Signs that you might be in trouble

A few years ago I read an excellent book called Intellectual Capital. This book was worth reading.

There is a part in it that I never forgot on signs that you might be in trouble at work. Here it is for your considerations:

The old trapping of success - a leather chair, your own secretary - are gone. So are the old signs of trouble. Says Richard Moran, a leader of the change-management practice for Price Waterhouse consulting: "The rule used to be incremental promotion every year or two. If you miss one - hmm - that was warning. You don't get the little clicks now." Warnings are subtler - many audible only to you, not your boss or colleagues. If several of these click, wake up:

• Are you learning? If you can't say that you have learned in the past six months, nor what you expect to learn in the next, beware. Says Havard Business School professor John Kotter: "When there's nothing you can learn where you are, you've got to move on, even if they give you promotions." If your job has become easy, someone else will do it for less.

Well on that part I should be very worry. Not only I do learn nothing, but I teach others to do my job. I'm way over paid for the work level I occupy, my job is so easy that I'm bored to death and others get promoted while I'm the one with the more qualifications.

• If your job were open, would you get it? Benchmark your skills regularly. Look at want-ads for jobs in your field. If they ask for skills you don't have - with phrases such as familiarity with Lotus Notes a plus" - get on the stick.

I would probably not get it. Not at the price they pay me right now. I am highly paid for being a mere glorified personal assistant. Others could do... close to the same work I do but for much less money. As per skills, I am over skilled for what I do.

• Are you being milked? When you sacrifice your long-term growth for short term benefits, especially your employer's, you are living on intellectual capital. A salesman who wants to learn marketing but keeps hearing, "You're so good we need you here" or a finance guy who is asked to keep the old system running while others learn the new software - these are people in whom the company has stopped investing.

Well at the point I am I'm not only milked, I've turned cream and even borderline cheese. I'm so good at what I do that I know that if I leave they will be going back 6 months to 1 year in progress. That is why they want to keep me there and that is why they tolerate to pay me so much for so little. I have the benefits of the superstar effect. But this wouldn't last. The day they will hire some young hound with my computer skill for half my salary, I'm doomed.

• Do you know what you contribute? If you can't give anyone a two minutes summary of what you do and why it matters, your boss probably can't either.

Some times people ask me "what do you do for work" and half honest and half laughing I answer:" I don't know really". I told you I am a glorified personal assistant. If my boss asks me to take the blue file on the left and put it on the right, I do it. The next day if he asks me to take the blue file on the right and put it on the left, I execute the order, period. The only advantage I bring is automation of his admin work with my computer skills.

• What would you do if you job disappeared tomorrow? If you can't answer that question, you haven't thought about what marketable skills you have. More and more, you have to sell yourself inside the company.

On that part I do think a lot of what I would do if my job would disappear tomorrow. In fact it is one of the prime thought I have everyday on which I work on. It's also one of my prime strategy that I explained at the very beginning of this blog: being totally financially independent. So if my work would disappear into thin air tomorrow, I would simply laugh at their face, for I won't need them to live my life and sustain my level of life.

• Are you having fun yet? Sure they call it "work", but you'll be less eager for new challenges if your heart's not in it.

Having fun? I'm bored to death and the only time I feel alive is when I work on my business projects.

• Are you worried about your job? Says Moran:"If you are, you probably should be."

I am not worried for my job. And I probably should. But I sleep like a baby at night and I won't die from stress any time soon. In fact I couldn't care less about my work or my so called career.

And you will understand why. Reading this post must have puzzled most of you. But I hope I will make it all clear when you read my next post: Kill your career.