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28 Jul 10 Employment is not adoption: you should be the entrepreneur of your life
I came across this post on Y-Combinator and was quite appaled by the expectation of some people on a supposedly entrepreneurial forum to have a “right” to a job.
Let’s make a few things clear: no one owes you anything. You don’t have a right to a job anymore than you have a right to stay indefinitely for free at a friends place. A business is private property, just like your friends home. The owner decides what they want to do with the property, and who they will allow to reap benefits from it. If they so don’t like your face it’s their right to throw you out of their home, in the same way it is a businesses right to fire you (though getting rid of someone because of personal dislike would be irrational, stupid and likely their loss).
Being employed is not the same thing as getting adoptive parents - you are there because the business owner thinks you can be a net contributor to the business, not because you have a right to anything, least of all being cared for by an employer as some sort of surrogate parent.
Considering private businesses are private property, just as private homes are, the concept of a “safe” job, or a “right” to a job is as preposterous as having a right to stay however long you want at a friends place despite their wishes for you to leave. There is no difference, apart from the ones that some governments foists upon business owners under threat of violence and duress.
This brings me to my second point: If you think employment is a “safe” option, one where you can finally become complacent and sit back, you will be sourly disappointed. On the basis of what I just said, you are there because the business thinks you can be a net contributor to the businesses success.
In other words, the only “job safety” you have in this world is your wits, your skills and the value you can create with them. At which point you might as well be in business for yourself.
The fact is, everyone is the CEO of “Me Inc.” - you are in business for yourself, it’s just that most people don’t get it.
