Why you should choose your next job like you’re choosing a husband
The last few days have been hard
If you haven’t already heard, Paystack has closed down its operations in the UAE and Europe, and it means we’ve had to part ways with some amazing people.
The news hit me hard.
Some of the people impacted are my closest friends. People I’ve worked with for years. Whose stories have become intertwined with my own.
In a year where I’ve had to deal with a level of loss that almost destroyed me, “losing” more people is devastating.
And in the days following the announcement, one thing has hit me harder than ever.
Choosing a job is more like choosing a husband than most will admit.
That might seem like a crazy thing to say. So let me give some context into why I say it.
In most parts of the world, the man is the head of the family. He is the decider. He forges and chooses the path. And most girls (especially in these parts of the world) are raised to accept the fact that they will have to submit to their husbands' rule.
And what is submission?
Submission is the act of yielding decision-making to someone else and abiding by the laws they set.
When a woman chooses a husband and agrees to submit to him as the head of the household, she is saying to him: “I trust that you are going to make decisions that are good for all of us. And I will abide by them regardless of what my experience, feelings or advisors tell me. I won’t always like it, and in those times I will hope that sometimes I can sway you to my way of thinking. But when push comes to shove, when there are no compromises that can be made, I will yield”
This leap of faith that women take when choosing a spouse is fairly unique. Not in what it asks of us, but in the fact that we have to choose to do it. We submit to other people every day. We submit to our parents, our teachers, our government, our culture and so many more, but those people are often chosen for us. Baked into where and to whom we are born or where we choose to live.
Rarely is it a singular individual choice.
The only other time I can think of when an individual chooses the person to submit to is when we choose our employer.
When you go to work for someone (especially when it is a small company), in a way you are putting your life in their hands. Their decisions will have a massive impact on your day-to-day life. And if you choose wrong, it can warp your future in horrible ways.
That’s why it’s so important to choose well.
