Eschew the too-good-to-be-true carrot

This post is inspired by one of Uncle CW's post (see here). In that post, Uncle CW highlighted that one of his friends (presumably holding a management post) has a subordinate whose mother-in-law paid for their HDB in cash.

Uncle CW then remarked to his friend that he/she should not push his/her subordinate too hard at work as he could quit anytime.

How true is this! Heavy financial commitments such as monthly mortgage payments are a good deterrent against worker bees from leaving their hives.

This reminded me of a conversation I had with one of my group mates from the Specialist Diploma programme I took. Halfway through the programme, she left her job for supposedly greener pastures. One of the main pulls, of course, was the great remuneration package. A couple of months into the job, she was dead exhausted. She had to work till the wee hours of the night, be on call, and had to report to work on weekends. And she got an unappreciative and unreasonable boss to boot. Her status as a high flyer is axiomatic though. Amidst all this, she still managed to score top grades in the Specialist Diploma programme.

Eventually, she was headhunted by another company and she left the high-paying firm. Through the conversations I had with her, I managed to glean that she has a strong financial defence. No heavy financial commitments, has some side businesses, financial assets, and a solid cashflow. Furthermore, there is demand for people of her calibre.

Her colleagues, however, were not that fortunate. Some of them had heavy financial commitments to attend to and are likely to acquiesce to whatever the boss dictates. The high pay also serves as a strong deterrent to resigning. Must pay for condo, car, family, etc, how to resign?!?!

What piqued my curiosity was how the company selects its potential employees. As they have the means to pay, they are very deliberate in selecting individuals who fall within a certain profile (hint: people with heavy financial commitments). Well, that ended quickly. She is an outlier that operates from a position of strength. :)

Too demeaning to chase after the carrot? Turn your attention elsewhere then! (but before you do that, please build up your defence first........)