Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Loyal to the Company

dilbert.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 107 posts

Re: Loyal to the Company

#31

Post by qup »

FredPret wrote: post #11
masterof0 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have yet to see a company where the "loyal" employees are paid more than those who leave for a better salary, or are exempt from laid off. I feel like "Company Loyalty" is one of those nonsensical ideas boomers left to the younger generation.

It's a business relationship and should be treated as such by the employees. Employee loyalty is ridiculous because it's clearly only one-way loyalty.

Only if you believe loyalty can only be bought with loyalty.

Companies provide some value for employees that they don't get back from them, and vice versa.

Re: Loyal to the Company

#32

Post by runjake »

mcculley wrote: post #8
buster wrote: post #4

But please don't mistake this with a general "no company is loyal to its employees". Maybe rare, but not non-existent.

Do you have good examples of companies loyal to employees? I have been pretty loyal to my employees, but I have had to make hard decisions when the health of the company was higher priority than loyalty to an employee.

I don't see anything wrong with that. Similarly, employees have to make hard decisions when the health of their families is a higher priority than loyalty to the company.

Maybe we should stop using the term "loyalty" because it unfairly implies absolutes -- at least in the minds of westerners.

Re: Loyal to the Company

#34

Post by Natsu »

kerkeslager wrote: post #10
buster wrote: post #4

But please don't mistake this with a general "no company is loyal to its employees". Maybe rare, but not non-existent.

No company is loyal to its employees. People are capable of loyalty, but companies are simply not capable of loyalty. One of my neighbors a few years back worked at a lumber mill for 30+ years, including some serious downturns in demand for lumber when the owner of the company took little or no pay to make sure he could keep on his employees. The owner of the company? Super loyal. The owner died, and his daughter, wh…

> No company is loyal to its employees. People are capable of loyalty, but companies are simply not capable of loyalty.

This is a good point. I have had bosses I liked and trusted and I trusted them, but not the "company" as such. If you replaced them, it wouldn't be the same. Maybe I'd be able to trust the new person or maybe I wouldn't, but that's what would matter.

That aside, the company culture and rules can influence whether it's more likely to hire good people or bad ones. There are some companies set up to do regular layoffs and compete strongly enough that people are sabotaging each other and that just seems miserable.

I work for a place now that's a quiet, enjoyable workplace where everyone is trying to help each other do better while getting good compensation. Maybe I could make a bit more somewhere else, but I'm not sure it'd be worth giving up what I have now. Most people who work here have really long tenures (10+ years) and that's a good thing.

Re: Loyal to the Company

#35

Post by avgcorrection »

bluedino wrote: post #29

Smaller, family-owned companies can be loyal to a fault. Long-time employees can be hard to get rid of. One good deed, closing one big deal, sticking with the company during tough times, being buddies with the right people... A lot of owners can be sympathetic to certain people as well. Keeping employees that miss work for any excuse, moochers that get raises for no reason, bad performers, it can be tough for other e…

HN, sticking up for Corporate Man even on a Dilbert comic.

Re: Loyal to the Company

#36

Post by lisper »

MisterBastahrd wrote: post #30
AlbertCory wrote: post #21

My Dad worked for Swift & Co. for 45 years. Nonetheless, when I quit my first job, he said to me, approvingly, "They're not loyal to you, so why should you be loyal to them?" There are companies loyal to their employees. They tend to be small and family-owned, though, and when the family retires or loses control, the new owners tend to be markedly less loyal.

My grandfather owned rice plantations as a young man... up until the bank which held the mortgages on the properties decided that it wanted to sell the land to a refinery. He then went to work for Shell for the next 25 years. My godfather worked for Shell for 30 years. So did my father. And when my dad ended his career there, they were about to start dismantling the global data warehousing implementation team, so he…

It's called "survivorship bias", and it's not just for people who "roll out of bed and get a life-long career." It applies equally well to pretty much everyone, including ultra-successful company founders. "Hey, if I can do it, anyone can do it, and the ones who don't are obviously just not willing to work hard enough or take enough risks."

Re: Loyal to the Company

#37

Post by gspencley »

AlbertCory wrote: post #21

My Dad worked for Swift & Co. for 45 years. Nonetheless, when I quit my first job, he said to me, approvingly, "They're not loyal to you, so why should you be loyal to them?" There are companies loyal to their employees. They tend to be small and family-owned, though, and when the family retires or loses control, the new owners tend to be markedly less loyal.

What does it mean to be "loyal to" a company or employee, though?

Maybe I'm just overly cold and "literal", but an employment agreement is just that: an agreement to exchange value for value. In general, I loathe the idea of an agreement that I can't renegotiate. Do I owe my employer something? Yes, to the extent that it is agreed upon contractually. Does my employer owe me something? Same deal.

I just don't understand what "loyalty" in this context is supposed to look like. If my services are a net disvalue to the company they should continue on as though that's not the case? If I'm unhappy at company or receive a better offer elsewhere, I should continue on despite it not being in my best interest?

If that's what loyalty is supposed to mean then I don't want it either as employee or employer. Let's just get an agreement in writing and then take it one day at a time.

Re: Loyal to the Company

#38

Post by version_five »

gspencley wrote: post #37
AlbertCory wrote: post #21

My Dad worked for Swift & Co. for 45 years. Nonetheless, when I quit my first job, he said to me, approvingly, "They're not loyal to you, so why should you be loyal to them?" There are companies loyal to their employees. They tend to be small and family-owned, though, and when the family retires or loses control, the new owners tend to be markedly less loyal.

What does it mean to be "loyal to" a company or employee, though? Maybe I'm just overly cold and "literal", but an employment agreement is just that: an agreement to exchange value for value. In general, I loathe the idea of an agreement that I can't renegotiate. Do I owe my employer something? Yes, to the extent that it is agreed upon contractually. Does my employer owe me something? Same deal. I just don't understa…

There's almost always some measure of what people call loyalty. For example, people work late sometimes, and companies accept that there are going to be slow days where employees aren't working full out. You could call this inertia, and of course it's self interested: new hiring or a getting a new job takes effort so it's mutual beneficial to ride out bumpy spots. Over an extended period of time, that's essentially what loyalty is.

Re: Loyal to the Company

#39

Post by msla »

I think the online zeitgeist (in my bubble at least) has been away from blind loyalty and towards self-care.

Work? Eh, the bubble-mates I have vary from "transactional business arrangement" to "kill the bosses and feast on their corpses" so the Overton window is pretty far from the "thirty years of devotion capped off with a pension" mindset.

Religion? Americans in general are losing their religion, and the people I'm with are on the forefront of that trend.^1 Hard to feel anything positive towards the GOP's Junior Auxiliary.

Family? People I'm around are all about cutting toxic family members out of their lives. "You have to stick with your family no matter what!" sounds like Evil Space Alien Talk.

1 https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/09/atheism-fa... https://archive.is/DObne

Re: Loyal to the Company

#40

Post by dmn322 »

bluedino wrote: post #29

Smaller, family-owned companies can be loyal to a fault. Long-time employees can be hard to get rid of. One good deed, closing one big deal, sticking with the company during tough times, being buddies with the right people... A lot of owners can be sympathetic to certain people as well. Keeping employees that miss work for any excuse, moochers that get raises for no reason, bad performers, it can be tough for other e…

To the extent that markets are efficient, they’ll be replaced by companies who are willing to dump employees when it’s not profitable to keep them. That’s the system we’ve chosen for ourselves so far.

To the extent that some companies are loyal represents a market failure. TBH, I’ll take a safety net and free education to re-train in a new industry any day of the week over a boss doing me favors and making me feel like i owe favors too. Our economy is beyond bartering and favor systems. Keep personal relationships for personal time and work relationships at work time. I’ll be friends with my peers, i don’t need to be friends with the boss.

Any contractual relationship has a transactional side. And an employer-employee relationship is asymmetrical in a way that will always impact things, and make it impossible for a 100% human relationship to form. Any attempt is like a Frankenstein version of a real friendship. If you want to be friends, it requires equal footing, that means equity and partnerships.

Post reply on HN