As I have written some of these posts I have found that a number of them take on an employer – employee, us vs. them, negative tone. A few years ago there was a movie out called Horrible Bosses. I admit, when I first heard that title I was offended. Though I did enjoy the movie, and yes, there are horrible bosses, I immediately thought, what about a movie called horrible employees? We’ve had some of those – a few of whom are the basis for some of these posts. But, generally, I want to clarify. When my spouse/business partner first suggested the idea of this blog we were on a road trip and we began listing topic ideas. I currently have a list of over 300 of “my topics” and she is up to about 400. And, the list grows all the time, but the ideas sometimes tend to come in clusters. So, if you are reading these posts in chronological order, there may be times when we (or at least, I) am discussing the negatives of business ownership. I will admit that one of my thoughts in writing these posts is to share stories with other business owners to let them know what I suspect is the commonality of our experiences – to commiserate . I say this based on my conversations with friends who own businesses. I also hope that these posts will help employees think of things through the eyes of their bosses and to know what to expect and how to do things if and when they become entrepreneurs or managers.
When I was in graduate school to earn a Ph.D. in social psychology, the expectation among my professors was that I would join their ranks in academia. Indeed, all of my peers became college professors. I never desired a career in academia, preferring instead to work in corporate environments, including as a litigation consultant. If I had taken the expected path, I would have been a college professor for almost 30 years (time flies!) and my experiences as a college professor would have been vastly different than my experiences as a consultant have been. I have worked with many wonderful colleagues, have traveled across the U.S.A. while performing my work, have worked for some amazing trial lawyers on some mind expanding cases, and have employed some intelligent and hard working people. I agree with my spouse/business partner that some of our topics have had a negative tone, especially when it comes to dealing with employees, but we both believe it is important to share our experiences in these writings and, unfortunately, we have had lots of negative ones along with lots of positives! This being said, I am glad I chose to work in an occupation that has allowed me to experience a rich tapestry of human nature instead of the “ivory tower” workplace for which I was trained and encouraged to work. My job is never boring, to that I can attest!
Comments are closed.