Compensate

When even a salary can be called compensation, this concept is another very ingrained one that should be re-examined. Employment is still widely viewed as "time served" (even though most people won't use this phrase used for prison sentences) so we need to be compensated for it. This assumes contribution is relative to time regardless of quality or contribution. So there are jobs around that are really unnecessary but are there to keep employment alive.

It is assumed that we need to bear with work we have gotten tired of, or never liked just to pay the bills. This is needed to a point. And the truth of it depends on the world working like a machine that is set to operate at a certain speed. We all should benefit as the economy grows as the machine make goods and services for profit.

As this model becomes outdated because machines can now be reprogrammed to do new work more easily than ever, we are already seeking new ways to live, work and grow. I have rambled on about the paradigm shift happening all around us for a lot of this blog. The title "From Dino's to Birds" is to highlight the depth and breadth of this impending change.

Nature does not really allow for much compensation. If you loose sleep, the price is to your health. The payment cannot be compensated by making up the lost time the next day. We need time for the body to heal from the loss whose negative effects can mount up to cause long term health and psychological problems.

Consumerism is the compensation the industrial age promises us. The goods and services we can buy with our salary (that compensation for our time spent as a cog in the industrial machine) should be able to satisfy the opportunity cost of our time contribution.

Before computers revolutionized mass data in corporations in the 70's, "seniority" was the word for how long a person has worked in a company and should be promoted accordingly. The performance evaluations that became the norm in the 80's are a sign of how information technology has freed management to rationalize performance as the primary factor for promotion.

But with all the focus on quality, it seems "going to work" to gain compensation for time lost is still the cycle for making a living.

Like sleep, if we do something we don't like without any prospect for change, cannot compensate for the potential we may be giving up. The relationships that are hurt, missing out on the lives of our growing children, the revealing experience of caring for aging relatives... it is obvious that these things have nothing to do with the industrial machine and the related monetary compensation.

It is time to put value on personal lives as a way to pay each other. Roles and responsibilities should be revised to reflect how our lives are now growing more like a tapestry of interwoven relationships rather than a hierarchical pyramid. Opportunity cost and return can now be individualized.

Time should be valued and preserved for family and important friendships. We should pay each other to help the helpless, solve problems, create new opportunities for the poor, teach our children, love our elderly.... Leave the mundane jobs for robots and grow the human spirit.

Compensation as a concept should disappear if we are striving to create value together. Men and women need to contribute equally. It seems what I'm saying is really intuitive to most women and takes a lot more convincing for men to see clearly. That's why this song is sung by 3 women.