You read a lot of feel-good articles on LinkedIn and other platforms about how to empower yourself as an employee and when to give your boss the middle finger.

These can be great. They're very engaging and enjoyable to read, and get a lot of clicks. This is for one main reason: they are designed to tap into your emotional needs and leverage the fact that, at some level, you probably hate having a job.

It's a little content marketing trick, for those of you unaware of how these articles are written. The author of the article may well be interested in empowering you, but they are also interested in driving engagement for their brand, and they've chosen an angle that will associate the feel-good emotion they give you with the brand they are promoting.

That's not to say the articles are not true. You SHOULD feel empowered as an employee, and you should recognize the value you bring to your employer. You certainly shouldn't let ANYONE play you for a sucker.

However, these articles deliberately leave out one aspect from their advice, because it's not quite as sexy as the others.

What is your job?

I once had an employer (actually more of a guru / mentor upon reflection, hence his inclusion in this article) who handed me a beer and asked, "What is your job?".

I knew it was a leading question, of course I did. But still, I could only think of one way to answer it. I was a software developer, what else could I say?

So of course, I said "er... to write good software?"

Ready with his answer -- because, he later told me, no one had ever answered his question correctly -- he said "NO! That's what you do every day, that's not your job."

I said, "ok, is it... to follow orders?"

He laughed and reminded me I wasn't in the military.

I was pretty stumped, so I just asked him, "OK, what IS my job?"

He said, "To make money for your employer."

He shoved a handful of chips into his mouth and munched away, grinning a little maniacally, but never did elaborate, despite my various follow-up questions.

I'm not sure I fully understood the implication of his answer at the time, responding with a elongated "ooookyaaay" that made it clear I was unconvinced.

But his point has resonated with me during the 20 years since he said it to me and has ended up shaping almost every decision I make in my professional life now.

We live in a capitalist economy

Again, it's a very unsexy truth that we live in a capitalist system with money at the core of every transaction we make.

If money isn't the goal, it can probably buy the goal, so indirectly it becomes the default pursuit for most people.

Yet, unless you're a salesman on commission, it's somewhat taboo to talk about how much profit you generated for the company that pays your salary.

"Money can't buy me love" so the famous Beatles song goes (although the iPhone I bought my girlfriend this Valentines Day seems to have done wonders), and that's true.

But love doesn't feed your family, pay your bills or buy miniature bow ties for your adorable new pug puppy.

You might not believe in Maslow's hierarchy of needs, but if you believe in ANY hierarchy of needs, it's likely that all the needs you put at the base of your Illuminati personal pyramid is going to cost you some cold hard cabbage.

Companies are no different. In fact, even though in some legal systems corporations inherit the same rights as individual people, they are actually much much worse. Corporations don't have a psychology to deal with, they just have financial reality. They are not as limited by conscience or empathy as humans.

And while humans are motivated by all sorts of wants and needs, companies are motivated only by one.

Even when companies do something to support your wellness or improve your engagement, behind the scenes they are measuring the benefits of doing so in financial terms.

And I'm sorry, I know it's ugly. But this is the system we all endorse by our participation in it, so don't blame me for describing it accurately. If you fail to apply this level of reality to your role as an employee, you may do so at your own folly.

You are a unique and special... accounting entry

OK, so yes, you are a unique and special snowflake, an individual, a beautiful human being with dreams, hopes and... er... whatever else. So am I and so are a lot of other people.

As much as your boss may care about your personality and even be your friend, there's a part of his or her job that demands it not influence your evaluation as an employee.

From a company perspective, you are essentially two entries on a balance sheet. An asset, and a liability.

It may sound obvious, and I realise most people already know this, but how much time do you spend thinking about your influence on either side of this accounting entry?

While you might spend countless hours negotiating salary, researching the value of your skills or finding ways to get raises and promotions, how often do you stop to think about the financial value you bring to your company?

You might argue that's not your responsibility, and you might be right about that. But if you neglect to consider it, you're trusting that your higher ups have done so adequately, and have made wise decisions on what roles to fill and who they have hired to fill those roles. You're essentially leaving your fate in their hands.

How does your job generate financial value?

Again, this is pretty easy for people in sales. It gets slightly trickier for those in marketing -- you need a lot of data and strong analytics to know how your activity translates.

But imagine being, say, the graphic artist working on artwork for a particular ad campaign. Does an individual choice like the colour of a cartoon character's hat indirectly influence the revenue generated by the overall campaign? Well, sure it could -- so why pick your favourite colour when you could pick one that reinforces the company's brand values, even if it's in a very subtle way?

Each role defined by a company has it's own unique relationship to their revenue stream -- but the point is each and every role DOES have one.

So next time you take a job, or even perform your day-to-day work in your current one, turn your mind to why you've been asked to do this and give a bit of weight to the financial side.

It's not sexy, but if you adjust your thinking a little, it might just accelerate your career path and help you achieve your own personal goals.

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Harvey Withington is a Digital Marketing Specialist with a strange mix of experience in Literature, Motion Graphics, Business Analytics and Software Architecture.

He blogs in a stream of consciousness style across all these topics (and every intersection in between), with an unqualified interest in ethics and human behaviour.

Looking to combine Marketing and Analytics? I'd probably know about that. Drop me a line.