Signing Employment Contracts

By January 29, 2023 Heather

I’ve been reflecting somewhat on all my past employee contracts I’ve signed over the years.

When you sign employment agreements, they can really start to get technical. Seems the more complex the title they want to give you while under the contract brings with it more contractual understandings in the form of policies and termination grounds if the contract isn’t fulfilled.

One of my favorite things that come with title descriptions when applying for employment contracts is “And other duties as assigned by employer”

I think about that.

When you agree to an employment contract that comes packed with dress codes, pay schedules, behavior policies, social expectations, and a list of what your expectations are going to be, there’s that little caveat at the end that basically says, and anything else we think of after we get into the contract.

I don’t necesarialy disagree with that last added comment on most contract descriptions for employment. Heck I’ve written so many title job descriptions over the years that even I like to use that last comment because depending on who you hire and how they do, it allows you both to flex or grow as success comes your way without amending the original contract.

Yet it also means you could be signing up for something you didn’t realize depending on the company goals.

I also think about the titles I’ve been given because we talked about the job needed and shook on it and I signed the paper work the government takes so they can start pulling out their share of my earnings before I get them.

The human resources books created to master employment contracts has become as large as the law books and policy manuals of government. You have to go to school and constantly learn all the new lists of rules and conformities to make sure when someone signs a contract to be your employee, they become what you want with the out of letting them leave when they no longer fit. Yet it also gives you grounds to ask the ones who didn’t turn out to be worth a hill of beans to exit without getting ramifications from the government to pay them unemployment.

So now those who are assisting the people who want to pay people to help them with their business are mastering the new language of vague that allows each to interpret the contract language to best make the right decision regardless.

I hear that as we used all the fancy language and 40+ page contracts for employment to reconfigure them to be basically, do the right thing and we will too.

I guess.

What hits me with all of it, as I listened to  seminar of HR professionals explaining the need for such vague lock tight agreements that can be everything from you will have MLK day off to if we see a tattoo you’ll be asked to go home and change or make sure your slacks aren’t wrinkled to set the tone of your workforce culture… and I was thinking. Isn’t this all kind of a croc?

I am not quite yet formulated on what the best solution is, yet something needs to be switched up as there’s a seemingly growing number of people who learn manuals enough to get by and stick in the rules while being total dweebs.

I’ve signed employment contracts that have deemed me titles from

Waitress

Marketing Director

Director of Media

Corn Detassler

Security Guard

Chief Development Officer

Country Club Manager

Food and Beverage Manager

Youth Services Worker

Painter

Server

I feel like the more technical the job and the bigger the company, the more they dictate how the title you carry defines your life and that your repuation must fit theirs and you become a part of their system.

I’m still not sure how I feel about that either. Some work groups are great and thanks to jobs, you end up making friends long past the contract of duties yet to be assigned.

Thankfully I’ve not had an employment contract terminated against me, I’ve always made the decision when I no longer wanted to be contracted to the job I had in exchange for the wage and health benefits established. For anyone thinking of that, be sure to re-read your policies and employment books so you quit properly. Wouldn’t want to forfeit any benefits over the method to which you request the contract be terminated.

What defines you? What defines me?

Am I am who I am because I had to become the titles to which I gain money or did having the titles push me into who I was to become?

What really is a job in the definition of who we are? I hear about people who retire from their jobs and are absolutely lost because it was such a huge definition of their daily lives. I know others who remember the very last day they had to work for someone else and didn’t look back because they were able to pursue the person they wanted to be when they weren’t tied down to the employment contract for their time.

Is it that a contracted position can be fulfilling and therefore a part of your identity or is it a means to make enough money to leave you enough time to figure out your identity when you are not at work?

Societal branding on what meaningful work is, how it defines us and which are more important than others has kept me up at night with thinking.

Somehow, through all these contracts and procedures and evolution of what work is, we’ve rewarded high pay compensation to shady and corporate roles. In fact, we’ve spent my lifetime hearing that celebrity, blue check marks, heels and ties are where the bank is at.

It’s true. Then we let them all make the decisions for the rest of us and what is deserved for our service.

When I think about how much more money my employment contract pulls in over mechanics, carpenters, senior care aides, garbage men, ugh I could go on.

Sure there’s corruption and bad people in every single work of life, but the same people who taught us sitting in cubicles gets you further than sweeping out public bathrooms got us here.

And the more you make, the more you stay and continue through with how you define your life and what other duties as assigned will be.  

That’s been on my mind lately. Thanks for reading.

Heather

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