How should one feel inside when he sees the clash of education and money? [closed]

Question

I have a bachelor and masters degree from a local university. I work in a bank.

As time is going by, I am becoming more and more demotivated about my job.

Here I see that university-degree holders are giving services to bank customers and clients. I don't know whether it is because of the neighborhood or not, wealthy people are mostly uneducated and they treat the bank-officers, including myself, as nothing. Also, from our top management, it is being instructed that, employees have to get used to with any kind of misbehavior from the customers and clients whether it is acceptable or not. Our MD told us in seminar that, employees have to digest even a slap from a customer!

After all this, I am confused. At this point in my life I am just flabbergasted. The question that is coming in my mind, "Why do people get educated? Why don't they just engage their entire life to earn money? What is the need for education in this world from a person's point of view?"

Suppose you are a PhD holder from Harvard University. A billionaire, who has a very little or no education but established a business empire, calls you to work as a researcher for his company and he believes in give and take.

What would be your motivation to work as an employee of a man like this?

Answer 1

I could see a few different motivators coming into play here:

1. The work itself - Depending on the nature of the department the research is being done, it could be quite worthwhile work to have the resources of a large company at one's disposal to get something done. Solving cancer would be one possibility here that I could picture some big companies doing that could be seen as good work to do.

2. Compensation - What would the pay and perks be of this position? This could be where one gets to run their own mini-kingdom given that the head of the company is calling one to come and set up a department there. This is more the money, time off, political power, title and other stuff beyond the value of the work itself.

3. Association - Getting to have the name of the billionaire's company could be its own incentive although somewhat of an extrinsic motivator, but a motivator none the less. This isn't quite something to negotiate so I see it as being outside of compensation.

Answer 2

For anyone who is interested in deeply exploring new ideas or research this could very well be the perfect position. This is often true of those pursuing PhDs (at least in the technical fields).

Depending on how you are employed, you could effectively be set free to work on "whatever you want" - for many in the academic world who pursue this unknown you basically described a dream job.

The incentive for the billionaire is, while you might have a low chance of creating incredibly cool stuff, you very well might create something incredibly valuable for his net worth.