Retirement: The Collapse of Identity and Market Rejection Faced by Individuals Who Have Lost Their Corporate Shield
The moment you lose the greenhouse that is your company, you are assessed as zero in the market.
“I am a department manager at a major corporation.”
“I have managed projects worth hundreds of billions of yen.”
Many middle-aged salarymen who aspire to side jobs or independence mistake these glorious career histories for “human capital.”
However, from a cold, objective perspective, these are not individual capabilities, but merely external resources provided by the greenhouse of an organization.
The moment you step outside the company, the business card or title that proved “who you are” holds no value in the market.
What you are confronted with there is the added value that you as an individual can generate—in other words, your “naked market value.”
A fatal cognitive bias that many employees fall into is confusing the “credit” of their organization with their own “ability.”
The reason you were able to close a major deal is not because you are talented, but simply because you had the overwhelming financial assets and social capital of the organization behind you.
In economics, this is called “rent.” As long as you are inside the greenhouse, you are protected and can receive compensation that exceeds your actual ability.
However, in the exposed market of side jobs, clients will not pay for your past job titles. The only thing they ask is a pragmatic utilitarian question: “What benefit can you bring me at this very moment?”
Here, a terrifying phenomenon occurs.
People who were considered “talented” within their organization are suddenly faced with a “zero assessment” the moment they enter the market.
This is because most of the skills they have polished over the years are “in-house software” that only functions on the specific OS of that company.
The techniques for maneuvering behind the scenes, the knack for office politics, and the understanding of specific approval routes—these are powerful weapons within an organization, but in the external market, they are completely “dead stock.”
In terms of evolutionary psychology, humans are extremely sensitive to signals of status.
High status within an organization provides an environment favorable for survival. Therefore, we unconsciously mistake that status for our own essence, inflating our narcissism.
However, narcissism does not work with the algorithm of the market.
There is no warmth of a greenhouse there, nor is there any consideration for years of loyalty. All that exists is a mathematical calculation of whether the service you provide is “worth the cost.”
When people start a side job and are faced with the reality that no one cares about them, or that they can only find low-paying labor, many lament that “society is wrong.”
But it is not society that is wrong; it is your own “self-assessment.”
Until now, you have merely lived by leveraging the “leverage” of your company’s name. When that leverage is removed, many people cannot bear the smallness of the “naked self” that remains, and they flee back to the uncomfortable security of the greenhouse.
If you truly want to be free, you must first begin with the despair of accepting that you are “zero.”
A Copernican shift in perspective from “what can I do” to “what does the market need, and how can I provide it.”
Breaking the addiction to the company’s name and coldly evaluating yourself as an asset at current market value.
That may be the only starting line for jumping out of the greenhouse and surviving in the harsh but free market.
#SideJobHellscapeSeries Index
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