A Runt’s Rant: Meritocracy, Oh Where Hath Thee Gone?

The better you do, the further you get.

Yeah, keep telling yourself that. In fact, keep telling everyone else that. And then, please do write a book on it.

On how important it is to do extremely well in order to get extremely successful.

Because I’ve never seen one of those before. Ever.

But let’s be honest here, shall we? Let’s rant away for a second.

Say you’re fresh out of university and you have just started your first job in your so desired sector.

You walk in, you introduce yourself to everyone, you forget their names in a fraction of a second and then sit down and do some work; some serious, strenuous and voluminous work, indeed.

In the end, you do so well that you are lulled in a false sense of security which, in defiance to the little common sense and logic that you might have left, instills an image of grandeur and possible promotion in your fragile and exhausted mind.

You walk around with an air of omnipotence, expectant and hopeful, doing even more work than before.

And then the logical thing happens- someone sneaks up and, with the extra sharp needle or reality, pops your big head in a million tiny pieces.

Regardless of how well you have been doing lately or that you have completely obliterated your sales/customer service/ etc, etc. targets, you have been, indirectly advised, that your promotion will only come with a level of seniority which you do not yet possess.

Long are times gone, it would seem, when you could climb to the very top by being the most ambitious, hard- working and productive employee that the company had seen.

Because of the above hierarchical approach that many a companies in the UK have currently adopted, the route to success is often the following:

1. You get into a company.
2. You work extremely hard and become the best at what you do.
3. Your job no longer presents you with a sufficiently challenging environment.
4. You want to move up. But you can’t because you have only worked for the company for so long.
5. You start looking around.
6. You are headhunted and placed in a new company at a more senior and better- paid position owing to your experience.
7. Repeat steps 1-6.

And then some employers have the nerve to comment on their employees’ loyalty and devotion.

Here is how the cookie crumbles, dough (hilarious, I know). If you value your employees and reward their efforts by presenting them with new opportunities and duties and a better remuneration, they will work even harder and remain with your company through fire and ice.

Sadly, however, very few employers these days seem to care about the above notion of mutual loyalty. In time of economic downturn and rising unemployment, an employer can afford losing an employee regardless of how valuable he or she is.

Why?

Well, because there are about three- hundred people waiting to be employed at his/her position.

The distorted reality of it all is that you either PLAY ball and stay with your company for X years before climbing up or you jump from employer to employer, as a ball DOES, hoping that your potential and efforts will be appreciated and properly rewarded.

One could argue that there had never been anything ‘merry’ about meritocracy.

One could also, though, go

To Hell With It!