Do not Leave your Job yet...But

The internet made hiring so easy that people started exploiting employees.

In the beginning, there was a scarcity of workers in the freelance market. Now, there is a scarcity of jobs. Taking advantage of that came founders who didn't want to pay much, yet expected people to work eight hours a day.

It should have been quite the opposite. People freelancing and working internationally from third-world countries should have been paid better because, after all, it's foreign money.

When I started, people around me were doing jobs just to provide for the protein powder they took at the gym. The wage for working eight hours was only that—a can of protein powder.

Of course, many of these people were starters, not that skilled, so it must've been good for them, right?

Not so fast.

Not until they continue getting exploited for eight hours a day, for years, sitting in front of a desk and attending useless meetings for a quarter of it.

In the long run, it ruins their self-esteem. Their skills improve, but the wage doesn't. And it's often easy to replace you. The replacement is already waiting in the hiring pool.

Everybody knows—even the few who are getting fair pay—that something is quite wrong with the culture. Yet, no one questions it.

Despite all this hassle, a couple of people like me stayed because of the experience and the network. I have got quite mixed feelings about this particular culture.

After so much of the same cycle going on and on, I was about to quit a couple of times, but I couldn't. The security of being in a continuous job lured me.

Eventually, I reached the point where I was promoted. Looking back, though, I was only one of the rare ones. For most people, it was the same brutal cycle of international firms and their relationship with remote employees from third-world countries.

I was about to leave the firm to focus on my studies, and I thought about getting a part-time job somewhere else.

That's where something clicked.

People are willing to pay you.

All you have to do is be in the right moment and execute on the right opportunity with your specific knowledge.

Specific knowledge is a term coined by Naval Ravikant:

"I have some sales skills, which is a form of specific knowledge. I have some analytical skills on how to make money. And I have this ability to absorb data, obsess about it, and break it down—that is a specific skill that I have. I also love tinkering with technology. And all of this stuff feels like play to me, but it looks like work to others."

And that came with a thought.

After nearly two years of being in the marketing firm, I wasn't really doing one thing. I was gathering a stack of things—design, management, and persuasion.

Right at that moment, when I left the firm, I could apply them all into one single thing.

I did so.

I have more time to focus on my studies (em... still I don't; it's getting boring day by day), I work a quarter of the amount I used to, yet I am really focused.

I took time to build a site and write around philosophy, where my interest is. And I know this is the Pathless Path Paul Millerd talks about.

There is no certainty whatsoever.

The journey was okay, but it didn't have to be such to achieve this.

Looking back, I am glad that I stayed in the firm long enough for the network and the specific skills to be earned. Nonetheless, I don't think any company needs to treat employees the way many of these firms do when hiring people from third-world countries with wages that are far below even their own national average.

If a company owner indeed thinks that this is the source of the company's success, it's a fallacy.

In other words, it's the fallacy of concluding that one thing caused another simply because they are regularly associated.

If you're a worker going through this issue, I'd recommend you take the time to really evaluate your situation.

Sticking with a company might be worth it.

But you don't have to suffocate yourself by being underpaid while doing so.