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On loyalty to your employer (2018)

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Re: On loyalty to your employer (2018)

#151

> “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…

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Re: On loyalty to your employer (2018)

#152
post #144
post #103

I got it pretty early in my career that loyalty for a company is concept to make you work harder without asking anything in return. And the moment the company shifts focus and you are out of it, then suddenly you understand that this loyalty wasn't kind of a credits account which you've been saving all this time. It's simply nothing. You are on your own and can fuck off. So there's simply no place for loyalty in empl…

All loyalty is a risk. Even loyalty to your spouse is a risk. Just like how all love and human trust is a risk. To feel human you have to take these emotional risks. You shouldn’t bet your life that a mega-corp has absolute and utter loyalty to you. You shouldn’t bet your entire life that your spouse has absolute loyalty to you (we have divorce, pre-nups, and post-nups for a reason). But it strikes me as a pretty sou…

Things don't deserve loyalty. Your company is a "thing".

People - people can absolutely deserve loyalty, and those people can be managers, coworkers, spouses, family, etc.

But don't mix the two up in your mind.

Re: On loyalty to your employer (2018)

#153
Personally I would be willing to accept a slightly lower salary to get off the merry-go-round. I'd like to be in one place for a while where I can do some good work without so much of the craziness.

Re: On loyalty to your employer (2018)

#154

> “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…

Been there and done many of the things you described, have a family today and I still love being a founder and working very long weeks. I know not everyone is like this though.

The only unmet desire I have left to work towards is to serve others and improve everyone else's life. And building a big successful business is the best way to maximize that desire. The clearest derivatives of my work efforts are the great jobs and work created for everyone at the company and the improvement on our customers lives.

Re: On loyalty to your employer (2018)

#155

> “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 completely get the drive to create; I have various side projects I make for fun and to learn.

Some of my side projects would be straight up finically impossible if I didn't have willing buyers for the product. I agree that creation is my ultimate motivation, but so long as I continue to enjoy and wish to pursue this those specific modes of creation, I have to accept that it will also be work. Perhaps that is where those other perspectives are also coming from?

Re: On loyalty to your employer (2018)

#156
post #144
post #103

I got it pretty early in my career that loyalty for a company is concept to make you work harder without asking anything in return. And the moment the company shifts focus and you are out of it, then suddenly you understand that this loyalty wasn't kind of a credits account which you've been saving all this time. It's simply nothing. You are on your own and can fuck off. So there's simply no place for loyalty in empl…

All loyalty is a risk. Even loyalty to your spouse is a risk. Just like how all love and human trust is a risk. To feel human you have to take these emotional risks. You shouldn’t bet your life that a mega-corp has absolute and utter loyalty to you. You shouldn’t bet your entire life that your spouse has absolute loyalty to you (we have divorce, pre-nups, and post-nups for a reason). But it strikes me as a pretty sou…

i think we can draw a distinction between loyalty to the company, either as an abstract entity or its concrete leadership, and human relationships with people who may also be employed there. there are two companies here, one has a stock ticker and the other is an organic collection of people. i dont owe either of them loyalty, but the second company might easily earn it.

Re: On loyalty to your employer (2018)

#157
post #103

I got it pretty early in my career that loyalty for a company is concept to make you work harder without asking anything in return. And the moment the company shifts focus and you are out of it, then suddenly you understand that this loyalty wasn't kind of a credits account which you've been saving all this time. It's simply nothing. You are on your own and can fuck off. So there's simply no place for loyalty in empl…

Employer? No. But I've seen some very smart coworkers value and reward deep, specialized knowledge that is built through working in the same area (of not just tech but also business application) for many years.

This is the trap I fall into. I have had so many amazing colleagues and I want to do right by them. Sometimes it’s been trench camaraderie, sometimes just really great working relationships, but I almost always feel like I owe it to my fellow employees to work hard, do well for the company, etc.

It’s taken me a long time to learn, but that form of loyalty doesn’t equate to employer loyalty.

Re: On loyalty to your employer (2018)

#158

> “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…

First, you can do all those things while you work. They are called vacations, and in most of the World, you get 5 weeks/year minimum. With the rise of remote work, and nomadic lifestyles, you might even be able to do this while working in different ways.

A few people have said they can empathise with the notion of never retiring - which I think is a different thing - and I can kind of understand that too.

Work doesn't need to be 40+ hours/week of grind, and it doesn't need to be something you don't enjoy. Making money from those side projects - that can be your work. The reason why so many people want to be influencers, is because their work becomes something fun, where they learn, and where they create. I can imagine doing that for a long time.

So while I can't imagine working in a corp environment doing 40+ hours/week when I'm 70, can I imagine having my own side business? Maybe a few non-exec directorships? Perhaps help with a fractional/part-time gig one or two days a week? Sure.

Can I imagine just being on holiday for the rest of my life, where I'm constantly "exploring", or "experiencing" and never "applying" or "creating"? Not so much.

The old saying goes that if you earn money doing what you love, you never work a day in your life - and that might be where there's a disconnect, you're interpreting work as something not enjoyable, whereas for many of us, there's really deep pleasure in some aspects of it. All we want to do is dial that bit up, dial the other stuff down, and still do all those other things you mentioned too, perhaps as part of the "work".

Re: On loyalty to your employer (2018)

#160
post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All loyalty is a risk. Even loyalty to your spouse is a risk. Just like how all love and human trust is a risk. To feel human you have to take these emotional risks. You shouldn’t bet your life that a mega-corp has absolute and utter loyalty to you. You shouldn’t bet your entire life that your spouse has absolute loyalty to you (we have divorce, pre-nups, and post-nups for a reason). But it strikes me as a pretty sou…

Things don't deserve loyalty. Your company is a "thing". People - people can absolutely deserve loyalty, and those people can be managers, coworkers, spouses, family, etc. But don't mix the two up in your mind.

Unfortunately all managers focus on push rank, so why loyalty to them?
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