3 Questions to Ask Yourself on Labor Day
Fellow Riskologist,
Hello from the mobile Riskology Lab currently located in Rockaway, Oregon—a small coastal town where I’ve wandered around on the beach picking up sea shells for a few days.
This weekend, I’m joined by thousands of others in The U.S. celebrating Labor Day. If you’re not familiar, it’s a day we take off at the beginning of every September to celebrate all the progress we’ve made towards safe and equitable working conditions for our country’s laborers.
Fun fact: Labor Day became a federal holiday in 1894, but Oregon was the first state to recognize the day in 1887.
Labor Day is a nice tribute to all the hard battles fought for social and economic achievements, but there’s still much to be done. For all the progress we’ve made, workers today face some of the same challenges they have for hundreds of years:
- One person—a manager—gets to decide whether or not you get a paycheck next week.
- Low wages don’t reflect the real value you give to your employer.
- Generic skills leave make you an easily replaceable cog in a system, and specialization leaves you with limited opportunities to fall back on if you find yourself out of work.
These are the realities of the current workplace and, for the most part, we’ve decided they’re acceptable—we’re willing to put up with them as long as the paychecks keep coming.
But a small minority of us see the problem as something bigger. We see it as an unacceptable threat to our wellbeing, and we’re doing something about it.
A few—those in my generation and younger—are choosing to give up the traditional workplace altogether and go it alone as entrepreneurs, freelancers, and independent contractors.
And others are taking a different route and changing the way they work inside of organizations by looking for opportunities to take ownership over their own initiatives and carve out a unique job description over time.
Over the last three years, I’ve had the good fortune to meet and speak with interesting people all over the world taking these new approaches in their careers. Whatever the path chosen, the reasoning seems to be the same:
They see the flaws inherent in the traditional workplace, and they want to find a way to fix them and secure their future.
If you’re one of the many among us celebrating Labor Day today, don’t stress about this now. Enjoy your day off. Drink some beer. Hang out with your friends. Play with your kids. You’ve earned it!
But when you go back to work tomorrow morning, put on your Smart Riskologist hat and ask yourself:
- Where am I vulnerable right now? What will I do if my boss decides to turn off my income tomorrow?
- Am I being paid what I’m actually worth? What can I do to make sure I’m getting a fair share of the wealth I help create?
- What skills do I need to develop to make myself indispensable to any business? How can I make sure I earn a living no matter how bad the economy gets?
These aren’t questions you’ll answer in a day, but they’re worth thinking about from time to time. A little brain power applied daily will take you far in time.
Yours in prosperity,
Founder, Riskology.co