Social Status and Employment - Essay Example

In the event that a poor experiences a sudden status inversion and happens to become rich overnight after winning a lottery, the person will have to cope with several challenges, although the benefits of such positive status inversion outweigh the challenges. At first, the lifestyle of this person will change in a pleasing way because he might even change his residence by buying a prestigious house in a different residence (Tischler, 2010). Further, he might buy a car and invest in a viable enterprise, which might generate income to sustain him for his entire life. The other benefit is that this person will become famous.

However, such a sudden change in status can stimulate many challenges as the rich person might be compelled to change his friends and seek rich fellows to become his friends (Tischler, 2010). The opulent life might also be challenging since many people will lay many expectations from the person who won the lottery. This will cause problems because one cannot manage to help everyone; thus, choosing who to help and who to leave out becomes a real challenge.

On the contrary, for someone who experiences a negative status invasion by losing a job, the challenges outweigh the benefits. One of the notable benefits is that losing a job might attract lots of compensation, especially when the job was on contract. Further, the person will be relieved of the tedious routines of reporting to work every day. As such, he will have ample time to be with the members of his family. Despite the benefits, challenges will start creeping in as soon as he loses his job. The first challenge will be the source of income, which will help the person to manage his bills (Tischler, 2010).

The next challenge is seeking alternative employment, which might call for extra training so that one can fit into another job different from the one he was doing earlier. The idea of losing a job is stressful, and it can cause health problems for job losses. It becomes worse if one does not have an alternative source of income like a business or any other investment (Tischler, 2010). The last challenge is that losing a job might force someone to change his residence and move to a less expensive neighborhood, as well as change his friends and start friendships that are not costly.