The three year myth

Reading this article reminds me of all the advice in university on the importance of soft skills. The OP sounds like a competent technical worker but lacked the soft skills to secure his position.

All organizations have a consensus that guides it's decision. While heavily skewed towards leadership, even the consensus of the lowest hierarchy worker is important.

From what I saw in TFA, OP correctly identified that there was a need for FinOps but did not do the work to get buy in from the organisation. Even though I find it absolutely tedious and sickening. Some amount of politicking is inevitable for survival.

There's also a corollary to this: if the organization does not recognize some work as needed or useful, you could well be actively wasting your time putting effort into it. There might be a good reason the company doesn't care that you just don't see, and leadership could be (at best) confused about why you would spend time on it.

> The pink slip comes as a total surprise. It always comes as a surprise. You did everything you were told, even waited patiently like you were asked. You trusted the organization to reward you in turn - and now you've lost your job.

Your reward is your paycheck. On Friday night, the balance anyone owes anyone is zero.

You didn’t “trust” them at all. They had no further obligations to you, nor you to them. You seem to have invented obligations that don’t exist.

The fact that so many companies operate this way is really depressing. I want to work with people I trust to have some genuine respect for my future, personally or career wise.

There is nothing more destructive than talking to people daily, having a good working relationship with them, and then randomly getting laid off with no warning or explanation. Years of positive interactions go up in smoke overnight, because the company couldn’t bother to treat you like a human with needs, and instead act as if you’re just a mercenary.

And to be clear, I’m not talking about budgetary or performance issues that lead to layoffs. I mean when you’ve done good work for a company for years, then out of the blue, get a meeting request for a Friday afternoon.

It makes for a cold, mercenary world that I want no part of.