Human resources departments, known as “Talent” in some
places, function somewhat the same for most “Normal” businesses. A normal
business being defined as a company that produces and sells a product and needs
a bunch of people to do that. Generally speaking, this involved hiring,
managing and in some cases firing these people, while also setting all the
rules of the house. The rules are things like dress code, benefits, scheduling,
etc.
What if the “H.R.” of Major League Baseball was applied
to real jobs?
Let’s start with the hiring process. Imagine if instead
of applying for a job and being hired, that you got picked in a draft and then
were forced to work at that company (at least for the first few years? In addition
to that, you and your future colleagues got selected in order of skill or
potential, according to a bunch of folks who watched you perform the job for
free somewhere. They may have also asked you to come to a place to do that job
in front of them with a bunch of others so they can get a look.
That company picks you and hires you. Now what? Well,
you’re not good enough to work for them yet, so they send you to a place to
practice for a while. That place is normally a fraction of a level above hell. They
will compensate you with a tiny portion of what the job really pays, and have
you get around on an old bus and stay in motels. Even with that glamour, there
is absolutely no guarantee that you will ever truly work for the company. The
vast majority of people in this situation end at that level and wind up with a
regular, or normal as noted, job.
Finally the boss informs you that your services are now
needed “For real”. It’s an exciting time as you will now report to the job and
work with some real people. There is a new dress code at the job. You need to
select a number, (much like an employee number, so not too weird there, except
you need to wear it on your back every day so you can be easily identified. The
uniform overall is pretty comfortable, almost like the sweatpants you wear
around the house, or for some people everywhere in public. You also get to wear
a hat to work, but you can’t choose the hat.
Work is going great until one day you feel a little
soreness around the elbow or knee. The company doctor takes a look and decides
you need to take it easy for a while. Management decides to put you on a list
of people who can’t work in intervals of 15 days. They send you home, with pay,
and bring up a new guy to fill in and do your job until you’re feeling better.
In some respects it’s like a “Sick day”, but all the decisions on if you are
sick or not are made by management and you don’t have a choice in that. When
you are deemed ready to return to work your employer sends you somewhere to
practice first just to make sure.
While sitting at your desk one day the boss calls you
into his office. You enter with a smile and exit with a box to pack your
personal effects. It turns out you were traded to a competitor. They are
sending you cross town or cross country to work for another guy. That other guy
is sending someone to your company to work. Sometimes a bunch of you will be
traded at once or one for many. You will likely be doing the same job, just
wearing a different hat. And possible your warm weather residence will become
cool weather or the other way around. You will see your old co-workers from
time-to-time, but it won’t be friendly chat around the water cooler. It will be
fierce competition trying to sell the same product.
One of the nice things about this arrangement is you are
able to, in most cases, dictate how much the company pays you. There is
negotiations, of which you have a guy manage it for you for a piece of the
action. There is a minimum wage, which is likely where you will start, but things
typically move up quickly from there. Every few years or so you can renegotiate
a new salary. Once buttoned up, you are definitely going to receive that pay
for the length of the contract no matter what happens. You can perform badly,
your company can operate poorly or a combination there of. You will want to perform the best you can
though, as that is what leads to the next locked in deal at a higher rate of
pay.
Eventually a time will come where your employer no longer
has his hooks in you. At that point you can stay or are free to leave and can
take a job at any competitor for the best rate you can get. Just about everyone
in the workforce takes advantage of the “leave” option. The last of the one job
Mohicans are retiring from work, with no new guys to take their place. Workers
want different hats over the course of a career. It’s usually for more money,
but occasionally just to go work at a better place.
The time will come, faster than you will think, that
either your employer informs you that you are too “old” to do the job anymore
or you yourself just get sick of doing it. You go from highly employable one
day to a pariah of sorts the next. It’s weird because you feel like you can
still do the job, just not at a level deemed acceptable by anyone. At that point you either totally retire and
take up fishing, or stay in the business, just in another capacity. Instead of
doing the job, you will tell others how to do it. Fortunately those types of
roles don’t have an expiration date.
It’s safe to say that your average Joe would not prefer
the baseball way of it, maybe with the exception of wearing sweatpants to work.
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