Poaching an egg.

(This isn’t a cooking or food post.)

Where there is measure, there is performance.

Is usually why we try to jump higher, make the soccer team, and play chess harder as kids. It’s why parents kindle our interests at a later stage, and make us work for our daily bread — earlier. It’s all to do about ethics.

Or in this case, the work ethic.

What’s the difference? :

1/ Ethics is mostly a set of undefined, but understood correct-ness - or these patterns across human beings’ ethos (or rules of humanity), in a way of living — a standard for thinking human beings, sllightly affirmed and formed by greek philosophers who made the world a little more bearable than its instances or its natural formats : in physics, working out the “Givens”, training us to deal with how the world is;

2/ Work ethic — is how you behave primarily, not narily in accordance to “what everyone else does” (aka, social norm via popularity, or current stream of thought) but merely the expected of you, and exacted. It’s what you do, despite the norms (almost?), but in terms of less ordinate navigation.

& What does this have to do with anything?

Mostly, it protects our moral nuances - daily ones - that might succumb groups to assess ourselves with, in any civil and civic conduct or code. YOu hear people talking about “moral code”, and “loose morals” - this is where people aren’t really concerned with being better, or a mere measure of morals - this isn’t about measure, it’s about conduct.

A very distinct Example, at work — is when i had been succumbed to being poached (a term you use when employers or people who work for clients search and offer you a better position, & calls you up with “search agency” interviews - even when you are happily at work) - twice.

There is nothing wrong. Don’t get me wrong.

If i am at Company A, and then Company B (or a search agency representing it) calls me up at my workplace, in the middle of a boring lazy meeting in the afternoons — “Um, oh hello, where did you get this number?”

And then, I go through the motions of the old non-idiot-proof half-brain lunacy for about a minute and a half -during the last leg of the meetings where we were probably arguing if the shoot was going to contain product A, or this scene needed another prop citizen/ and maybe, production should get five more people to screen:

1/ Thrill: “Oh, it’s finally happening.”

2/ “Ethical” Response: “Oh, can you leave a message after the beep, i just have a meeting to finish. Or drop me a message or email.”

3/ Worry: “Where the heck am I listed? And why is my number on their deck?”

4/ Curiosity: “Welll, Why the heck not.”

5/ Elation: “Ok, i better wear my new blue suede shoes for that.”

Guilt: “Hmm I wonder if my boss might find out?”

And then, to my super secretary afterwards: “Oh hi Cherry, i want you to route all my calls to my mobile from this number please.”

So, on the day of the naughty meeting with “pirating” agency - she calls (call forwarded, thanks to Cherry) - and says, “Oh the client wanted to meet with you right away. They need someone quiet urgently.”

Now, we connect ourselves via platforms, and it’s a transparency who we speak to, are connected to, and mostly the poachers are in plain view. No secret pirate ships floating without their prospects knowing that they are being watched intently.

(Also, creepy.)

There’s no direct and fail-safe answer but, what i did was tell them that their offer of a Director position, with 120% raise (less than the first time i was pirated/ poached/ offered a role/ position into a different place) and an in-country training in the country assigned to (in America).

I was happily placed in the thick of ethical thing for about three days (i asked for time to decide, since there was a product launch of another variant) that weighs the very tangible thing as: family obligation vs. super-role (as much as a young person in the industry gets) travel and role benefits. As per usual, I wrote a column for PROs: why i should consider moving, and CONs: why i should stay put.

The PROs included: a higher salary, rare opportunity that wasn’t just bi-coastal it was regional and national (it involved a continent/ country move), and a new mobile phone. The CONs included: a possible car in the 4 months, after i launch and a parking lot with my name on it - a higher signing value, and a possible promotion on standby, and the biggest push of it was: it was just a startup on the web (versus my Fortune500 current job).

Was it like deciding to buy Fear of God, versus Citizens of Humanity? Kind of.

• Was i going to be a better person? (the moral angle)
• Was it going to profit from having me direct it? (an early-onset version of the 20s’ imposter syndrome)
• Will i see my friends and family again? (something i could actually ask the HR, consolidate, and settle with “orientation day”)
• Did they have a good team waiting for me? (valid question, i had a Cherry to lose after all — the Scarlet to my mrs. Ironman)

You need to ask all the possible questions -all tangible ones, affecting the move, especially all expat positions, exhausting these, will make your moving and deciding to take up the position, as they offer it (btw, they offered it) - and be willing to know what you are really facing and honestly understand what you are risking/ losing/ and expected to do with all that’s thrown at you to attain that.

(That’s the tangible side.)

So, to answer all these — whether a set of moral rules are to guide us in our decisions to turn from our Team A (from current Company) to Team B (to future Company) — we normally (or in the case of There is No real norm).

Sometimes, it’s a hunch. Sometimes, it’s a period of quiet deliberation. But, mostly, if it’s meant to be. It’s meant to be.

(That’s the intangible side.)

We can certainly turn to conscience, the call to our dearest and nearest (usually a confidante of a non-competitive ally, or work-friend — or a long time childhood school-friend will certainly help clear things up), and the reproach we find ourselves in, is the answer.

Or what would be, in today’s super tech moguls: Is there a moral app for that?