Paying Your Dues

As someone who has been in the position of hiring and leading people for many years, I feel like I know what I’m talking about when it comes to general trends in work ethic and attitude. The majority of people I’ve led through the years have consisted of folks from the tail end of Generation Y, and Generation Z as a whole. The most consistent trend I’ve seen in those groups’ attitudes is the detestment of “paying their dues”.

I’ve mentioned Frank Branson before and how he said some things through the years that have stuck with me. I’m about to lay another one on you now. He once said that the problem with the modern generation is that they want to start their adult life with what they see their parents finishing theirs with. He went on to elaborate on this idea by explaining that young folks come out of school and immediately want that high-paying job as a manager of some kind. They want that three-bedroom house, with two new vehicles in the garage. They want that pool in the backyard. And they want to take nice vacations every year. The same things they see that their parents have.

But what they don’t see is all the years of hard work that made all of that possible. They don’t see that their parents started their life in a one-bedroom house with one used car that they shared. They don’t see all of the years there was no vacation. They don’t see how their parents started at the bottom of the company they work for and had to work their way up. They didn’t see the additions to that house over the years as their parents progressed in life. In short, they didn’t get to watch their parents pay their dues.

The world we live in today tells you to reach out and take success now. That you deserve that better life. The world shows us people living the high life on every social media channel out there. The world glamorizes the end result without focusing on the back story behind that life. It doesn’t show you the years spent paying dues.

I’ve lived this in both my business life as well as my personal life. On the business side of things, I’ve hired a great many people. And when I put them to work, it didn’t take very long for them to grow unhappy with what I had them doing.

In the team environment that we employed on projects, everyone had a role. Some tasks were better than others. But everyone new to the team started on one of the less enjoyable jobs. As a growing company, I was always building more teams to cover more projects. As that happened, members of the one team would break off to form the nucleus of the next team. That allowed other members of the team to move up to more desirable roles on the team, and I’d hire more new people to take on those less desirable roles that needed to be filled. There was a progression to it.

Oftentimes, new people I would hire wouldn’t stay with us long. They’d start on one of the lower jobs and almost immediately start asking to do one of the other jobs that they saw as more desirable. I would explain to them that their time would come. And most of the time, the people who weren’t happy with their roles would leave the company to go start over somewhere else. I seriously doubt they started at the top wherever they ended up.

Intentional or not, that was a form of paying dues. While some college professors tell their students to take life by the horns and don’t take no for an answer, that’s generally not how the professional world works. Most companies don’t hire someone fresh out of college and put them managing the whole business. They put them in lesser roles until they have paid their dues and proven themselves.

So now let me relate to you my own story about paying dues. Even I’m not immune to dissatisfaction with the idea. Years ago I took a job on a trial basis. This was for the same company I was referencing above. It was just me and another guy working on projects, and he was the boss. It didn’t take long for us to make a good impression and secure a contract for our company. The other guy left and I was put in charge. We were making a huge leap from two of us, to instantly needing 5 teams for a total of 65 people. I ran that division of the company for years and grew it to incredible heights.

My division was just one of several divisions in a larger company. The owner of the company was my biggest fan and was constantly telling me that one day I would run the whole company. After several years of doing what I was doing, I grew restless with the idea of just running one division and thought I could do more. A whole lot more. Like, run the entire company. I let my unhappiness override me and it soured my attitude. I wanted it all, and I wanted it now. This unhappiness led me to give up everything I had built and leave the company.

The owner and I have talked numerous times since then, and he always tells me how I screwed up and what I threw away. He fully intended for me to run his company at some point, but I had to pay my dues first. I had proven to him that I could successfully run the division, and the company, but he wanted to see that I was committed to the long term. He wasn’t going to just turn his company over to me on a whim. As it turns out, he was right in waiting, as I proved to him that I wasn’t in it for the long haul by quitting. I couldn’t see that then, and only gained a full appreciation for what I cost myself after the fact. I didn’t pay my dues. I wanted it then, and wasn’t willing to put in all of the work necessary to get to the real prize.

I tell this story here to illustrate the point that paying your dues can come in a lot of various forms. It may come in the form of having to do a very undesirable job to advance to a better one. It may come in the form of having to work long hours for a while to eventually get to the point of working fewer hours. It could come in the form of having to go into the office while everyone else gets to work remotely before you get your opportunity to do the same. It can come in the form of proving yourself in a lesser-paying role to get that higher salary later on. But in everything in life, you’re going to have to pay some dues. And the earlier you come to grips with that, the better off you’re going to find yourself.

- Mick

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