Merriam-Webster1 defines feral as “having escaped from domestication and become wild.”
Months ago, Nassim Taleb was posting drafts of chapters from his, at the time, unpublished, new book, Skin in the Game, on Medium. The chapter “How to Legally Own Another Person” outlines how corporations prefer full-time employees to contractors because the employees become dependent on the stability the corporation provides while contractors have the freedom to act more opportunistically.
“Evidence of submission is displayed by the employee’s going through years depriving himself of his personal freedom for nine hours every day, his ritualistic and punctual arrival at an office, his denying himself his own schedule, and his not having beaten up anyone on the way back home after a bad day. He is an obedient, housebroken dog.” – Nassim Taleb, Skin in the Game
I hated this chapter. As a young professional working in a corporation, I despised the idea that I had sold out or given up large amounts of my professional freedom in return for security or stability. I had never seen myself as a “company man.” So I began thinking about how to regain some of my professional autonomy.
Taleb’s description is an extreme scenario, and it’s entirely possible to have a positive relationship with a company that you work for. But what does that kind of relationship look like? Do you have to create it? Or do people just luck out and stumble into a good job?
So why go feral? Because even if your career is going well right now, things can always change. Companies will prioritize their own self preservation above yours. A company may suddenly need you to do work or specialize in something that’s not beneficial to your career – so your relationship with the company can become lopsided. They may decide that your job can be outsourced or experience a slump in incoming work and need to lay people off in order to stay afloat.
Isn’t it better to develop the flexibity to take advantage of as many opportunities as possible should the worst scenario happen?
GoingFeral 