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a salesman. Perhaps the more interesting question is whether he ever stopped to ask if being a salesman would continue to give him the future he expected. That question matters even more today. We spend a lot of time thinking about how good we are at our jobs. Perhaps we should spend more time thinking about whether the world will continue to value the jobs we’re becoming so good at. Things have been particularly difficult for white-collar workers lately. Skills that were considered highly valuable yesterday are being questioned again today. But beyond all of this, there is a bigger risk: being in an industry that is itself in decline.
Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman was written more than 75 years ago, but there’s something about Willy Loman’s story that feels particularly relevant today.
Because by then, you are not just losing your job. You also have to think about how to transfer years of experience into another industry, how to reposition yourself and how to find a new path among far more limited options. Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman was written more than 75 years ago, but there’s something about Willy Loman’s story that feels particularly relevant today. He spent his working life believing that experience, relationships and reputation would give him professional security. As he gets older, he discovers that the working world no longer values him in quite the way he believed it would. Willy Loman’s problem wasn’t that he suddenly forgot how to be
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GLOBAL PAYROLL MAGAZINE ISSUE 27
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