The True Security of Transferable Skills

In Part I (about snake oil), I argue that the conventional idea of (stereotypical) 9-5 jobs as “secure” is, in my humble (or perhaps not-so-humble XD) opinion, just plain wrong. That is to say, I think the idea is inaccurate. (To be clear, I’m not trying to claim there’s anything immoral about it.) I don’t think those jobs are secure at all (if they ever were — they certainly haven’t been for everyone, historically speaking).

Actually, it’s worse than that: In this day and age, I’m skeptical about the security of all jobs, not just the 9-5 ones I’ve been talking about. (It just so happens that 9-5 jobs are widely considered to be “secure”, and so I’ve been picking on them. Don’t worry, I think they can handle it. ^.~)

This is not to say that I don’t think one cannot have any kind of security from a job, or from working in general (working for pay, I mean). Here is where things can get a bit confusing because of ambiguous semantics, so let me clarify something:

In my experience, when most people use the term “job security”, what they mean is the kind of security they feel (or would like to feel ‘^^) about their particular job. That is, they (would like to) have the security of not having to worry about getting fired or laid off because they feel their job is secure. That is the kind of “security” that I think is snake oil.

What I don’t think is snake oil at all is the security one can get from feeling like one can get a job — not a specific job, per se, but a job — if and when one needs to. In other words, I’m arguing that what is (or can be) secure is not any particular job in and itself, but the general ability to get a job. That is true security — well, as close to true security as one can get, I think. That kind of security, to whatever degree, comes from oneself — from one’s efforts, capabilities, and resources, plus what one makes of the opportunities one has.

Now, before I go any further, I want to make something extremely clear here. I acknowledge that there are many, many things that make it difficult — sometimes nigh on impossible — for any number of people to get jobs at certain points in their lives, maybe even for much or all of their lives. Notably, a lot of those things are not their fault.

Some people just have the bad luck of being born with certain legacies, including hereditary conditions and genetic predispositions, that act as extra hurdles for them; they enter a world not designed to take them and the way they’re built, so to speak, into account and to accommodate accordingly. Existing infrastructures (e.g., laws, bureaucracy, etc.) dispassionately and yet systematically rig things a certain way, usually to the benefit of the few over the many and certainly to the benefit of the historically advantaged — and their descendants — over the historically disadvantaged. Ignorant and/or careless but otherwise well-meaning people create unnecessary obstacles for other people, sometimes without realising it (arguably because they’re not paying attention when they should be). In some truly awful cases, fully aware and ill-meaning people do everything in their power (which can be substantial, if they benefit from the status quo) to set up barriers and to pull up ladders after themselves, to hoard resources and/or otherwise create gains for themselves at the expense of others.

These are all realities of the world.

So what I am not saying is that, anytime someone cannot get a job, it’s their own fault.

Let me repeat: I am NOT saying that.

What I am saying, however, is that we all have agency and we all have resources. Yes, some of us definitely have more power and more resources granted to us through no individual credit or blame of our own, just by virtue of what we and our forebears have collectively decided, as a society, about how power structures and resource allocations should and do work. But we all have, to some degree or another, personal agency and things (knowledge, people, etc.) we can tap to help us.

Furthermore, in the case of those of us who don’t have immediate survival needs (i.e., food, shelter, and personal safety), at least, our personal agency and resources are such that we have the power to work on improving our skill sets so that we can create opportunities that can help us get — or create for ourselves — jobs that pay for those skills.

It is this kind of “job security” that I am talking about. It is this kind that I am working on, well, securing. I am doing my best to practise and hone a whole suite of skills that, like mental luggage, I can take with me anywhere I decide to go, for the rest of my life (that is, barring any debilitating accidents or catastrophes, personal or political). I’m working on leveling up on skills that are transferable to any future endeavour (income-generating or not).

Skills like practising in public, learning how to learn, entrepreneuring — and of course writing. ^_^

And I’m doing all of this now rather than later for two reasons:

The first reason is that, in what feels to be an ever increasingly uncertain job market (though, again, it’s always felt uncertain for practically my entire adult professional life), it actually feels, to me anyway, like a much smarter bet to just bet on myself. In other words, I’d rather bet on my own ability to learn how to make money for myself than on a company that, sure, would give me a steady paycheck (if I joined as a full-time employee) — but that could also take away that ostensibly steady paycheck by laying me off anytime it pleased. I have no control over the job market; I have no control over an employer; but I have 100% control over myself. (Well, sometimes. On some days. Sorta. Maybe. XD)

Most importantly, when I am my own boss, running my own company (being the company, as it were, when I’m the sole proprietor ‘^^), then I can be sure that the company I am working for — my own — is in line with my values.

And that brings me to the second reason: to come in Part III.