Replaceable me in a corporate world

I often encounter naive people who talk about how everything will become disaster if the person leaves the team. That's only true for someone who's very specialized in something (researcher, professor etc). However, at a commercial company, most of us is doing non-creative, repeatable tasks. This means that everyone is easily replaceable.

I'm sorry if this has never occurred to you. Please recall what you do at work.

You compose an email
You call a meeting
You execute your core competency (project plan, product manage, coding etc)
You communicate with stakeholders
You coordinate sh*tty work

Your replacement might not be as efficient as you at day one but eventually, the person will get there - acquire same knowledge as you do. That's how a company works. Your team / company will run totally fine without you.

That's not an exception for me either and I'm totally fine with that part because anyone can do my job just fine, seriously. Note that I will not go further to say that robot can do my job because anything involves grey area decision making requires humans' judgement. Humans are better at handling those grey area than robot in my opinion.

So, what am I ranting about? The question here is how long you want to be a piece of replaceable parts in a corporate world. I need income to support my family and I'm only skilled to do what I'm doing now. Hence, I need to work in this corporate world until I retire. Along the way, you try to motivate yourself by climbing the corporate ladder, find a new challenge to work on.

However, when I step back, I realize that it's risk-averse me that's preventing myself to go and explore more opportunities (volunteering, gardening, culinary) in the world. I'm especially bad among my friends. Some of my friends work at a corporate and explore other opportunities (multi-tasking). There are many people out there who also paused their corporate life moment. I see some people who absolutely loved their decision. I hear some people who came back to corporate world after-all.

I'm still a little bit confused with what I want to or should do here. However, I think we all should give ourselves moment to breath and reconsider what kind of life we really want to live before we hit our retirement age. At least it's spring time, so we should take this moment to think about it :)

Today's featured shopping list:
Deep breath... Rethink your life...

Homemade Croissant

My kids love croissant. French croissant is very buttery and flaky. I love them too. However, the good ones will cost me several bucks per croissant if I buy it from a French bakery in the U.S. Last year, I decided to make them myself. I tried many recipes. This one is not as complicated and it tastes good. Warning - it is tasty but it doesn't taste like the ones from the bakery. Kitchenware you will need : Baking pan Parchment sheet Plastic wrap Rolling pin Ingredients you will need : Bread flour 300 g Sugar 30 g Salt 4 g Dry active yeast 7 g Egg (beaten) 1 Milk (warm) 150 ml Butter (chop into small cubic pieces) 30 g Butter for filling 1 stick or 115 g Step 1: Add ingredients #1 to #7 into a bowl. Put #8 (a stick of butter) between two plastic wrap. Tip : Put sugar and yeast side by side and add milk (pour it on sugar side). Then, add bread flour, salt, egg and butter. Step 2: Mix the ingredients in the bowl by hand (about few minutes). Cover the bowl ...

How to make Dorayaki

Have you had a Japanese traditional sweets Dorayaki ? People from western Japan call it Mikasa as well. I usually add red bean paste and mochi inside Dorayaki. This is my kids' favorite. I will introduce you how to make your own red bean paste / mochi in another time. Ingredients for Dorayaki shell (Makes about 8) Egg 3 Cane sugar 150g Honey 1 tbsp Mirin 1 tbsp Baking powder 1tsp + Water 50cc ... (A) Cake flour 180g Water 50cc ... (B) Step 1 - Prepare all the ingredients Step 2 - Whip egg and sugar until it falls like a ribbon shape and the trace disappears Step 3 - Add below into the mix in the order Add honey and Mirin and mix Add solution A and mix Step 4 - Add the cake flour using spatula. When you mix. mix it like by cutting Step 5 - Refrigerate it for 30 minutes Step 6 - Take it out from the refrigerator. Add water (B) and mix it well. Step 7 - Fry it in non-stick pan in low heat. I usually use ladle and drop the mix from a hig...

Chinese Sweet Green Bean Soup in TaTong pot

Chinese green bean soup is my favorite sweet soup. It is refreshing either eat it in cold or warm. We usually eat this in summer time as it "cools" you down. Ingredients: Green beans 1 cup Water 9 cups White sugars 3~4 Tbsp Step 1: Wash the green beans and add water Step 2: Add 1.5 cups of water in outer pot (about 40 min). Once done, steam it for 20 minutes. Then, add sugars.

Sucky Sweet Life

Search This Blog