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On loyalty to your employer (2018)

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Re: On loyalty to your employer (2018)

#361

Post by bluefirebrand »

ivape wrote: post #350
mystraline wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 und…

That sounds disgusting. Thank you for sharing that. Why don't they just advertise "Over-time expected and over-time compensation provided"?

Most likely because they expect overtime but won't compensate overtime

So they are hoping to hire someone who will do it for free

Re: On loyalty to your employer (2018)

#362

Post by latentcall »

RankingMember wrote: post #133
geodel wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After reading a bit if history on travel/tourism I understood that this whole travel thing itself used to be luxury, upperclass thing. Most people would work and live where they are born, visit a few times in life outside for religious purpose or to attend important/relative's wedding etc. And that's about it. For myself I didn't travel much for leisure when I was young, I am not traveling when I am middle aged and h…

Different strokes I guess! I will say that there's something unique I get from travelling that I don't get from anything else- the visceral in-person reminder that people are, at their core, very similar everywhere- mostly decent people just living their lives. It's like an antidote to the "other"-ing that sometimes creeps into the psyche from our media landscape.

For me it’s like being a kid again. All your routines go out the window so you wake up in Amsterdam and it’s a whole new world. It’s a total mental refresh

Re: On loyalty to your employer (2018)

#363

Post by thunky »

hylaride wrote: post #314
thunky wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's experience, which has nothing to do with loyalty.

It's camaraderie. Some of the best professional relationships I've had were in terribly run organizations with like-minded peers. I don't know why, but strong bonds form in those situations (and taken to the extreme in the military).

> It's camaraderie

Ok, but it's not loyalty. At least I hope not...

Those like-minded peers you've had owed you no nothing. You had a fair, respectful, professional relationship with them that was self sustaining and therefore did not demand allegience in either direction.

If a better opportunity came along for them I would hope that you would want them to take it despite your history and the camaraderie you've established with them. And same for you.

Re: On loyalty to your employer (2018)

#364

Post by asr »

samspot wrote: post #286

Article points are mostly all valid, don't give your loyalty in return for abuse, etc. etc. But I've been at my employer 11 years now and I have greatly prospered. They took care of me in many ways that aren't required by law, and gave great benefits. They didn't abuse me or take undue time from my family. They constantly invest in my career -- for their ultimate benefit, yes, but I benefit too. If and when I get tra…

Exactly the right attitude. If you're dealing with an employer that thinks everything should be transactional and that it's no issue if they nickle and dime you on small things, it gets tiring (ask me how I know). When your employer acts in ways that value their employees, it's ok to put a value on that, even if you recognize they're not your spouse and they may lay you off or act in other un-loyal ways in the future.

Re: On loyalty to your employer (2018)

#365

Post by thunky »

mycall wrote: post #146
thunky wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's experience, which has nothing to do with loyalty.

There is some coorelation. To get the experience, you need to appear be a team player and show some signs of loyality to continue obtaining the experience. Different employers have different checks on this, often ego based.

> you need to [...] show some signs of loyality to continue obtaining the experience

That may be true for a bad employer but no good employer should ever demand loyalty in exchange for continued employment.

If you hire a landscaping service to mow your lawn every week do you demand loyalty from them? I hope not, because that would be ridiculous.

Re: On loyalty to your employer (2018)

#366

Post by hylaride »

thunky wrote: post #363
hylaride wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's camaraderie. Some of the best professional relationships I've had were in terribly run organizations with like-minded peers. I don't know why, but strong bonds form in those situations (and taken to the extreme in the military).

> It's camaraderie Ok, but it's not loyalty. At least I hope not... Those like-minded peers you've had owed you no nothing. You had a fair, respectful, professional relationship with them that was self sustaining and therefore did not demand allegience in either direction. If a better opportunity came along for them I would hope that you would want them to take it despite your history and the camaraderie you've estab…

> If a better opportunity came along for them I would hope that you would want them to take it despite your history and the camaraderie you've established with them. And same for you.

To me, it was not about people leaving you behind, but calling you up when opportunities arise (though I didn't feel that way when it first happened at the beginning of my career). Camaraderie doesn't mean you owe people or are owed anything, but is a mutual level of trust and support.

Of the 6 jobs I've had over the past 20 years, 5 of them have been from former colleagues reaching out.

Re: On loyalty to your employer (2018)

#367

Post by ubermonkey »

grvdrm wrote: post #250
ubermonkey wrote: post #94

Spot on. Modern jobs are 100% transactional with very few exceptions. This is a relatively new development, and there ARE some counterexamples available among the large employers local to me, but you can't assume you'll get one. (In Houston, for example, if a long-term employee of an oil major is on the "layoff list" close to a tenure milestone, they'll find a way to keep them -- 20 years is a magic number for retent…

How much are jobs then attained in purely transactional ways? Perhaps I am too invested in people, but relationships matter my industry (insurance). I think you develop them in part by not being purely transactional, and they later help if you need to love, explore, or change. Am I wrong about that dynamic?

I'm not sure what you're asking.

Re: On loyalty to your employer (2018)

#368

Post by kshacker »

usrusr wrote: post #348
mohaine wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Small companies really magnify the extreems. Good ones are really great but bad ones are extra bad. Sadly, they are also nimble enough to switch between them, at least in one direction.

Not only the extremes, also the speed: good employers can turn into bad employers (has the opposite ever happened? I'd love to learn of an example!), but big companies at least have some inertia while it happens. There's probably even some "Sun" still left, all those years after the Oracle takeover. Compare this to what happened at Komoot.

I do not have an example of the opposite, but I can echo your comment.

I was the first US employee of an Indian consulting startup. I was their engagement lead for a marquee account for the first 4 years and while I do not take all the credit, my management and I grew the account from 1 person to 250 by the time I left. What did I get in return? A 10% reduction in salary from my previous job, almost no pay hikes (there were some) for 4 years, a whole lot of "we are family" talk, and zero stock. Of course I was naive and did not have things in writing, but I still believe they owe me 3% of an 80 M exit price because that's what they verbally told me. But no, good employers turned into bad employers very quickly.

Of course there is a lot more to the story, I had my own faults, but I am not naming anyone and I am not publishing my story here. That life is over, I am not fighting that battle, this was 15-20 years back and I finally did move on and do other stuff.

But that 3% after a decade or more of (well managed) growth would have been awesome.

Re: On loyalty to your employer (2018)

#369

Post by CharlieDigital »

maccard wrote: post #326
CharlieDigital wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup, many of the folks responding are glossing over this line in my OP: > Had they already experienced everything good there is to experience in this one lifetime that they were so bored of it that they would prefer to work instead?

But every other point you r made in the the replies here has been about travel and how it can be done when people have suggested other priorities

I'm telling it from my perspective; and travel means different things to different people. Sightseeing? People watching? Cultural immersion? History? Exploring the outdoors? More generally, I look at it as "experience this Earth while you're here".

Re: On loyalty to your employer (2018)

#370

Post by bumby »

int_19h wrote: post #328
dspillett wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A country is a thing and loyalty to it is called "patriotism". That sort of loyalty is not quite the same: protecting your own to indirectly protect yourself. People often see their “external tribes” as an extension of their self much likely they do family/friends, rather than them being part of it like a company. I am a Spillett. I am a Yorkshireman, I am English, I am UKian, I am European, I work for TL. Notice t…

> That sort of loyalty is not quite the same: protecting your own to indirectly protect yourself. I would argue that this is a tit-for-tat, and as such, not really an example of loyalty per se. Loyalty would be protecting your country even when it doesn't actually benefit you and yours in any tangible way. And it has all the same problems as corporate loyalty, really.

>protecting your country even when it doesn't actually benefit you

Perhaps this needs some nuance. It seems like duty has some relevance here. Military service may not actually benefit someone directly, and it could easily be a detriment at the individual level. But societies struggle to operate effectively for very long when everyone takes an individualistic transactional mindset. At some point, it becomes a collective action problem that needs to find a balance between serving a sense of duty to society as a whole and society not taking advantage of such sentiments.

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