Investing in our Career (Taking care of the goose)

There was once a farmer who owned a prized asset: Le' Goose!  This was no ordinary Goose. The farmer took care of the Goose, feeding it and tending to its needs daily. Behold, each morning when he checked the Goose pen, inside was a shimmering, shiny Golden Egg!

Each afternoon, the farmer went to town and sold the egg. The consistent money received from the sales of the golden eggs soon allowed the farmer to live comfortably. However, the farmer started to get annoyed that the goose only laid ONE EGG per day.

"It's far too slow! I need to get more golden eggs to get rich faster!" 

He devised a plan to finally kill the goose to harvest all the golden eggs at once by cutting its belly open. However, when he did kill and cut open his goose, there was not a single egg to be found.

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tl:dr (too long didn't read version):

• Expect the unexpected in our careers (it might not always be smooth sailing)
• Take care of our golden goose (Plan A), make plans and also backup plans (Plan B).
• Don't do things that are dealbreakers (kill your golden goose prematurely)
• Upgrade yourself, invest in "fattening" our golden goose. (Skillsfuture can be an option)
• Keep your desires in check (the farmer inside us)

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This is a famous story from Aesop's fables that warns against the perils of Greed and incredible short-sightedness. In the above story, the farmer made an irreversible loss by taking an action that seemed logical but was actually myopic in his hindsight.

We each actually have a goose that lays golden eggs. Most lay a golden egg a month. Some do better and lay eggs more than just once a month. Some people get small eggs while others get big eggs.

When we analyse the parable, there are 3 important things.

• Goose: Our asset that generates consistent income.
• Farmer: Our desires/wants in life that consumes the income.
• Golden Egg(s): The consistent income (reward) for taking care of our asset.

Having a job is different from having a Career. A Job simply gives us money in exchange for our time. A Career, on top of giving us money in exchange for time would require more planning and thought out process to grow, improve, "fatten" up the goose. And in time, the Goose aka. our main asset in earning an income grows to give a greater output and satisfaction in life.


Why is keeping the delicate relationship of the 3 important?

• Having a stable income generated leads to the ability to save.
• The ability to save in a disciplined way leads to the possibility of gaining more assets.
• Taking care of the goose increases the output(s).
• Keeping the desires of our internal "farmer" in check ensures that we do not kill the goose prematurely.
• Putting the Golden eggs earned to good use is a must because it is a limited resource.

Recently, there were two main events that happened around me that crystallised the importance of planning ahead. (Stories have been slightly altered but retains the essence)

1. Retrenchment at workplace
2. Misfortune of a close friend

Story #1: Retrenchment at workplace.

This is a story of how a "natural disaster" can kill our golden goose like how Thanos decides to snap his fingers.

Sarang Hae~ *snaps*

Two of my colleagues were asked told to leave without any warning whatsoever with only about 2 hours notice. This event hit me and my colleagues hard. We were always told our company was doing well. Suddenly, we realised the fragility of our jobs and how we could not take them for granted. In the fast moving globalised world, we could be replaced any minute and have nothing to fall back on.

There were some lucky ones who might go through a similar ordeal which turns out to be a blessing in disguise and ended with a better paying job but many others will not be as lucky and still remain jobless.

Nonetheless, it must have a great mental torture and stress through the ordeal of loosing the goose.

Question: Do I (we) have a backup plan?

Story #2: Misfortune of a close friend

I have a friend who works himself very hard to find more avenues of earning money. So he did a part time delivery in his spare time. However, he lacked sleep and was burning candles on either side to squeeze more golden eggs from his goose. He started to turn up late often at work and turned in work with poor quality.

Life is not a game. You can't just save and restart again.

One evening, he went out on that part time after his day job as usual.

Unfortunately, this time, his concentration lapsed and in a split second, he got into an accident. He suffered injury and loss time which affected his main work and instead of earning money, had to pay for his medical bills. Worse, his employers were not thrilled about his moonlighting.

It was of course easy to make hindsight comments but it is probably fair to say it probably wasn't worth it and my friend has to shoulder part of the blame for his situation.

Question: Are we getting more than we bargained for in a bid to rush the golden eggs?

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What are we planning/doing so that we can take care of our Golden Goose better? 

Story #1 was probably a good example of how we could lose our goose without our fault. Story #2 was probably an example of how wanting to earn more can backfire when we pushed ourselves to our human limits (there are just 24 hours each day and we can't trade rest time without suffering consequences).

Events like these make K.C. think. Barring actions that shoot ourselves in the foot, of course ideally, we would want to plan for our careers in such a way that we grow our income and achieve advancement/promotions at work. But to do this requires us to plan ahead to know what we want. This would be best if we already know what we want to do in the future.

If what is going on around the world is a good yardstick, my take is that our diplomas and degrees will be worth lesser in the future. This is because more people are getting them, this "cheapens" the worth of our degrees despite us having paid a handsome sum to get them. There are now many graduates around the world who have been taught this age old method of: Study hard, get a job and be set for life. The only thing is that many are not getting employed because companies don't need their skills and they are out of luck.

In my opinion, the degrees are still likely useful as an entry point, but thereafter accumulating experience and professional certification become much more useful.

In an ideal world situation:

Education >  Work/Career > Experience + Professional Certs > Advancements.

However, most of us might not have crystal balls and don't have an inkling of what we want in life early on. By the time we work, we might already be doing what we do not like. Commitments in life also make it tough to go for career switch and events like retrenchment would be doubly painful.

The next best possible thing we could do is probably to plan realistically based on our current situation.

What could one do to minimise the impacts of unforeseen circumstances? 

For circumstances like retrenchment, one can practically:

• Cut down on unnecessary expenses. e.g subscriptions
• Downgrade lifestyle if possible (but not burning another side of candle)
• Keep an emergency fund of at least 6-9 months of living expenses in the bank
• Start thinking of Plan A: Building a career advancement (so you are not easily replaceable)
• Start thinking of a Plan B: In case you are retrenched.

What could one do to increase employability/advancements?

Well, the next better thing we could do is to upgrade/diversify our skill sets so that they contribute to our careers or act as backup plans. Maybe the recent happenings were a wakeup call to not be complacent. Either way, it beats staying in comfort zone.

Skillsfuture (This is not a sponsored post)

Source: https://www.skillsfuture.sg/Newsroom

In 2016, Skillsfuture was set up in Singapore to encourage Singaporeans to have a "lifelong learning" attitude. Singaporeans aged 25 and above were given a one time $500 credit and are eligible for subsidy if they sign up for courses that improve themselves. SkillsFuture also pour $1billion a year of our taxpayer money on initiatives such as career guidance for students, enhanced internships, and subsidies for mid-career learning, among others.

I was considering taking masters/ recognised courses especially in the wake of the company's retrenchment exercise and it was honestly one of the first time I took a look in detail at the courses offered. The amount of subsidy was quite high for certain courses and one receives more subsidies if he /she was older than 40.

As it stands, barring the scandal that cheated the government of $40million, many Singaporeans like myself still have not utilised them for a variety of reasons.

I would personally encourage our fellow Singaporeans to take a detailed look to see if any course would help in your career. If you are already doing well in your career, you might want to use it to take a course that improves a hobby (e.g. photography). There is nothing to lose here, well, maybe some time commitment.

Recently, some of my friends also started to take IT classes in Singapore polytechnic as a plan B as well as to keep relevant.

K.C. recently went to NTUC training hub to sign up for a one year course.

A wide variety of courses available to choose from.

The well-built Devan Nair institute at Jurong East (Employment and Employability Institute) speaks volumes of how much funds our government has poured into creating all the Skillsfuture ecosystem.

Singaporeans like myself are a bunch that likes to complain. The question is after complaining, what are some actionable steps we have taken to improve ourselves? Will your future self be grateful to you?

Until Next Time, 

K.C.

If you like this post, you might like our facebook page as well. I'm also on Investing Note.

Related topics:
1. About K.C. What is my story?
2. My 3Cs to money/investing
3. Why you need to set aside money for savings first
4. Interview process cycle: How to increase your interview rates
5. My 2018 Year end review

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