What I Have Learned as a Salary-Man
By: Pathairush Seeda
Tags: Self Improvement, Life Lessons, Life, Productivity, Advice

PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT

What I Have Learned as a Salary-Man

Thoughts and advice for growing your career

Photo by Hunters Race on Unsplash

Office workers, White-collar, and Salary-man describe those who work for a company to receive their wages at the end of each month. I am one of them, and I have worked as a salary-man for five years in Thailand.

Disclaimer: This is my thought. I am only 28 and work only in Thailand for my whole career life. The opinion on each topic could be varied depending on the reader’s location and culture.

What it means to be a salary-man

The salary-man has a very stable behavior in their working life. They usually wake up in the morning to start working from 9 to 5 during weekdays. Having fun on Friday night and spending their free time relaxing and chilling on Saturday and Sunday.

We receive the paycheck at the end of each month. Whether we spend it on the things we need like partying or consumer-good, the choice is on us, keep saving to pursue the significant assets in our life, such as buying a car or house.

This pattern keeps repeating for the rest of our life if we decide to do it.

Being a salary-man is quite stable and consistency job only if you have a right skill and mindset.

Advice from early-stage salary-man

here are a few advice from myself to you for being a salary-man

Moving around every 2–3 years at the early stage of your career life

Nothing in life remains the same forever.

Photo by Maranda Vandergriff on Unsplash

From my personal experience, I found that being in the same company for a long time is risky.

You will fall into the comfort zone of your routine job.

The lack of inspiration to improve yourself is a normal thing if you stay in the same position for a long time.

Another point of view is the merit increase from within the same company is very little compared to move your career between the company.

You can get raised around 3 to 7 % based on your last year's performance and got promoted after a few years of working; let’s say 3–5 years.

But when you move your career across the company, you could get raised by around 20 to 30 % based on the current salary. The gap is vast.

The number of times you move plays a vital part here in your recruiting process. Suppose you have often moved across the company with the working duration only around one year.

The new company's human resource/people team may see you as a non-patience person and foresee that you may not stay with them for a longer period.

This point is very concerned for both Thailand and Japanese companies. It took time and effort to recruit the right person to the company so that they tend to expect you to work for them for a very long period, for instance, 5 to 10 years.

You need to be aware of this factor and balance your working portfolio. For a global company, I don’t think this will be a problem.

Besides, when you move your career, you also change your working environment. It is refreshment. You are facing new people, cultures, and challenges.

Those elements make you motivate and grow up as a person.

You are learning how to accept the change in life. This is great for the early stage of your career life.

It makes you know how to handle different cultures and various kinds of people, and no one will blame you because you are in-experienced and so young.

You will face both good and bad people choose what kind of person you want to become. Being too good people might not be the right choice as well.

At some point in your life, you may want to settle down. In Thailand, I would recommend you to go for a SET50 listed or big private companies.

At those places, if you have enough experience in what they are doing, you can become a management team or high-level executives.

Suppose you reach that level and continue bringing value to your workplace. Your stable retired life is not out of your reach anymore.

Always learning new things.

I saw a lot of people who have been lay-off due to the lack of skill sets.

Photo by Ben White on Unsplash

I think every salary-man will have a definite role and responsibility, and you could master it within 1 to 1.5 years.

If you need 3 to 5 years to master your role and responsibility, you have to re-evaluate whether you have any problems learning to do your task.

After that, you will gradually shift to the comfort zone.

Being in the comfort zone is neither good nor bad, but being there for a long time makes you less competitive in the market or your expertise field.

You keep repeating to do the same task without learning any new things.

I am lucky that I work in a field with rapid changes, which makes me continue studying the new trend and technology.

If you are not learning any new technical skills like programming or coding or improve your personal skill such as communication and public speaking, You will become less competitive in the market.

You will have a lot of experience but few skills compared to the new grads.

The problem is why the company needs to hire you with a higher salary for the same skill set as the new grads. If you are in this state, please be aware that you could be replaced at any time.

Also, I encourage you to look at the posted job description in the market every year to see the latest skill sets. You might use the legacy technology at the current company, but it’s no longer required in the market.

If that’s the case, you have to keep up your skill with the market.

Finally, I recommend you to try interviewing with the new company every year to keep you ready for any unexpected situations.

For instance, your new boss maybe not has the same working style and perspective as you and make you feel unhappy to be with.

If you never take any interview for a long time, It will take some time for you to master it again before landing an excellent job.

Practice saying, “No.”

love yourself first before taking care of the others

One thing you will face the most is to collaborate with other people in the company. Negotiation is around every corner. You have to define the clear-cut scope for your work and let the other parties do their job.

Sometimes, you will face people who push their responsibility for you. The most important thing here is you have to be able to say no or reject the request in those situations.

Saying no is hard for some people who are kind and generous. They tend to say yes to everything and then burnout because of the overloading of tasks.

Poster of Start-up series from IMDB

I have faced many people in my working life. Some of them will come to you only for their benefits, and it’s not a win-win situation with you at all.

It would be best to bargain with them about the work scope to find a midway for both parties.

To add another view, I have just watched one of the Korean series called Start-up, and I would like to share the quote of the main character for you guys.

There is no answer to be a good leader. You just need to choose what you thing it’s right. No matter what you choose they will be someone blaming you because you don’t think the same way to them.

This quote can be applied to the salary-man even if we are not the start-up or entrepreneur, but we are a leader of ourselves.

We are the ones who decide and design our life. It would be best if you chose what you think it’s right and don’t regret it.