Sunday Scaries: If only we could Benjamin Button our careers

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In case you’re unfamiliar with the movie, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is a 2008 movie staring Brad Pitt in which the key character who ages in reverse.

Translating this obviously highly fictional and impossible scenario (trying to be really clear that I’m very aware this can’t and won’t happen, for all the cranky Charlie’s out there) to the journey our careers often take is a fun exercise. Fun for me at least, perhaps I need more hobbies.

Traditionally, you start your career in the lowest paid roles with the least responsibility and work your way up to more money and responsibility.

By the time you get to the top of the corporate ladder, you’ve got one eye on retirement and life has passed you by. You spent all that energy and freedom in your 20s and early 30s (by the time you get to like 35 the energy and the freedom and the knees tend to start their decline. I KNOW this isn’t the case for everyone, please don’t get out of your ice bath and risk spilling your bone broth to argue with me), but imagine this corporate ladder was reversed in some ways.

So if we were to Benjamin Button our careers, maybe we don’t give the “Juniors” the most responsibility straight off the bat, but maybe we start their pay high and they work part time or travel the world working from different countries.

Then as their career progresses, their salary decreases almost like they’ve been given an advance on their salary. This way they have more money and time to travel while they are young and single and don’t need 8 hours sleep & a special pillow every night.

The extra money they have to invest compounds, so by the time they’re in their 40s they’ve lived an extra fulfilling life and are ready to settle into the 9-5. If having kids is in their life plan, they can do that having already done Ibiza and not try to figure out how they could do that trip AND leave the kids behind.

Now you’re probably thinking why would someone keep working in their 40s and beyond if they’ve already made their money and lived a good life?

The fictional Benjamin Button Program ™️ would be opt in but also regulated by the Government. Try to make the money young and run? They will hunt you down and you’ll be jailed, forced into military service of even worse; you’ll have to make videos like this every day of your life:

kpmgcanada

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Maybe this falls under some form of communism or radical socialist idealism but let me ask it more simply or realistically; would you sign an unbreakable 5 year contract with a company if the salary was front loaded?

For example;

Year 1 $200,000.

Year 2 $180,000.

Year 3 $150,000

Year 4 $120,000

Year 5 $100,000

Breaking the contract or fleeing the country isn’t an option, it’s an iron clad legal contract. Would you do it?

So while we can’t quite Benjamin Button our careers, I wonder if we’ll ever see a shift from traditional corporate ladder we’ve always tried to climb?

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