very strong antiwork sentiment these days. It's sad. The employers are taking a risk by hiring you and paying you, and you should work as hard as you can during business hours. That ethic is very rare in tech but is somewhat common in every other industry I've worked in.
On loyalty to your employer (2018)
331–340 of 466 posts
Re: On loyalty to your employer (2018)
#332Earlier quoted context omitted.
"If I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I would have the guts to betray my country." --EM Forster, "What I Believe"
The problem here is that Forster is relativising the good. I am not betraying my country by refusing to follow laws or decrees that require that I engage in intrinsically evil deeds. I am not loyal to my friend if I do evil things he asks me to do. Our loyalty is to the objective good of our country and our friend. Otherwise, there is no such thing as loyalty.
There are situations when you genuinely must betray your country to protect your friend, or vice versa.
For example, if your country is a multiethnic empire that is unsustainable as a single entity without compulsion and forced assimilation, and your friend happens to be an ethnic minority in it.
Re: On loyalty to your employer (2018)
#333Work in a zero sum environment is pretty cut-throat, even moreso the increasingly scarce resources are or higher competition is.
The idea that you'd apply interpersonal principles that also exist to help you in your time of need to entities that, by definition and literal fiduciary duty to shareholders law, do not have to adhere to interpersonal mores, seems a little silly.
Re: On loyalty to your employer (2018)
#334I'm a mid-career executive that has earned more money from perks related to joining new companies (bonuses, stock, etc) than I have in salary & annual bonus programs; which would be my main compensation if I stayed long-term at a company.
I simply don't see an economic incentive to loyalty with a sole exception; I'm currently working through a retention bonus period. I actually just signed it a month ago and will be paid 3 years salary a year from then. The full amount pays out if they terminate me beforehand. So, my short term loyalty has been incentivized but I'll likely move on soon afterwards. (FWIW, the CEO left and the board feared I would follow them or leave due to uncertainty so that is what prodded them to offer this, it kind of fell in my lap - but it's also not the first time this has happened)
Re: On loyalty to your employer (2018)
#335Given the general sentiment in the comments here, why aren't co-ops more popular? Or any model with a shared ownership. If you eliminate the employer/employee, hierarchical relationship then the 'transactional' model goes away and you can have loyalty that matters for all parties. But there are almost no such places. I've always thought it was more a regulatory issue, but would be curious what others think.
Re: On loyalty to your employer (2018)
#336Earlier quoted context omitted.
20s in tech is basically show up, do your work, and get paid a pittance of the value it generates.
That's just "employment", or at least "not realising how many other people contribute to that value".
It applies to those other people as well, though.
When you get down to it, all profit any company makes is quite literally the value generated by its employees that was extracted from them.
Re: On loyalty to your employer (2018)
#337Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm part of the GenX crowd here. I can't imagine a day when I am not building or solving something.
That's different from working (as the exchange of your time for money). I love building stuff, I love creating things. If I can exchange those things that I want to create for money, that's a bonus, but I create because I enjoy that process not because I intend to exchange that time for money.
> the exchange of your time for money
That's employment.
Re: On loyalty to your employer (2018)
#338Earlier 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…
The term loyalty is dangerous for an employee. Having seen companies of all sizes lay people off for the exact same reason - Returns did not match expectations - my personal perspective is to treat all employers the same. No company with a balance sheet is loyal to employees. Keeping that idea in mind, and thus on an equal perspective, is healthy for both sides. "It's just business" is good advice and not just in mov…
I applied to a job in the 'Who's Hiring' thread this month.
Had an interview. I'm a professional good at my craft, with tenure at hard positions.
I get hit with "we don't just want someone who checks in does work and leaves, 9 to 5". Like, are you wanting 60h/week and pay 40h/week? Or is this you're not wanting a slacker?
Or better yet, since you want skin in the game on my side, what's my equity as a partner?
My understanding is that I shop up and work well, and you pay me. And I'm in an at-will employment state, so it really is 1 day at a time.
Loyalty is bought at 1 day increments, since that is all the loyalty is afforded to me.
However, I will definitely lie, since no recruiter or HR wants to admit that their candidate is here because you pay. Its the verboten secret everyone dances around.
Re: On loyalty to your employer (2018)
#339I 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…
Be loyal to people (your boss, your peers), but don't be loyal to tne entity that is your company. It has one job, and that is to make money. If it could do it without you, it would
Re: On loyalty to your employer (2018)
#340Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
that has to be a typo. 6 thousand a month (72k/year) on insurance??