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On loyalty to your employer (2018)

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Re: On loyalty to your employer (2018)

#91

> “When I’m on my deathbed, I won’t look back at my life and wish I had worked harder. I’ll look back and wish I spent more time with the people I loved.” I saw a Reddit thread the other day on r/startups or r/entrepreneur where the OP was talking about how they'll be working until the day he or she dies. I immediately wondered if this individual had a family, friends. Had this person already seen the world and its m…

I'm part of the GenX crowd here. I can't imagine a day when I am not building or solving something.

Re: On loyalty to your employer (2018)

#92

> Do not buy into the bullshit hype of “hustle” to appease your employer I completely disagree here. Hustling under the right leadership is as good for you as for the business. You learn the industry, hone your skills, network, and improve your understanding of the interactions between different business functions. IME, people who go above and beyond and produce value beyond just doing what their immediate supervisor…

There's a difference between trying your damndest during working hours, and hustle nonsense. In my experience, employers see time spent on site as a measure of success more than how productive you are during your regular workday.

So I read that to mean, don't kill yourself working unpaid overtime. You can still do a great job, working established working hours. I agree with that 100%. While I'm at work, I'm at work. But the moment that the day is over, work does not exist and will not exist.

Re: On loyalty to your employer (2018)

#93

> “When I’m on my deathbed, I won’t look back at my life and wish I had worked harder. I’ll look back and wish I spent more time with the people I loved.” I saw a Reddit thread the other day on r/startups or r/entrepreneur where the OP was talking about how they'll be working until the day he or she dies. I immediately wondered if this individual had a family, friends. Had this person already seen the world and its m…

The loss of work for its centering, routine, mental challenges, socialization across the generations, and sense of accomplishment is harmful to mental and even physical health. Sure, a construction worker can't be climbing the rafters at 80 years old, but this idea that we just transition to leisure and getting together with friends at a certain point is both fairly novel and of dubious value.

I don't think that's contradictory to OP though. You can find enrichment and fulfillment in work, while also maintaining balance with the other aspects of life.

Re: On loyalty to your employer (2018)

#94
Spot on. Modern jobs are 100% transactional with very few exceptions.

This is a relatively new development, and there ARE some counterexamples available among the large employers local to me, but you can't assume you'll get one. (In Houston, for example, if a long-term employee of an oil major is on the "layoff list" close to a tenure milestone, they'll find a way to keep them -- 20 years is a magic number for retention of insurance here.)

PEOPLE can be worthy of loyalty, but in a large corporation being loyal to a manager who is 4 layers down the tree is silly. You can and will be laid off by people who don't know your name. It's one reason I've stayed in smaller firms. I'm loyal to MY boss, because he owns the firm, and because he's showed ME loyalty.

Re: On loyalty to your employer (2018)

#95
post #30
post #20

I dislike the word "loyalty" when talking about employment. Loyalty is for your spouse, friends and family. Your relationship with your employer is a contractual one. When it comes to my job, I believe in doing your best possible work, being professional and acting in good faith. I expect to be paid fairly and treated with respect. If this relationship is mutually beneficial, it can go on for a long while. But it's i…

This is a very rich-world view of work. Most people can't just "unilaterally rescind" their employment if they decide they don't like it anymore. I don't disagree with what you're getting at, just understand that loyalty is a necessity to a lot of folks, and I don't think it is because their values are misplaced.

>Most people can't just "unilaterally rescind" their employment if they decide they don't like it anymore.

I suspect what's meant here is that most anyone can take a different job and leave one that no longer serves them, not that most anyone can walk away from a job without another lined up.

Re: On loyalty to your employer (2018)

#96
Others have already written in their comments on this post about how silly the idea of loyalty to a company is.

I think all I'll add to that is that I have ended up at the point where I doubt I'll ever give my "best" work to an employer again - I'm just there to put the JIRA tickets in the bag, so to speak.

My best work is now exclusively reserved for things in my free time that I have a personal interest in.

Re: On loyalty to your employer (2018)

#98

> “When I’m on my deathbed, I won’t look back at my life and wish I had worked harder. I’ll look back and wish I spent more time with the people I loved.” I saw a Reddit thread the other day on r/startups or r/entrepreneur where the OP was talking about how they'll be working until the day he or she dies. I immediately wondered if this individual had a family, friends. Had this person already seen the world and its m…

I probably say something similar to this. I plan to create for the rest of my life. I'm also trying to build a business out of this because I hope that someday it will give me even more freedom and maybe even extend that to my kids and grandkids, if I were successful enough. It also means that I can set my own priorities. I'll likely retire when I'm 65 (too late but I don't think I'll be prepared enough to do it earlier) and continue to "work" on my own stuff, maybe until I die.

But, yes, I've seen some of the world and I want to see more of it. I have a couple groups of friends that hang out more than once a month and I've traveled with them multiple times this year. I have family that I see pretty often. There's really not enough time for all the stuff I do but I'm still driven to create.

Re: On loyalty to your employer (2018)

#99

> “When I’m on my deathbed, I won’t look back at my life and wish I had worked harder. I’ll look back and wish I spent more time with the people I loved.” I saw a Reddit thread the other day on r/startups or r/entrepreneur where the OP was talking about how they'll be working until the day he or she dies. I immediately wondered if this individual had a family, friends. Had this person already seen the world and its m…

The loss of work for its centering, routine, mental challenges, socialization across the generations, and sense of accomplishment is harmful to mental and even physical health. Sure, a construction worker can't be climbing the rafters at 80 years old, but this idea that we just transition to leisure and getting together with friends at a certain point is both fairly novel and of dubious value.

The idea of retirement is literally thousands of years old at this point. Hell the Roman Empire even had the idea of pensions though it wasn’t that common at the time.

Aging inherently means being unable to be an independent productive member of society at some point. (Ed: well past what we consider retirement age.) Historically in agrarian societies few people reached this point so it wasn’t generally a significant burden to support them. What changed is lowering the retirement age and increased the number of people who live long enough to see it.

Re: On loyalty to your employer (2018)

#100
post #20

I dislike the word "loyalty" when talking about employment. Loyalty is for your spouse, friends and family. Your relationship with your employer is a contractual one. When it comes to my job, I believe in doing your best possible work, being professional and acting in good faith. I expect to be paid fairly and treated with respect. If this relationship is mutually beneficial, it can go on for a long while. But it's i…

Red flag if bosses use that word, it's either an attempt to manipulate or they have a weird entitled view of what you owe them.
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