The Piece of Paper

I had a friend complaining to me recently about his job hunt.  This happens with some frequency because so many people know how involved I was, and sort of still am, in workforce development.  Specifically, the state’s job matching system. I’ve spent uncounted hours with HR professionals, recruiters, job seekers and everyone connected to the worlds of workforce and staffing.  This has made me a bit of an expert on what they are looking for during the recruiting process.  Naturally friends and family come to me when they are engaged in some form of job hunt. 

While we were talking, they were venting about how I have the best job in the world.  For the record, I don’t have the best job in the world as there is no such thing.   Their comment was simply a “grass is greener” moment.  It’s understandable as their company has become more and more driven by profits and numbers over the years.  The idea of giving people a reasonable quality of life as it relates to their job was secondary to getting as much productivity out of them as possible with little regard to employee burnout.   If you’ve ever been in that situation, morale always goes in the toilet.  There isn’t a single positive feeling amongst the staff who are being worked to death. The general buzz in the office is one of continual complaining at organizational changes that have a negative effect on the psyche of all the employees. This makes  the environment caustic.  The natural outcome is that the vast majority of employees of said company are looking to exit as quickly as they can find something comparable.  Some have success, some don’t. My friend has not had a lot of success lately. I was trying to keep their motivation up, but they were understandably feeling defeated. That’s when they said it: “but you have the piece of paper!”