Decisions and Obligations

Life is about making choices. There are a ton of things that you can do, and doing some of those things preclude being able to do anything else. It’s not a pleasant idea, but choices cost us, they cost us dearly. Especially the important choices, like what it is you’re going to do with your life.

In this, you’re on your own. You have to make your own way. When you are faced with a choice, when you have to pick one thing or another, then sometimes that choice is hard- especially if the choice is forced upon you or worse, a circumstance is and you are left without a choice due to your own morality code.

You can do all that you can to mitigate the circumstances. You can make arrangements or pull in favors or you can rely on the kindness of others, but it’s wrong to expect that someone else with whom you may have a business or working relationship to be forced to support or subsidize your life choices that you are responsible for.

If you work for someone and you are faced with a crisis or a situation that will change how your life is going to be lived, why do some feel that it is the responsibility of an employer to subsidize you? If you are not there producing, then that employer has lost that productivity- it’s simple economics.

Like if you were working but you had to leave your job for a year, or even a few months, to take care of your dying parent then you could hope your employer would hold your position or offer to re-employ you when you could return, but sometimes that isn’t possible. They are under no obligation to do so, though most employers I know would hold out as long as possible, especially if you were worth making that accommodation for.

But there are those who would expect that employer to keep paying them as well as keep their (their non-producing) position open; their logic being that it’s a circumstance that came about through no fault of their own, so they shouldn’t have to suffer.

Well, why should the employer suffer? And they do! They suffer loss of income. They are punished for the circumstance of the employee. Why? Because they are successful? Because they have more money? (Maybe)

And then there are people who expect that to take place despite having the circumstance take place through their own actions and decisions.

Should an employer be forced to support you if you make the decision to drink and drive? If you make the decision to improve yourself by traipsing off to India to find yourself? If you decide to take company time to do charity work? “Hey boss, I’m not going to make it in today to help frame that house because I’m building houses for habitat for humanity! I still get paid, right?”

Does that work? Would it work for you if you were an employer?

No, it wouldn’t. And it doesn’t change when your life choices get more intense or more important, even in the grand scheme of things.

Your life is your own. Your decisions are your own. The decisions suck sometimes, but that’s the way things are. If you are lucky enough to have people or employers in your life who will support you or go the extra yard for you, then good for you, you are one of the lucky ones. Be Thankful!

But to expect it to happen, to try and force it to happen through social pressure or, worse, passing laws to punish employers for decisions and issues they have no involvement in is beyond the pale. No matter what the circumstance is.

More and more people are seeing employment as a right. It is no such thing. To expect another person such as an employer to work and pay support you without compensation (your productivity) is well known by another name. Work without compensation is slavery. It is theft.