We have discussed golden handcuffs. The biggest of which is salary. One of the major reasons why salary is such a golden handcuff is because of the never ending parade of things we feel are reasonable.. hint, they are.., but the trap comes in how the PIC is penalized in wanting them. Let’s take sports for example.
I’m not a sports fan, but there are many sports fans.. they love their games on the weekends. Sports are so ingrained in our culture that In many cases a PIC doesn’t have to specify which game, or which team.. Many many individuals in the office will know exactly what someone is talking about when they hear a comment about the game de jour such as “Did you see the game” or “I need to get home because the game is going to come on”. It’s a point of bonding, and a social connector.
The problem with sports and how they relate to golden handcuffs is that the industrial and entertainment complex relating to sports have driven prices up on pay television and sporting events to the point of being nearly unaffordable. If you want to watch football on NFL Sunday ticket you have to pay your share of the 1.5 billion a year it costs Direct TV to broadcast the games. By way of comparison it only costs between 200-450 million to launch the satellite into space that brings you the channels. Somebody has to pay the bill, so the costs get shifted to the customers. Ok, that’s capitalism and that’s good. You don’t have to subscribe to the ala-carte sports package if you don’t want. But it’s reasonable to want to watch sporting entertainment to unwind and to have that common bond with society. But bundling, blackouts, insane salaries of players, profit motives of owners all work together to make professional sports tremendously expensive.
Expensive sports means more money is needed, and if a PIC want’s the benefit of being able to bond with co-workers and friends over the shared experience of “the game” then you gotta pay and I’ll call a foul on that play any day of the week.
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