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On loyalty to your employer (2018)

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Re: On loyalty to your employer (2018)

#231

Post by lo_zamoyski »

riehwvfbk wrote: post #191
simpaticoder wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Things don't deserve loyalty. Your company is a "thing". A country is a thing and loyalty to it is called "patriotism". A sports-team or TV show or band is a thing, loyalty to it is called "fandom". Loyalty to an idea or philosophy is called "being principled" or "idealism". Do you believe that things don't deserve loyalty, such that all of these are errors? Or do these examples not capture the sense of your stateme…

That's right, they do not deserve loyalty. All of these things hijack our loyalty to people in the name of some higher-order goal. Sports team and TV show loyalty is there to get us to consume more. Loyalty to a country gets us to be reliable cogs in someone else's grand project. Loyalty to a philosophy gets us to be a cult leader's acolyte. Skip the substitute and go for the real thing: loyalty to people. You can st…

Your examples are bizarre (sports teams are a matter of petty entertainment, not proper objects of loyalty). Philosophy isn't an object of loyalty either.

However, you should acquaint yourself with the principle of subsidiarity. Loyalty, duty, and love radiate outward from those who are owed the most diminishing to those who are owed the least (spouses, then children, then parents, etc., all the way through extended family and then community and nation and finally the human race). The loyalty is to the objective good. How that is expressed will be modified by contingent factors particular to a given person's situation.

Re: On loyalty to your employer (2018)

#232

Post by ashoeafoot »

lo_zamoyski wrote: post #215
ashoeafoot wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, all of these things do not deserve loyalty. There are values i hold dear, if a philosophy or state holds on to the same values, i support them. If they turn away from them, no reason to be loyal.

Are you perhaps confusing loyalty to an incumbent regime with loyalty to a nation or people?

A nation can change, a people can become corrupt, the values stay and if for example a democracy steered by corrupted peoples betrays itself, a democrat with values can just soldier on without getting into any loyalty conflict. A sadness for what has fallen may linger.

Re: On loyalty to your employer (2018)

#233

Post by [deleted] »

xingped wrote: post #130
Scene_Cast2 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Doesn't really matter how much your coworkers value you when your employer suddenly decides tomorrow that they've decided to change focus for the 5th time this month and it's your department getting cut this time.

[deleted]

Re: On loyalty to your employer (2018)

#234

Post by DrBazza »

It's a reciprocal agreement.

If my employer is decent and goes the extra mile, I'd be encouraged to do the same. If they're shitty, then they get what's in signed the contract, and that's it.

But... don't fall for the "we're family" nonsense. You're not. You're a disposable asset in a column on a spreadsheet somewhere.

"No-one's final words are ever: 'I wish I'd worked more'"

Re: On loyalty to your employer (2018)

#235

Post by pydry »

mancerayder wrote: post #193
pydry wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't seen much of a bias towards seeking out a predisposition to loyalty in employees except among authoritarian small business owner types who invariably underpay. I don't think offering perks is necessarily supposed to engender loyalty. It's still a transactional relationship ("ok, google might pay less than the startup but I do get free lunches at google..."). In most companies I have more often seen not even…

>I haven't seen much of a bias towards seeking out a predisposition to loyalty in employees except among authoritarian small business owner types who invariably underpay. It's easy. Some red flags: "This is not a 9 to 5 job, you should know that. But that's normal in this industry" "We're looking for people who are passionate about their work" "I won't sugarcoat it, there are good and bad weeks" in terms of workload…

Yours are signals that a company is selecting for people who will consent to being overworked. That's not about loyalty.

Loyalty would be "we're looking for candidates who have long job tenures. do not apply if you never stayed at a job longer than 3 years".

Re: On loyalty to your employer (2018)

#236

Post by atomicnumber3 »

mattlondon wrote: post #36
closewith wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For context, the OP is in the EU and UK, where none of the above is true. That said, he's a recruiter and there's nothing of value to be found in the blog post.

Well they can't fire you totally on the spot in the UK, but I believe they can put you on immediate "gardening leave" where you lose all access to systems and buildings etc. You'll still get paid and are still technically employed, but you'll not be working on anything and can't go to the office. I think there is some expectation for gardening leave to be available for the odd call or meeting for doing handovers etc,…

"you'll still get paid and are still technically employed, but you'll not be working on anything and can't go to the office."

Oh noooooooooo, anything but that!

Joking aside, seriously, part of why this is all so traumatizing in the US is because the second you know you're getting laid off, you're not even thinking about the job or anything anymore. You're trying to guess how much COBRA is going to be and hoping you don't get seriously ill in the next N months.

Seriously, COBRA is often so fucking expensive that being laid off doesn't just mean loss of income, it means literally suddenly getting a NEGATIVE paycheck each month, as you now have to cover the % of the healthcare plan your employer was paying for. If I got laid off right now, i'd immediately start paying about $6000/mo for my current policy under COBRA. Then, if you do need to use it, it's still got a deducible and coinsurance!

So yeah, that's why summary dismissal is so painful in the US.

Re: On loyalty to your employer (2018)

#237

Post by closewith »

robertlagrant wrote: post #75
closewith wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, work is effort expended to achieve a result. Whether it's paid or not is irrelevant, and many people work harder for free than they ever do in employment, because the incentives are right.

> No, work is effort expended to achieve a result By this definition, going to the toilet is "work". If that's the case, I never want to get to a point where I stop working.

Well, it is, and the workload of ablution becomes greater as you age.

Re: On loyalty to your employer (2018)

#238

Post by [deleted] »

jp57 wrote: post #212

I find it interesting how starkly bimodal attitudes toward employer loyalty are. There is a middle ground between getting a company logo tattoo on one hand and on the other being a clock puncher, who fulfills the minimum job requirements and begrudges any request to put in extra effort. It's possible, even admirable, to be diligent and take pride in one's work for reasons other than drinking the company kool-aid. It'…

[deleted]

Re: On loyalty to your employer (2018)

#239

Post by alganet »

datadrivenangel wrote: post #119
alganet wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A company is a machine, it cannot give loyalty back. Ever. Loyalty in people disappeared decades ago (I would say earlier, but I wasn't there). You are mistaking strength by numbers for loyalty. What you describe is nothing like it.

Individuals within a company can be loyal, and sometimes corporate decisions are made based on perceived loyalty

I think you are mistaking hierarchy and obedience for loyalty.

Re: On loyalty to your employer (2018)

#240

Post by scarface_74 »

jp57 wrote: post #212

I find it interesting how starkly bimodal attitudes toward employer loyalty are. There is a middle ground between getting a company logo tattoo on one hand and on the other being a clock puncher, who fulfills the minimum job requirements and begrudges any request to put in extra effort. It's possible, even admirable, to be diligent and take pride in one's work for reasons other than drinking the company kool-aid. It'…

A “bonus” is not worth me consistently putting in more than 40 hours a week. That means I’m sacrificing time with my wife, family and friends, my vacation, my time at the gym, my time learning Spanish since we have decided to establish residency in Costa Rica and live their part time before and after I retire, etc.

I am going to give my employer 100% of my knowledge and close to that amount of energy for 40 hours a week. I love the company I work at now. It’s the best employer I have had (10 in 29 years). But I still treat it very transactional. They can ask me to go the extra mile occasionally. But only because they pay me well and stand by their word of “unlimited vacation as long as you meet expectations”.

The other the compsnies I really enjoyed were startups. But they always go to shit one way or the other - get acquired, get big and go public or go out of business.

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