How to Be Tamed: The Survival and Evolution of the Novice in the Workplace

Nowadays, the post-00s generation has begun to enter the workplace. As the front wave, I was lying on the soft beach. Looking back, I saw a group of cheerful young people moving forward full of ideals and confidence. I endured it again and again, but I couldn't hold it in anymore, so I decided to do something I hated most when I was young: teach young people a lesson.

Back then, as a young man, I firmly believed that living out oneself was the primary goal, and I would never be willing to be domesticated by this society. As you can imagine, I got scared and even started to think about the problem from the company's perspective. My experience is that society is a big dye vat, and the company is a small dye vat. The purpose of a company's existence is to maximize the interests of shareholders. What it has to do is to domesticate its employees, so that employees can become the company's "human resources" and create value for the company. If there is a stupid young man who believes in Kant and must believe that people are ends rather than means, then he may not be suitable for survival in the workplace. If you want to prosper in a company, you must understand how the company domesticates its employees. If you insist on being yourself, engaging in freelancing as an artist or a network anchor is a relatively good choice, but you cannot escape the baptism of society. Even if your paintings are brilliant, if no one appreciates them and you can't sell them, you will eventually starve to death. The only way out is to bow to society and paint something that the masses like to see. Therefore, what you have to do is very simple, just two words: give in.

In order to make it clear why companies domesticate their employees, let’s take a look at how humans domesticate animals. Not only have animals’ living space been occupied by humans, some animals have been enslaved by humans, doing heavy physical work, and even being killed by humans and processed into various meat products. Although the company does not enslave its employees, it uses a similar method to tame them, euphemistically called "growing with the company." But think about it from another perspective, if employees have no value or have very little value, is the company willing to grow with them? Opened early.

There are approximately 32 billion domestic animals on Earth. Humans domesticated animals mainly for the following purposes: to provide meat, milk fat, fertilizer and to pull plows. People today typically get most animal protein from cows, pigs, sheep, and chickens. Mammals that can produce milk mainly include cows, sheep, horses, etc. Compared with killing animals for meat, people get several times more calories from milk. From an agricultural perspective, animal excrement can be used as fertilizer. Even if modern factories produce synthetic fertilizers, the main source of raw materials is still animal excrement - especially cow dung. Moreover, animals such as oxen, horses, and buffaloes were also used to pull plows and carts. Animal furs can be made into clothes, roosters can also serve as alarm clocks, and dogs can guard homes and homes. In short, people domesticate animals because they have value. Therefore, the first thing to do in the workplace is to figure out: What is your value?

Since the beginning of agricultural civilization, humans have tried to domesticate various animals. However, only 14 species of large mammals in the world have been successfully domesticated. Moreover, 13 of these 14 domesticated animals are produced in the Eurasian continent. There is only one species in the Americas, the alpaca. In addition to being edible, this animal can also provide some plush and leather. Since alpacas are weak and cannot ride or pull plows, they are not particularly useful. Since there are no horses in the Americas, their combat effectiveness is bound to be low when facing European cavalry. This is not to say that the primitive ancestors of Africa and the Americas did not domesticate animals. This is a matter of luck: not all animals are suitable for domestication, and by the same token, not everyone is suitable for survival in the workplace. From an animal perspective, animals suitable for human domestication must have the following characteristics:

1. Animals should not eat too much, and they should not be picky eaters. It is best to be vegetarian. Generally speaking, only about 10% of food is converted into meat in animals. That is, to produce 1 kilogram of beef, 10 kilograms of forage are needed; if you want to produce 1 kilogram of carnivores, you need 100 kilograms of forage, which is obviously a loss, so people will not domesticate carnivores for the purpose of eating meat. In addition, some animals are too picky eaters, such as pandas and koalas, and only eat one kind of food, which will increase the cost of raising them.

2. The second characteristic of humans domesticating animals is that the animals grow faster. This excludes gorillas and elephants. Although they are vegetarians, they are definitely not picky eaters, and they have a lot of meat on their bodies. But it takes them 15 years to grow to their adult size. Humans don't have the patience, so they are not suitable for domestication.

3. The third characteristic of domesticated animals is that the animals must be suitable for captive breeding. To be kept in captivity, they must be social animals, not territorial, and must be adaptable to having sex in public. At that time, an emperor of the Mughal Empire in India kept 1,000 cheetahs in captivity because cheetahs had much better hunting abilities than dogs, but it was too difficult to breed cheetahs in captivity.

4. Domesticated animals must be docile. An obvious example is the grizzly bear. Bear meat is an expensive delicacy. Grizzly bears can weigh up to 1,700 pounds. They eat a mainly vegetarian diet and eat a wide range of foods. They grow relatively quickly. The problem is that grizzly bears like to live freely, and if kept in captivity for a long time, grizzly bears may commit suicide. Another animal is the African bison, which can quickly grow to weigh one ton, but it has a bad temper and cannot be controlled by humans, so it is not suitable for domestication. The correct approach is to kill and eat it when it is young. Same problem with hippos. Hippos kill more people every year than any other mammal in Africa, even lions.

There is also the zebra, which has a fatal flaw, that is, it has a very bad temper when it grows up. The most annoying thing is that it bites people and will not let go, and it is absolutely forbidden to use a lasso on them.

In short, whether animals can be domesticated depends on strict conditions. Employees who can thrive in the workplace also need to possess some of the above-mentioned characteristics of domesticated animals. First of all, the cost must be low and the output high, that is, the company's net income must be positive, and the company will not engage in loss-making transactions. In addition, if employees have too strong personal awareness, it will be a thorn in the side and will increase the company's management costs. A cheetah and a pack of dogs, the company will choose a pack of dogs. Third, employees must grow quickly. The company will pay the cost of necessary training or training, but it must be controllable. The company is not a school, not a cradle of talents, and does not give employees much time to grow. Survival of the fittest is the law of survival, and both employees and the company must abide by it.

Next, let’s look at a few animals that have been successfully domesticated by humans, which can serve as a reference for newbies in the workplace.

Let’s talk about dogs first. There are currently about 400 million dogs on the earth. Compared with dogs’ close relatives, there are only 200,000 gray wolves left. It can be said that dogs have evolved very successfully. This is mainly due to the fact that dogs have chosen a very successful survival strategy: attaching themselves to people. Although wolves travel thousands of miles to eat meat, and dogs travel thousands of miles to eat shit, and wolves live freely and unruly, judging from the population size, there are 2,000 times more dogs than wolves! Whether they are unruly or begging for mercy, whether they are unruly or relying on human power, from the perspective of nature, population size is the most critical indicator. Of course, dogs work hard enough. In addition to hunting and fighting, dogs can also serve as sentries. In addition, dogs will please humans in various ways, even to the point of giving up themselves. Judging from the appearance of dogs, dogs will look like what humans like. Small ones include teacup dogs, and large ones include German blackbacks. Dogs may be the species with the most diverse appearance on the planet. Moreover, after human breeding, dogs also have various functions, including hunting, sledding, drug detection, and guiding the blind. At the same time, dogs are also the most considerate of human emotions and can communicate well with humans, so they are also It received a lot of care from humans, so it was easier to survive.

However, some people think that dogs have sacrificed their freedom and dignity in exchange for all this, and they despise dogs. In Chinese culture, dogs are mostly used to curse people. This is a prejudice against dogs. In the workplace, we need to learn the adaptability of dogs. Just like in the competition for survival, it doesn't matter what survival strategy a species adopts, staying alive is the key. Take the panda, for example. This guy's survival strategy is even more different. He can't do anything but act cute, and he's also picky about food. But just being cute is enough to conquer mankind and even become a national treasure. We will not judge the value of the dog's strategy for the time being, but in fact, the dog succeeded.

After talking about dogs, let’s talk about chickens. There are now about 1 billion sheep, 1 billion pigs, more than 1 billion cattle, and more than 25 billion chickens in the world, and they are spread all over the world. Domestic chickens are the most ubiquitous birds of all time. According to the standard of evolution, success depends on the number of copies of DNA, so chickens are also quite successful species. Like dogs, chickens’ success is also due to their successful integration into human life. At the same time, humans are also very dependent on chicken. It is the most important source of protein for humans, and it is so important that it can even affect the global economy or international politics. For example, in 2012, millions of chickens were killed in Mexico due to bird flu, causing egg prices to soar. People marched in protest, demanding the government step down. This incident became known as the "Egg Crisis."

In fact, before humans domesticated chickens, chickens and cows were very good at sex. The ancestors of chickens lived in the jungles of Asia. This guy was sensitive, alert, strong, and capable of flying. Compared with today's chickens, he was completely different. Because of three great advantages, chickens were eventually tamed by humans. The first is that in terms of eating, it just complements humans. Chickens do not need to eat human food, but they are very fond of weeds, millet husks, and insects on crops or carrion. These are all things that humans intend to discard and remove. Chickens just serve as cleaners for humans. In addition, chickens are very home-loving animals. They rarely stray far from their homes and know how to go home on their own. As a domesticated animal, this is a very good quality. Moreover, chickens are very adaptable to the environment. Chickens can survive in cold snowy mountains, tropical rainforests, arid deserts, and humid islands, so they are very suitable for migrating with humans. Even if humans immigrate to Mars in the future, they can only bring one kind of animal with them, and chickens will be the first choice. Third, the life style of chickens is extremely unruly. Both roosters and hens love mating crazily. This is exactly what humans want. If you want to give birth, I will raise you. And the more they gave birth to, the better it was for human cultivation. It didn’t take long for chickens to become what they are now, eating less, growing faster, and having more meat.

It is not difficult to see that the chicken's success is due to luck, and the chicken's personality and habits just match those of humans. The same is true for mixed workplaces. If you don't adapt to one company, you may be able to adapt to another company. But the chicken has never forgotten what it can do for humans. If it is useless, humans will not waste time on the chicken. By then, the chicken will have to fend for itself. Maybe it is a good thing to look at it from another angle, but The population will never be that large.

Finally, let’s talk about horses. The earliest known horse is Eohorse, dating back 50 million years. Eohorse was small, similar to a fox, and its body structure was also very different from that of today's horses.

An important reason why horses can be domesticated is that horses play an important role in human warfare. Cavalry has a huge advantage over infantry, both in speed and strength. The participation of horses in human warfare began around 4000 BC. It was not until World War I that the dominance of cavalry in military affairs ended.

If war use is excluded, horses are actually uneconomical animals. The taste, meat yield, litter rate, and fur quality of horse meat are inferior to those of cattle and sheep. Although horses have some transportation and pulling capabilities, they are still not as efficient as cattle in cultivating crops. Therefore, horses have no other ability except running fast. Moreover, horses have a bad temper and are fierce, far less docile than cattle and sheep. The most unbearable thing is that horses do not have the rumination system of cattle and sheep. They can eat and poop, and they keep eating and pooping. You have to eat it at night. As the saying goes, a horse will not gain weight without night grass. In addition, horse manure is highly acidic and cannot be used as fertilizer. It is also harmful to the soil and has serious negative effects. Calculating the economic cost, the pasture that supports one horse can support dozens of sheep. If it were not for the needs of war or for riding by nobles, the cost of raising horses would actually be very high.

Therefore, Ma is a typical trick that can be eaten all over the world. Cheng Yaojin still has three axes, while Ma only has one axe. It goes without saying that unless you have an irreplaceable advantage in the workplace, maintaining your individuality may not be a rational choice. But eventually, horses were domesticated and equipped with saddles and stirrups.

Taming animals is nothing more than making them obey human will and then integrate into human life. As an animal, there are mainly two things to do: provide value and obey. From an evolutionary perspective, animals that can bond with humans and undergo domestication are successful in terms of gene transmission efficiency and quantity. It is important to note that evolution does not involve moral and value judgments. The same is true for the domestication of employees in the workplace. We do not make value judgments about being ourselves or admitting to cowardice. We only focus on the facts. Obeying, cooperating, and even trying to cater to will bring considerable workplace benefits. As for keeping the bottom line, not becoming someone you hate, and not becoming a sophisticated egoist, you need to use morality and law as the measuring stick.