How’bout that?

This means managing the satisfaction of the customer providing 100% of the revenue, while paying attention to sustainability of this gig and looking out for other options, weighed for long-term risk/reward ratio. Anything else as applied to Me Inc. is just a distraction, potentially harmful to the mission.

Not everyone is Gordon Gekko, but if you have ever bought into index funds you are still a Wall Street investor.

Sam B: Love the metaphor. So true.

One point I would make is that Silicon Valley isn’t necessarily representative of other areas and the technology industry isn’t necessarily representative of other industries.

That said, once again, most new businesses fail so one shouldn’t expect that pretending you’re the CEO of Me, Inc. is going to help you cope with an industry with a fluid employment dynamic.

Sam B: thanks for the thoughtful response. Enjoyed reading it and agree with a lot of what you said.

The “personal branding” and “free agent” rhetoric that we’re mocking seems to be the anti-bad-idea to the employment ideal that underpinned post-war socialism, the feudal system before that, and the Roman patronage system before that.

What we now call the “job-for-life” ideal essentially says that a job is not a mutually beneficial relationship, but a boon offered to the employee by the employer, who acts as a patron. (Depending on your point in time and your social status, the patron could be a patronus, a lord, a political crony, a relative, a guild or a trades union.) The flipside of this is that the employee is “owed” his job, preferably for life, and making him redundant is a gross dereliction of the employer’s duty.

The first paragraph of the second quote – the “any company you work for ought to applaud every single one of the efforts you make” stuff – seems very narcisstic and self-esteemy. But if considered as a reaction against the job-for-life ideal – that employees are not an asset to be profited from but a social obligation to be borne – it doesn’t seem as bad. We are fortunate that we live in an age where it sounds like happy-clappy feel-good fluff, rather than heresy.

That said, an anti-bad-idea is still a bad idea. There’s nothing inherently wrong with the phrase “free agent” if it means “free from government regulation”. But if it’s taken to mean “free from reality” – such as the reality that you are not an executive highflyer, or that you still need to pay the rent while job-searching – then you’re in trouble.

All it comes down to is accepting reality. You are not Derek Jeter (whoever he is) but neither are you a useless social obligation. Thinking solely of yourself will make you a very unpleasant person, but so will thinking of everyone but yourself. Pretending you can dance between jobs as much as you like is delusional, but so is pretending the government can guarantee your current usefulness forever by signing a piece of paper.

Not all self-help books are useless when it comes to recognising reality, but even the best are a crutch. It’s better to walk assisted than to crawl, but at some point you have to stand on your own and rely solely on your own senses.

However.

The technology industry is extremely fluid. Sectors and companies appear and disappear. As an employee you have negligible control over that. Your company is not your friend and if they need to make profit numbers they will cut whoever execs decide is not essential. As employee there is little you can do about that. No matter how well you do your job.

So yes, you have a better chance of keeping your job if you keep doing it well. But if instead of trusting your company 100% you are not following what is happening in the industry and looking for the next thing (isn’t that free agency?) you can really get screwed. You know all these people who got laid off at IBM, HP, AOL, Yahoo and Sun whose long employment records are scorned by the new crop of tech highfliers. Try getting hired at Google or Facebook if you are over 30. At this rate of change Silicon Valley might end up looking like Detroit in a generation or less. I am not even talking about the implications of trusting your employer if you God forbid work for a newspaper. Lots of people who worked in declining segments of tech have horror stories to tell. Whether declines caused by bubble or old-fashioned market maturation. I am not talking about doing BS personal branding for ego. Just common sense hedging against downside.

Am I a stereotypical cynical X-er or just a realist?

While I won’t dispute the notion that “job security” is harder for many to come by, I’ll make the following points:

1. Unless you work in government, I’m a firm believer that most of the time, if you’re knowledgeable, competent and work hard, you have as decent a shot as anyone at finding employment. There are never any guarantees and times may be tough for a lot of people, but building up a track record of substance goes a lot further than pretending you’re the Derek Jeter of your industry and constantly feeling the need to “promote” yourself as such.

In other words, as I said in my post, the best employees are naturally proactive (they seize the initiative, strive to become indispensable, etc.) – they don’t need to run through some “personal branding” checklist.

2. While there are probably fewer employers that you can rely on for a lifetime job, in many professions (including technology), I don’t see any shortage of employers with long-term potential.

Far too many people have bought into the myth that job security doesn’t exist and thus they believe that they need to be on a constant look out for a “better” job.

In my opinion, this is merely a convenient lie for those who think that greener pastures abound and that they can “get ahead” faster by jumping from company to company.

3. A considerable number of people (probably the majority) are in jobs that are commoditized and/or highly-competitive. The “free agent” approach really doesn’t work for them because they’re easily replaced.

Again, pretending you’re Derek Jeter when you’re really just a pinch hitter is a foolish approach to your career.

Bottom line: employees who consciously think of themselves as “free agents” and buy into the trite process of “personal branding” are usually the employees with big egos who overvalue their contributions and don’t realize that they’re not as smart as they think they are.

The best workers simply do their fucking jobs and they do them well.

I agree that “free agent” BS, especially sold to then-young impressionable souls has done lots of damage that is only recognizeable in the retrospect. Oftentimes you wish you did not burn this or that bridge.

Consider however that a lot of this free agency mindset was result of broken promises to earlier boomer generation. They grew up with expectations of lifetime jobs only to be confronted with mass restructuring and outsourcing. When your job goes away and you are too old to get hired, you are a free agent whether you like it or not.

In a way, perhaps you should think as a free agent (damn, yeah I am CEO of Me Inc. and I risk going to $0 in revenue any day) but not act out with flamboyance of one (I am the CEO, bitch).

Drama 2.0, how would you advise to deal with extinction of job security if not adopt at least some tools from free agency and branding toolbox?