effort you cannot imagine unless you've done it yourself. They put everything they had into it. They risked everything.

Statistically, 90% of all startup businesses fail in the first two years. NINETY PERCENT. By default, that means they had a 95% chance of failing in the first year and losing everything they put into the venture; time, effort, and money. And a 90% chance the second year.

So, against all odds, they made it, and their doors were still open when YOU came along, and they gave you a job.

Now, you want them to share the profits with you because you think you do all the work? Guess again.

You come to work. You do your thing. And guess what? At the end of your shift, you go home. You go home Scott-free. You have no headaches. You have no worries. You have no liabilities; you can't be sued for everything you have in the business world. Why? Because you CHOSE to have nothing. You didn't want responsibility/you don't have responsibility. That comes at a cost.

Working for someone else has a stigma of limitation. Working for yourself does not. You have to make a choice, and wherever you are, whatever you're doing, you've made that choice in the here and now.

You are not the master of the machine, you are the workings of the machine. You do not say what the machine will do, where it will go, or how it will get there. You do only the task or tasks within it you agreed to perform when you signed up, and will most likely refuse to do anything more if asked. Not your employer; they have done and will do whatever it takes to make the business succeed.

Speaking of that, when you signed up, you AGREED to work for a certain amount of money per hour. Nowhere in your contractual agreement was there any facility or addendum for sharing the profit with the owner or owners of the company when markets favored them.

Whatever your age, you most certainly have heard the term, 'the flip side of the coin'. Well, your place in the working world has that, too. While you will not share in the owner's profit when things are good, you will also not share in the owner's losses when things are bad. Regulations, income and property taxes, payroll deductions, and countless other obligations are the worry and responsibility of the owner or owners, not you. Your biggest worry is 5 o'clock.

If the boss loses his or her business to creditors, all you lose is your job. You have protection in place your employer gave up a long time ago. You have put nothing in but 9 to 5 since you came and you were PAID for every second of it. You would likely have never worked for the pay the founders got while they started the business. They put in giant amounts of 'overtime', but they never got paid for 'time and a half', much less 'double time'. But they paid you that. And you're complaining?

You don't see what's still going on behind the scenes and the hours your employer or employers are still putting in that you would never agree to.

And what about holidays? Your employer gets paid nothing on holidays, but you do. How is that fair when you never put in any work to get the business off of the ground in the first place? The moment you walked in the door and got hired, you were entitled to holidays. Not your employer. To have 'holidays', they often effectively simply choose to not get paid. What a concept; it COSTS them to have a holiday, while you get PAID for it?! Wow. You sure got the prize there!

One thing a lot of employers have in common is the desire for less responsibility. You already have that and you're getting the proper pay scale for it, too, so don't look a gift horse in the mouth.

The long and the short of all of this is you should be GRATEFUL for the job you have and the pay you're getting. You didn't create it, and someone GAVE IT TO YOU. And what is given can be taken away as well. Be grateful and be satisfied.