Why do we accept less than we deserve in order to pursue our dreams? Many of us do it. We may work for free to gain more experience in our field. We may do unpaid internships. However, when it comes to paid work, why do we take less than we should? We do this because we feel lucky to have such an amazing job, right? However, is it really such an amazing job if we must sacrifice our rights and accept questionable pay in exchange for our work? It may be a zero hours contract, no contract, never-ending trial periods, unpaid working hours and even below minimum wage. Are we not belittling our own worth? Whilst setting a standard that means future employees can either work for the same, or be considered a pain to simply expect what they are legally entitled to.
These things are bad enough, but it gets worse. When you work for someone who has so little respect for their employees, it rarely stops there. Your boss can do what they want to you, they may say things that a real boss wouldn’t be permitted to say to you. You are leaving yourself open to discrimination, bullying and you can never trust that your work will be acknowledged or rewarded. By accepting less than you deserve, you are at the mercy of your boss. They know they have a hold over you. You have the most amazing job in the world, why would you ever leave? Why would you dare question the system? Often, by accepting these terms you become complicit in this illegal act. Your employer knows this. How do you think they sleep at night? It’s very difficult to work for someone you don’t trust and without a contract there is very little you can do about it. This will lead to resentment. It is not healthy and it will affect you and your work.You may feel constantly on edge, knowing that at any moment you could be replaced by someone willing to work for even less. This is when we must listen to our gut instinct.
It’s not always easy to trust your gut instinct when pursuing your dreams. Yet, this is perhaps when we should trust it the most. If your gut instinct is telling you it’s not right when it feels like it is the best opportunity in the world, listen to it, trust it. I’m not suggesting you should never go against your gut, there are times when we say we have a gut instinct about something, when it fact we just don’t want to do it. However, we seem to be pretty good at listening to our gut when it comes to our personal lives, so I think we should pay the same attention to our professional lives. Chances are if you have found yourself in this situation, you have finally found the most amazing job in the world; you have worked extremely hard for it. You may have studied for many years, volunteered hundreds of hours of your time for free to gain more experience in your field. You have probably supported yourself along the way working in many jobs just to pay the bills, believing this would all lead to you getting that amazing job you deserve. Keep going. You will find that job. However, if you are working for less than you know you truly deserve, listen to your gut, this is not that job.
Thank you for reading. I would love to hear from anyone that can relate to this post.
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