Advantage of Working For Others

The advantage of working for someone else at first is the chance to observe firsthand how other people do business. The graduate can compare what he has learned with what actually goes around him. He can see where mistakes are made in day to day practice and where performance might be improved. Indeed, probably his greatest difficulty at first will be to refrain from offering to show the owner how to run his business. But he had better wait a bit-maybe the owner has a good reasons for his methods.

The beginner will lose nothing by waiting and may learn something worth while. Meanwhile, he can be mastering the details of his own job, which he should do as quickly as possible. He should find out all he can about the job, including its past history and its present importance. Not until he feels that he knows more about his job than anyone else should he feel satisfied. Let him remember that technical excellence is one thing-complete mastery involves more. Technical excellence is doing the job skillfully. Complete mastery is knowing all there is about the job, its history and development, its importance and organization, the various ways of doing the work, and why the present way is the best. With something like here, there is no excuse for failure to master a job, other than laziness or lack of will, if the worker is in good health.

Disadvantage of Working For Others

One disadvantages of working for someone else, after the beginner has mastered the work and through experience has gained confidence in his own ability, is that he may be subject to the whims of his employer and gradually may lose ambition and sense of independence. It is easy to get into a rut and hard to get out of one. In addition, as a person grows older and takes on family responsibilities, he sometimes hesitates to undertake new ventures, lest he be unsuccessful and affect adversely those dependent on him. In other words, he has less courage and boldness and may actually become afraid to cut loose from what he has come to feel is a permanent job, though not wholly a satisfactory one. He settles down into what one businessman has called middle age complacency.