Icarus and Daedalus

You read for years, with sacrifices, angst and anger to get through college and into a good job. You get into a big company, make your parents proud, make money, get a company car, cell phone and credit cards. You eat at the best restaurants, doors are opened to you, your prospects are bright, and suddenly – the light goes out.

You wonder what’s wrong. You think you’ve done everything right. You haven’t stolen anything, you haven’t wronged anyone, you haven’t spoken offensively, you haven’t verbally or physically abused anyone in all your years. You can’t believe this is happening to you.

You find yourself in fewer working groups, you are not asked for your opinion and struggle to speak up. Your results, while good, are somehow presented as inadequate! And you wonder why.

Maybe it’s because:

You learned how to study books, but not how to study people.

Learned to read the market but not the people.

Set goals but became the target instead.

Knowledge is useful, but more useful is knowing how to employ it.

Workplace bullying affects everyone and can happen to anyone, especially among who are not the most vulnerable. This is because the vulnerable categories are almost always protected. The dynamics are reversed.

If you don’t realize that it affects you then you will live like Icarus. You’ll fly high but someone will try to burn your wings off. Then there was Daedalus. We rarely mention him in our thoughts, but he reached his destination! He knew how to move his wings and protect himself from the sun. He made the whole journey, moving correctly with the wind, altitude and temperature.

They were both flyers in the same environment. The sun was a menace to both. The difference was that Daedalus beat the sun, while Icarus was downed by it.

There is always a choice in the work environment: are you an Icarus or a Daedalus.

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