By Tim Schneider

If you ever compare work and professional sports, you can see some similarities and some very stark contrasts. If work was more like professional sports, from a team member perspective you would:

1. Always receive congratulations from the coach after a job well done.

2. Hear cheering for your great efforts.

3. Renegotiate your compensation at the end of the year based on how well you did and your current market value.

4. Compete for awards based on merit and performance.

From another perspective, you would:

1. Have to earn your position every year against new talent brought in to compete against you.

2. See your name in the paper if you were disciplined or if you lost your job.

3. Be booed and scorned if you performed poorly.

4. Be the subject of trade rumors.