Morning Advantage: My Company Loves Me, My Company Loves Me Not
HBR.org 2012-10-24
"Don’t love a financial institution too much, no matter how good it makes you feel sometimes,” writes Bloomberg Businessweek's Bryan Urstadt. “It will never really love you back." This is Urstadt’s insight into Greg Smith's very public New York Times breakup with Goldman Sachs after 12 years of employment. Smith, whose book on Goldman was just released, claims he was morally opposed to how the company treated its clients. But Urstadt also posits that feelings of personal betrayal helped pushed Smith to flee in such a public way. Smith saw himself as one of Goldman’s good guys, but he forgot that the purpose of his beloved company was to make money. In the end, “you really are what you earn, and the client will never trump that.” Having a healthy dose of what Urstadt calls "useful skepticism" can give you enough perspective to avoid feeling crushed if you realize your employer doesn’t hold the values you thought it did. It probably won't land you a book deal. But it can help you gauge how far you’re willing to stick your neck out for a company that may not stick its neck out for you.
SOME DATA FOR YOUR STEREOTYPES?
How Your Job Predicts Your Vote (The Atlantic)
The clichés are true, according to new data from PayScale. People working in education, the arts, and the media tend to vote Democrat, while those in construction, mining, and public administration (which includes military jobs) vote Republican. Doctors and nurses, with Obamacare weighing heavily in this election, are just about split down the middle. Low-income voters lean left, high-income voters lean right, and if you make about $75,000, you're equally as likely to vote for Romney as you are Obama.
Popular Kids Earn More in the Long Run (Washington Post Wonkblog)
According to researchers behind a new working paper, the most popular students graduating from a Wisconsin high school in 1957 earned on average 2 percent more than the rest of their classmates by 1993. That's almost half the average wage boost another year of education can earn you. Why? Because the social traits that make teenagers popular in school also make adults successful at work. And the earlier you learn and employ these skills, the better.
Hammer + Glass Ceiling =
Could a Quota Boost Women into Europe’s Boardrooms? (Ms. Magazine) Nate Silver on Predicting the Unpredictable (HBR) Jobs That Make the World a Worse Place (CNN Money)