When I started working after college, I was told by the employer that there were basically two kinds of employment in the company. One was as contract hires, another was as regular hires.
It was the first time my colleagues and I heard the term “regular” and we wondered why did the company chose to use “regular” instead of “permanent”. In school, in college, we have always thought back then, there were only contract hires and permanent hires. Wasn’t that the term people usually use, that was if we were looking for a contract job or a permanent job?
Along the way, we found out the hard truth that there is no such thing as permanent hires because as an employee in any company, we are disposable. We are just a number, a statistic. In the company’s financial and business reports, we are part of a headcount cost.
Every year, the company decides who should stay and who should go, and with that, how many new people they should hire. Every year, I see people come and people go, by the wish of the company. Permanent hire seems such a facade at the end of the day, especially so today with automation being the key mode of operation in most companies seeking to reduce cost.
Whenever I heard people proudly claimed that they were permanent hires, I clenched my teeth, so wanting to tell them the sad truth. There is no such thing as a permanent hire. We can be let go as and when they please, even if we sacrificed our lives for the work that we do. Loyalty doesn’t pay. Money and numbers matter more than anything else.
It is the same with any earnings that we get. What we get today, what we have achieved today will not be forever. Things can happen tomorrow and everything may come to an end, just like that. Life can end just like that and most times, there is nothing we can do about it.
Then I thought, hey, aren’t some things permanent. like the seemingly painful inking of tattoos? The process is painful, inking the skin dot by dot, line by line to a point of bleeding during the sometimes seemingly gruesome process whenever I watch “Miami Ink”. I thought it was, until I saw and read that tattoos can be removed through laser. There are natural methods too such as using salt, honey, lemon or aloe vera which can be found online. Some tattoos can be removed very cleanly from the skin while some may still leave some light stains or scar.
It then brings me to scars and stains. They are quite permanent right? Not really either. Scars can now be removed by medication or some natural method too. There are creams that are available over the counter to lessen the effects of scars, even old scars.
And even if one argues about mental scars or painful memories of the past, over time, the scar can be less deep if we choose to do something about it, to heal, if we choose to forgive and forget. We may not forget entirely but the effect of it on us, can be lessened if we let it. Death is one. Painful memories of losing someone, at that point in time may seem like forever, but after time passes, the pain lessens.
I guess, the bottom line is, I think nothing is truly permanent if it is something beyond our control, or if it something within our control and we choose to do something about it, or if it is something that can be done about it, things are not truly permanent after all. Hey, even permanent markers, supposedly said to be permanent, can still be removed using alcohol or hand sanitizer.
That is true. In reality, there is no such thing as permanent employee. Even being a regular employee you are still not safe from being removed from your job. 😞