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On loyalty to your employer (2018)

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Re: On loyalty to your employer (2018)

#271

Post by IMTDb »

CharlieDigital wrote: post #4

> “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…

> “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.”

On the other hand; when they interview people and ask them to "give advice to your younger self", I can't count how many times the guy / girl said: "work harder in school".

Ultimately it's all about balance, money absolutely does buy happiness; and so does doing an interesting job. Reach a point where you have enough money that it does not occupy a significant portion of your mind; and work hard enough to reach a position where you don't look at the clock the moment you arrive at your workplace.

Re: On loyalty to your employer (2018)

#272

Post by CharlieDigital »

TimPC wrote: post #89
CharlieDigital wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "I can't wait until I'm 50 and I can finally start doing all those things". I had an uncle pass last year and he was only 30 years older than me. He had already retired and a multi-millionaire in assets. Yet my aunt refused to retire because of a high paying job with little actual work. She kept working. When he passed, the family asked me to put together a montage video and shared their photos with me spanning his…

I think it depends a lot on your finances though. If you come from a rich family and have parental support by all means it is amazing to travel young. But if your travel budget is coming out of your downpayment on your house that could easily be the difference between buying before house prices got out of control or not. For example if you could have bought in 2013 without travel and it takes you till 2015 to save up…

Travel need not be expensive nor extravagant.

I love this interview with Rick Steves and how he traveled Europe in his early days: https://www.npr.org/2021/03/05/974090406/rick-steves-europe-...

Re: On loyalty to your employer (2018)

#273

Post by FireBeyond »

rckt wrote: 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…

Agreed, unless you see real, tangible reasons to do so.

While I was talking to my partner (at the time) about her taking a part-time job while waiting on school, I worked for an employer that absolutely earned my loyalty:

She had enrolled in school for her pre-vet med course. But due to a mix up with financial aid or loans or similar, she woke up one morning to find that at about 6am the university had sent her an email saying that they'd not received tuition from her, and that they would soon be dropping her from her course. By the time she'd woke up they'd already done so. She panicked. I knew we'd done most of the work so I told her to jump in the shower and we'd go to the college and try to get it taken care of.

I told my boss (co-founder and CTO, though not so much a startup - small, but established a decade or more and profitable) I'd be out of touch for a few hours trying to deal with an issue. He and I talked a lot, and he could tell something was up so he asked what was up and I explained. His response earned a lot of loyalty from me (though we managed to get it taken care of without this):

"Let me know how everything goes. If there's nothing else that can be done, give me a call and we can put her tuition (remember, this isn't even his employee, but an employee's fiancee) on my corporate Amex, and we'll work with Chuck (company accountant) to figure out how we can handle it all on the back end."

I realize you can be cynical too, and look at this akin to the FAANGs offering laundry, daycare, etc., with the ultimate goal being "the less time you spend doing these things, the more you spend making us money", and there are of course aspects of that, but this was also very human and going above and beyond (like I could never in any world imagine a situation where your boss says "We can pay your partner's tuition and then we'll figure out payroll deductions or something to get it reconciled").

Re: On loyalty to your employer (2018)

#274

Post by RHSeeger »

There's a lot of discussion whether you should be loyal to your company, what the company does to earn it, etc.

My question would be, what does loyalty to a company actually mean, as far as how it impacts your choices?

- You're willing to work on a Saturday one week instead of Thursday, because there's something critical that needs handling?

- You're willing to work longer hours, possibly unpaid, now and again when there's something critical that needs handling?

- You're willing to work longer hours, possibly unpaid, on a regular basis because the company needs it to survive?

- You're unwilling to leave for a better job offer, because it will cause problems for the company?

- You're will to do more than your own job (underpaid) because the company can't afford to hire someone to fit that job?

There's a ton of different things, and different ones fall into/outside the loyalty bucket depending on who you ask.

Re: On loyalty to your employer (2018)

#275

Post by KittenInABox »

swatcoder wrote: post #177
rckt wrote: 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…

Keep in mind that the benefits of loyalty vary with the size of the organization and the number peers your name gets lost among in the org chart. The larger the company, and the more they're ballooned out with abstract drones chomping on abstract work items, the more loyalty becomes a means for abuse. Turnover is rampant and their processes are built to optimally accommodate it. They're egregores, not people, and the…

IME smaller communities make firing/layoffs different but not less likely. Startups will lay people off for money regardless of any level of loyalty regardless of size. In fact it is even more disappointing to work very very closely with people who would lay you off overnight if their investor decides they want heads to roll.

Re: On loyalty to your employer (2018)

#276

Post by noname120 »

hirvi74 wrote: post #123
vintagedave wrote: post #112

> Do you treat your people well? > Glassdoor is your friend. I have read, here on HN, that Glassdoor is not accurate. How do you realistically tell from outside if a company does treat their people well, or has a difficult culture? I've heard people mention churn, but people stick around even in those environments (especially for financial reasons) and churn is not always an indicator.

There is also a bias on Glassdoor. I would imagine, much like product reviews, people are more likely to go out of their way to leave a negative review than a positive review of an employer.

Unless you have stock in the company I suppose

Re: On loyalty to your employer (2018)

#277

Post by v3xro »

lr4444lr wrote: post #85
CharlieDigital wrote: post #4

> “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.

There is still a rather large area of things that you can do that are not passive sitting-on-couch/sipping-cocktails "leisure" but are nevertheless not classed as "work" because there is no monetary compensation (hobbies being a nice example). Especially if you are self-motivated, you don't need monetary compensation and a boss to tell you what to do, and still enjoy all the benefits of "work".

Re: On loyalty to your employer (2018)

#278

Post by [deleted] »

geodel wrote: post #139
markus_zhang wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always think this is very biased. Basically there are two things to consider: 1. People at deathbed usually don't think very clearly, and it suggests the deathbed experience overrules everything before 2. Many people just have work. They don't have a calling, and neither do they have a career. It does sound reasonable to drop work for something else, as long as money is fine.

Excellent points. Considering I have heard these "Deathbed Quotes" so many times with similar sounding refrain I am just inclined to ignore them. And most people I know and see do drop work for family and friends ever so often as much their situation permits.

[deleted]

Re: On loyalty to your employer (2018)

#279

Post by espinchi »

jjmarr wrote: post #267
swatcoder wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Keep in mind that the benefits of loyalty vary with the size of the organization and the number peers your name gets lost among in the org chart. The larger the company, and the more they're ballooned out with abstract drones chomping on abstract work items, the more loyalty becomes a means for abuse. Turnover is rampant and their processes are built to optimally accommodate it. They're egregores, not people, and the…

My parents told me to be loyal to people , not companies . People get me a job when I look for one.

Good advice. The company gets your loyalty as a side-effect

Re: On loyalty to your employer (2018)

#280

Post by sys_64738 »

Do you believe in the mission statement? Why are you doing this, here, at this company? In tech companies like Sun and DEC are gone but they had loyalty from employees because the employer has leaders who didn't lie, didn't sugar coat it, were honest with employees at all times, had a product(s) that people believed in, etc.
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