We Are Never Safe With Our Jobs

[samuel90]

What I mean is that nobody should ever assume they are 100% safe when it comes to job security. Any of us could be fired tomorrow without warning. It is better to error on the side of paranoia than to feel too comfortable.

 

Some might suggest I am suffering from paranoia because I have spent the last 3 years of my life worried that I am being set up to get fired. I think about it almost 24 hours a day. It is the first thing I think about when I wake up and the last thing I think about when I go to sleep and I may even think about it in my sleep. That's my secret. I have never told anyone else. I have kept this fear between me and God.

 

But whether this fear is warranted or whether I am suffering from paranoid delusions all I know is that this fear has helped me improve my work performance in the last 3 years. I am getting exceptional performance reviews. Whatever means it takes for an employee to excel at their job does not really matter as long as they do a good job. It does not matter if my fear is rational or if it is a paranoid delusional episode. Paranoid delusions can serve a good purpose if the ends justifies the means.

 

The same thing about people who suffer from the type of paranoid delusions that cause them to believe they are under constant police survelliance. If that delusion helps keep them out of trouble with the law then so be it.

 

What's your take on this? I am in the process of submitting applications for other places of employment. My goal is to take on a backup part time job by the first of the year 2017. I don't really have high expectation that I will get hired anywhere else before then so now is a good timing to send in applications.

[GorillaTheater]

I think your premise is right; the only real job security out there is for tenured professors and federal judges, and even that's not 100%.

 

 

But I also think life is too short to spend any significant part of it living in fear.

[RecentChange]

Hum, perhaps it helps with your productivity - but what kind of life is that - to wake up scared that you are about to lose your job every day?

 

Sounds very stressful - I don't enjoy being stressed out (and it's not a healthy state for your body).

 

Sure, none of us can take our jobs for granted.....and I have been through economic down turns, watched a department of 50 go through layoffs until me and one other were the last men standing. I woke with that worry each day during that time - I would never want to live like that!

 

Perhaps I feel a bit too secure at times, been with the same company for 13 years now - I network, I keep aware of my options. I add to my skill set and get great reviews...... but ya never know, we could be taken over by a bulldog investor tomorrow and things could change.

[carhill]

OP, I went through this back in the 80's when we had a recession and what I did, rather than worry, was see it as war. I went after my employers customers when the smell of termination became a stench and got a large amount of them, including the state's largest public utility, and didn't look back. People, and employers are people, just aren't that important in life. Certainly no more important than you or I. As long as you worry or fear, they own you. Break free.

[Mind-Chants]

But whether this fear is warranted or whether I am suffering from paranoid delusions all I know is that this fear has helped me improve my work performance in the last 3 years. I am getting exceptional performance reviews. Whatever means it takes for an employee to excel at their job does not really matter as long as they do a good job. It does not matter if my fear is rational or if it is a paranoid delusional episode. Paranoid delusions can serve a good purpose if the ends justifies the means.

 

Even though being paranoid about job security has improved your on job performance, have you ever assessed what you have lost/missed during those time in other fronts ??

 

It is like driving a car while you constantly worry and being hyper-vigilant about others crashing into your car. You reach the destination safe and sound but ................... (leave it to your perspective).

 

In professional context, when you have an external control perspective you define job security as not getting fired but when you have an internal perspective, it is having cutting edge skills and a strong professional network. It is like being in a relationship with your job. When you are insecure, you have all kinds of fault lines in your relationship(with job).