On loyalty to your employer (2018)

https://medium.com/hackernoon/on-loyalty-to-your-employer-c674c4b06b3a

by Peroni • 1 year ago

425 448 1 year ago

You can be as quickly dismissed as the guy reads off a piece of paper (for liability purposes), swivels the camera round to HR rep, and your access is cut off right after the call.

You have pretty much a minute or two (if that) to bye a sentence to a couple chats, and it's over. Done.

Oh, and swing by to return equipment. Thanks.

Not that it's worse by any previous measure. Just the process folks will go through: bloodless, swift, smooth. (They have a list to get through.)

You can always wish it never happens, convince yourself every dawn or dusk commit proves something, but only the present reality ever mattered.

Every student of computer science should experience a simulated firing. At least to consider beyond the "system under test" and reflect on business and capital, to think on the end of things along with its beginning.

closewith6• 1 year ago

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.

objclxt• 1 year ago

the OP is in the EU and UK, where none of the above is true.

You can absolutely be dismissed without cause in the UK, protections against this only kick in after two years of employment.

Apocryphon7• 1 year ago

idk, while trite, the bulleted list is full of common sense that’s all too easily forgotten:

* Do not sacrifice your relationship with family and friends to appease your employer.

* Do not sacrifice your mental wellbeing to appease your employer.

* Do not sacrifice your dignity, values, and ethics to appease your employer.

* Do not buy into the bullshit hype of “hustle” to appease your employer.

Propelloni2• 1 year ago

For context, the OP is in the EU and UK, where none of the above is true.

In the EU many protections -- depending on the member state -- only apply under certain conditions. For example, employees in companies with less than 10.25 FTE do not enjoy any termination protection beyond very short notice periods (between 1 and 7 month) in Germany.

mattlondon2• 1 year ago

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, but realistically I don't think anyone would expect a disgruntled suddenly-made-redundant employee to really do that with any gusto or enthusiasm.

gedy• 1 year ago

You have pretty much a minute or two (if that) to bye a sentence to a couple chats, and it's over. Done.

When remote in this situation, I've shut off wifi and hard powered down right after meeting before they try and remote wipe.

I enjoyed making them squirm while I take a few weeks to mail back equipment, while receiving increasingly urgent emails.

Pointless I know, but was fun.

mattlondon2• 1 year ago

The pros remote wipe overnight while you are sleeping, or at the very least during the meeting with HR and your VP. Waiting to terminate access until after the bad news is delivered is just asking for trouble!

CharlieDigital18• 1 year ago

    > “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 many sights and wonders? 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? Had they already swam with whales, explored dense Amazonian jungles, climbed snowy mountains, explored the countless alleys and backstreets of Tokyo, etc.

I completely get the drive to create; I have various side projects I make for fun and to learn. But I would never want to work for the rest of my life. Life is too short and the world is too big.

sandworm101• 1 year ago

Not everyone has the money to swim with whales or explore jungles. And even among the few that do, many would rather spend thier money on uplifting other people than self-indulgent ecotourism. Many would rather work until they die in full knowledge that doing so might help free thier children from work altogether. And a fair number still see productive work as a greater good than sloth or vanity.

CharlieDigital18• 1 year ago

You can go hike the Appalachian Trail for free. Explore national parks for a nominal fee. Explore the sights and sounds of your nearest city without much cost at all.

lud_lite• 1 year ago

The travel things you describe to me are work (in a good way) getting away from it all can give you the clarity to know what big moves to make. I recently went to Tokyo and didn't touch work at all. The only way!

For those who can't afford that like the sister comment you can explore your own city (or suburbia or countryside). Everywhere is exotic to someone. In all 3 cases a bicycle does a good job!

maccard4• 1 year ago

I think the middle ground is healthy.

I'm in my early 30's, I have a job that I get to "create" in (I make video games).

I immediately wondered if this individual had a family, friends. Had this person already seen the world and its many sights and wonders? 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? Had they already swam with whales, explored dense Amazonian jungles, climbed snowy mountains, explored the countless alleys and backstreets of Tokyo, etc.

Lots of these things are best done when you're younger, healthy, and able to do these things. I would _much_ rather live in a nice house in a nice area with exciting things to do from my mid 20's onwards and enjoy those things for years and years and years, rather than live in a smaller/cheaper/farther out place so that I can retire 10 years earlier and start living. I'd rather have 1-2 of those things to look forward to every year than say "I can't wait until I'm 50 and I can finally start doing all those things".

My dad counted down the days until he could retire, talked about how he would finally get to do X Y and Z. About 2 years before that, health conditions caught up and now he's not fit to do so many of those things that he was so excited and happy to do. If the tradeoff for me is working until I'm a little older while getting to enjoy the journey, rather than minmaxing the time that i can work and retire, then I'll choose to enjoy the ride.

CharlieDigital18• 1 year ago

    > "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 lifetime. The moments when he was the happiest seemed to be when they were traveling together. As students, as parents, as a couple after my cousins had graduated and started their own lives.

In those last years, he was "waiting" for my aunt to be ready and it felt sad that he didn't get to travel more because my aunt thought more about the money than the short lifetime they had left. His passing was like a wake up call of sorts; a reminder that life is shorter than anyone can expect. It's very hard to convey this in words until one experiences this first hand and feels the shock.

More recently in my own travels, I've realized the same as you: that traveling in your youth makes much more sense than traveling in your "golden" years. You have greater mobility, more energy, less ailments. 20's and 30's are prime for exploring the world. Work will always be there!

martindbp• 1 year ago

I would _much_ rather live in a nice house in a nice area with exciting things to do from my mid 20's onwards and enjoy those things for years and years and years, rather than live in a smaller/cheaper/farther out place so that I can retire 10 years earlier and start living.

That's a false dichotomy. You can retire at least 25-30 years earlier than normal if you are a bit mindful of your spending and earn a decent salary. That makes the decision a bit harder doesn't it? Be frugal in your 20s and 30s, retire at 35-40 when you still mostly have your health, or so that you can actually focus on your health and increase your health span, and your 60s and 70s might be better than you expect. Whether this is worth it depends on your individual situation, how much do you earn, how painful is it for you to save, is there something you'd be retiring to, not just away from? I also wouldn't trade a life of misery for 10 retired years, but I don't think it's that simple.

arjonagelhout• 1 year ago

Speaking as a person who can’t see themselves stop working, I think an important factor is how one derives meaning from their life. For some it might be living amazing experiences, and for others it can be in helping others (which could qualify as work). The healthiest seems to be a combination of the two, with a different ratio depending on the person.

Here in the Netherlands it’s common to see retired people do volunteering work, as it can bring great pleasure and satisfaction to help people. There’s of course also the communal aspect of it.

It’s also common to see business owners for example in family businesses to keep working at the company after the official retirement age.

So I’d argue work does not have to be a chore and can be a source of meaning and purpose. But if it is just a means to an end, it makes sense to not want to work your entire life and good labor and retirement laws should protect people from having to work their entire life.

CharlieDigital18• 1 year ago

"Work" here I would define as exchanging time for money.

Volunteering is not work.

For me personally, I make a distinction between "working" and "creating". I will always want to create (a very broad term), but I will not always want to work. In fact, I don't want to work now; I only want to create. The best is when I can exchange my creation for money -- then it is no longer work.

mid-kid• 1 year ago

I wish I could do unpaid volunteer work and still afford live. By which I mean, I really hate that certain kinds of work are not deemed worthy enough of financial compensation, yet are still beneficial to people and society at large.

paulcole4• 1 year ago

Maybe the person just doesn’t care about swimming with whales or having friends? Does everybody really think the dense Amazon jungle is neat?

You’re projecting what you think makes life worth living onto someone else.

Can you really not imagine that for another person working is what they love as much as you seem to love climbing snowy mountains?

Life is too short

I agree with this. It’s too short to think about how someone else is spending theirs.

CharlieDigital18• 1 year ago

You're missing the forest for the trees.

You have one lifetime on this Earth and it is a big place with many experiences and sights. Do not regret in the end that you exchanged too much of that one lifetime for money rather than enriching it with many experiences be it with family, friends, or even by oneself.

brookside• 1 year ago

Honestly - leave the whale, jungles, and over-touristed Tokyo-ites alone.

Travel lightly, get a feel for different environments and cultures, then take that perspective to your hometown.

Travel is frosting. The cake can be building a meaningful life that involves community, maybe family, and possibly meaningful work.

electrosphere• 1 year ago

I worked remotely from Tenerife last year. I was there two months, at first it was great, everything new and novel. But it wears off and towards the end of my stay I longed for home, community and my usual routine.

The best balance is occaisonal "pattern interrupts" like travel abroad (or within your own country). You do not necessarily need big sweeping vacations or "experiences". A bike ride in a forest for a few days with a friend you have not seen for months can give you that mental refreshment.

motorest2• 1 year ago

I immediately wondered if this individual had a family, friends. (...)

The saddest thing I ever witnessed in a FANG was a participant of one of those workplace empowerment events. Even though her interview was focused on her bending over backwards to praise their employer's health insurance, the devil was in the details.

The interviewee was praising her employer for providing a nice health insurance, but she mentioned as side-notes that throughout her career she felt so much pressure to perform that she postponed having children until a point where her fertility doctor warned her that she might risk not be able to have children. When she finally felt her job was secured, she decided to not focus on her career anymore and finally went ahead with having children. Except that she was already in her 40s. She had to undergo a couple of years worth of fertility treatments until she finally managed to get pregnant, which was supposedly the focus of her intervention because her employer was so awesome for allowing her to seek medical treatments.

Everyone decides what's best for themselves, but being robbed of having children because you want to bend over backwards for your employer sounds like an awful tradeoff.

CharlieDigital18• 1 year ago

It's a tough trade off. On the one hand, having a child in your 20's is how our biology is wired. On the other hand, in the modern age, those are also prime years for work and professional growth; I get it.

Last year, I (in my 40's) did a trip to Terceira[0] and after a few days of hiking, had shooting pain in my knee. I immediately wondered if I had torn something! It would be quite the pickle since I had traveled with a backpack. Luckily, it was ITBS (Iliotibial band syndrome) and went away with some Acetaminophen and rest.

But it made me regret that in my 20's I spent more time playing computer games than doing things like this hike that would be even challenging if I were to wait until I retired.

[0] https://youtu.be/DlFKc4OfbpM Terceira is a spectacular destination, by the way, and easy to access from JFK.

p3rls2• 1 year ago

This is such a retarded modern take on things, not everyone derives meaning from checking off a bucket list they read about on some internet listicle. For some of us, creating and contributing is the goal.

CharlieDigital18• 1 year ago

That wasn't the point and you've completely misread it. The very first point was "family and friends" and for me, travel is something that helps me experience the broader world. It's not a bucket list, it's the fact that this world is immense, filled with experiences and that we only have one lifetime to find those experiences that enrich our short time here.

The hypothetical question is is whether this individual has already experienced everything there was to experience and decided "No, working 9-9 is what I value in life!"

zelon883• 1 year ago

The irony of this statement is; most of the people who have adopted the views you're criticizing used to believe what you believe. I am one of those individuals.

I used to think that my worth could be measured by the amount of work that I produced. That there was some big tally board and everytime I did something valuable I would get a "tick" and that the "ticks" would eventually be tallied up and there would be some reward. Some relief. Something.

Only after having been literally told "This is my company, my revenue, my profit, and there's no relief coming for you no matter how hard you try" by not one, but TWO different employers did I finally start to adopt the thinking of prioritizing my own well being.

And only after prioritizing my own well being did I develop this sense of value in things I enjoy. Armed with the knowledge about the value of myself I was able to finally prioritize between work and home.

I highly recommend the book "The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck" by Mark Manson. It is really good at demonstrating how "if everything is sacred, then nothing is sacred."

lr4444lr2• 1 year ago

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.

moolcool• 1 year ago

I don't think that's contradictory to OP though. You can find enrichment and fulfillment in work, while also maintaining balance with the other aspects of life.

Retric3• 1 year ago

The idea of retirement is literally thousands of years old at this point. Hell the Roman Empire even had the idea of pensions though it wasn’t that common at the time.

Aging inherently means being unable to be an independent productive member of society at some point. (Ed: well past what we consider retirement age.) Historically in agrarian societies few people reached this point so it wasn’t generally a significant burden to support them. What changed is lowering the retirement age and increased the number of people who live long enough to see it.

stetrain• 1 year ago

There are options other than working to the exclusion of other fulfillment right up until a specific age cutoff and then having zero work.

Honestly saving all of that until retirement is not a great idea when you look at how many people die in their 60s and 70s and that if you have children and raise a family that's going to happen well before retirement as well.

You can also find routine, mental challenges, and socialization across the generations without "working" in the traditional sense of a full time job for an employer or your own business.

There are lots of ways to balance these things out, and to find that balance along the way instead of hoping you'll find it in some theoretical future retirement.

BriggyDwiggs42• 1 year ago

You can work, can do all that, without big w Work as the only format. Surely if society can compel people into work as a means to accomplish those positive ends you mentioned, it can be made in a way that still pushes towards those positive ends without many of the drawbacks our current system comes along with.

Frieren• 1 year ago

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.

Peopled died and killed for the right to a pension. And many more are still fighting for it around the world. To disregard that so costly-gain right so lightly seems quite a privileged position.

A cosy job, stress-free, well paid, creative... may be worth keeping if you do not have hobbies nor family. But that is not the case for most people. Rich people lives longer than the poor, job conditions is one important factor.

lm28469• 1 year ago

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.

Most jobs aren't any of these though. With automation and the shift to a service economy jobs have became more and more alienating

NegativeLatency2• 1 year ago

I have enough hobbies/interests/projects and community engagement that I’m not super worried about what I’ll do when I retire. This isn’t true for everyone but it would be good for society in the US if we focused less on work and more on joy.

v3xro• 1 year ago

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".

apercu2• 1 year ago

I would like to have some meaningful part-time work when I retire.

Sure, I garden, landscape, play with my tractor, spend more time playing guitar than any other hobby and go to the gym 3 times a week, but I would still want some sort of additional "purpose" to keep me engaged with society (I'm not exactly an introvert but left purely to my own devices I tend to entertain myself pretty solitarily).

relwin• 1 year ago

I help out at the local library part time. You meet a variety of people (some you know already) and can help them in some way. You're also exposed to a wide range of humanity from assisting kid's activities (fun!) to tolerating confused transients (less fun.)

jsemrau• 1 year ago

I'm part of the GenX crowd here. I can't imagine a day when I am not building or solving something.

shapmeans• 1 year ago

same here, until I closed our startup ~6 months ago and decided to do nothing after 19 years of working hard and pushing upwards. I lived with my partner so I wasn't paying rent, and now I changed my mind about retiring - I can't wait. I still got to dabble, I helped a founder friend with her core tech, I visited friends, played a bunch of video games, spent more time with my partner, and I loved it. Time felt comfy, I purposefully was not looking for work, my stress levels went down, I walked my dog at least an hour a day. I'm now going back to work, even harder problems and responsibilities, and while I'm likely to enjoy that, I am now looking forward to when I don't have to (assuming that happens)

CharlieDigital18• 1 year ago

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.

codazoda• 1 year ago

I probably say something similar to this. I plan to create for the rest of my life. I'm also trying to build a business out of this because I hope that someday it will give me even more freedom and maybe even extend that to my kids and grandkids, if I were successful enough. It also means that I can set my own priorities. I'll likely retire when I'm 65 (too late but I don't think I'll be prepared enough to do it earlier) and continue to "work" on my own stuff, maybe until I die.

But, yes, I've seen some of the world and I want to see more of it. I have a couple groups of friends that hang out more than once a month and I've traveled with them multiple times this year. I have family that I see pretty often. There's really not enough time for all the stuff I do but I'm still driven to create.

eunos2• 1 year ago

I do think some individuals much prefer work over family or friends since 'work' relations are professional, formal and regulated while personal relationships lack those and are chaotic and random.

mancerayder6• 1 year ago

Is that a feeling that might best be appreciated by folks 'on the spectrum'? For me, robotic corporate relationships where my paycheck (which goes to food and rent) might be jeopardized, stresses me way more than a spat with a friend that's forgotten in a month.

markus_zhang2• 1 year ago

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.

geodel4• 1 year ago

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.

no_wizard• 1 year ago

Not everyone finds 'the work' to be an interrupt either, to be fair. Sometimes the work is the fulfilling part of life, its not having more traditional societal roles. Not to say family and friends aren't important, they absolutely are, but the way I think of it is this way:

When I started working on my own independent venture, I was worried about time. I'm not in a position to quit my job, and I don't think its going to be a VC thing. So I was struggling to find time, so I timed everything I did in a day.

When I did that, I found time I used to idle (IE, not simply relaxing or taking needed down time) with TV watching to be a few hours a day. Didn't even realize it was something I did, it was simply baked into the nightly routine.

Once I replaced that time with working time, I was able to get alot farther along. I suspect if my idea ever takes off, I can examine things more closely and find and shift more time like this.

This is all to say, that you can still enjoy working, prioritize work, but not leave family and friends completely in the lurch at the same time.

All that said: IMO, if you're putting in the hours, do it for yourself, unless you're either moving up to an executive role (or equivalent) at a company where you can cash out big, you're unfortunately a cog in the machine. The best course of action if you really love your work, is to find a sustainable way to work for yourself.

weakfish2• 1 year ago

I’m curious how you maintain the energy to work those free moments. I find myself too tired from work and my social / physical hobbies that when I do have the time, I only have the brain power to play games or watch TV.

In those circumstances, I treat it as a form of self care because it lets me recharge for the next day of work and doing fun stuff with friends or playing hockey or whatever

StableAlkyne• 1 year ago

I don't think it's that crazy in certain careers; I've seen a similar sentiment in academics.

Back in grad school, we had several professors emeriti who were teaching a class or two, or collaborating with a lab, because they just enjoyed it.

hamburglar• 1 year ago

I retired last year. Decided I’ve got enough money to last me the rest of my life if I live reasonably, and that’s good enough for me. I have a 40 hour a week job doing development, but it’s a passion project that I’m doing purely for enjoyment (and I’m working completely for equity). I felt my life instantly get easier the moment I quit my old job. It’s conceivable that this job will make me a pile of money, but I know it isn’t likely. I see my kids a lot more, I take time off when I need it, and I still feel like I’m doing something useful. I have decided that this is truly the way to live.

zelon883• 1 year ago

A lifetime is a long time. Viewpoints, opinions, standpoints, circumstances and plans rarely last a lifetime.

calderwoodra• 1 year ago

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.

9rx• 1 year ago

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?

PaulRobinson• 1 year ago

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".

trallnag• 1 year ago

Traveling all over the world is very bad for the environment and climate...

stonemetal12• 1 year ago

I hate that quote, it is so trite and stupid.

What poor person wouldn't want to have provided more for their family. What scientist would say I discovered enough. What engineer would say I built enough.

When you are alone who or what do you think about? People have different goals, dreams and desires. Claiming yours are the only ones worthy of pursuing seems rather arrogant.

NegativeLatency2• 1 year ago

Lost my grandpa a couple years ago and he said almost exactly “I wish I hadn’t worked so hard” on his deathbed.

karaterobot• 1 year ago

I think you might be creating a backstory for this person without any knowledge to ground it on. That's inevitable, we all do it, but be careful about drawing conclusions based on unevidenced assumptions.

scarface_742• 1 year ago

I’m happily married, have plenty of friends and family and I don’t see myself not working until someone won’t hire me. I’m 50.

My wife and started traveling a lot after Covid lifted and I started working remotely. We did the “digital nomad” thing for a year across the US until the year before last and even since then we are on a plane to do something for fun around a dozen times a year. Going forward, we have 6-8 “vacations” planned per year for the next few years and sometimes we stay in another city for a month at a time.

This was before I had unlimited PTO and plan on averaging 30 days a year. Work isn’t a limiting factor.

It’s a lot easier to spend $20K-$30K+ a year (plus playing the credit card points game) when you have income coming in. Also everything you mentioned is a lot easier to do when you are young and healthy than when you are 65.

I couldn’t possibly see having our travel schedule later in life. True we aren’t “young”. But we are both gym rats

IMTDb• 1 year ago

“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.

einpoklum• 1 year ago

When I'm on my deathbed, I'll probably wish I'd worked harder - on trying to stop Israel (= where I live) 's genocide in Gaza. That's what I feel most guilty about.

weakfish2• 1 year ago

Not to derail the convo, but I’m curious - do you feel extremely in the minority being a citizen of Israel who is anti-Palestinian genocide? I guess I’m curious if expressing that publicly is dangerous or would cause people to keep their distance

rich_sasha2• 1 year ago

My grandfather was a doctor and lived a modest life. But he worked all his life. In his 70s he was still volunteering at a local hospice. In fact on his 78th birthday, he went to work in the morning, then attended his birthday party, then had a stroke and died a few weeks later. He never

swam with whales, explored dense Amazonian jungles, climbed snowy mountains, explored the countless alleys and backstreets of Tokyo, etc.

But I think he enjoyed his life just as it was.

antimoan• 1 year ago

I think it boils down to differences of point of view. One enjoys travel, one enjoys work, one get satisfaction from creating art, one enjoys being athletic, one wants to do it all. All perspectives are valid and none is better than the other. I think the world would be pretty boring if everyone thought the same way and acted the same way.

IMO what matters in all this is not identifying with the activity or people. Of course work and employers can disappoint you, but so do people who you love. Your partner might leave you, your kids might disappoint you, your friends might become busy and distance themselves from you. What if there is an accident and cannot travel the world anymore? Where does that leave you? All those destinations and experiences, and you cannot experience them.

I think Woody Allen says it best:

"It’s just an accident that we happen to be on earth, enjoying our silly little moments, distracting ourselves as often as possible so we don’t have to really face up to the fact that, you know, we’re just temporary people with a very short time in a universe that will eventually be completely gone. And everything that you value, whether it’s Shakespeare, Beethoven, da Vinci, or whatever, will be gone. The earth will be gone. The sun will be gone. There’ll be nothing. The best you can do to get through life is distraction. Love works as a distraction. And work works as a distraction. You can distract yourself a billion different ways. But the key is to distract yourself."

Except the key is not to distract yourself but instead try to know yourself deep down. And you reach a point where there is no destination, person, job, or activity that holds your happiness hostage, everything is just is and you go with the flow.

PeterStuer• 1 year ago

Systemically, there is a bias to find/retain employees that overcommit, and a bias for employers that will undercommit to the "relationship".

Rationally you can agree it is a purely transactional state. Working hours for compensation. Emotionally in tech many love the work itself, or the nerdy glamour of the industry, or the inherent intelectual bravadory and oneupmanship, and so are ripe for exploitation.

HR will draw you in, infecting your social life with company perks, values and "we are a family" messaging only to turn all process when it comes to an end.

But as the systemics are clear, each new generation will get drawn in. And tbh, often it can still be a good deal.

PhilipRoman2• 1 year ago

Eh, I'm okay with doing more than required, as long as the employer also does so on their part.

Chinjut• 1 year ago

They won't.

chii2• 1 year ago

butif the employer also do their part, then you're not doing more than required - you're doing _exactly_ what is required.

The only way to do more than required is when one party benefits more (e.g., employer gets free overtime, or an employee clocks more hours than they actually did).

pydry2• 1 year ago

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 a shred of expectation of loyalty. It's pretty normal to see critical employees quit at an inconvenient time on a critical project and the only person who expresses any bad feelings is the employee in question feeling a bit guilty.

mancerayder6• 1 year ago

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 and hours

"We see a gap in your resume here a decade ago - may I ask why you took time off during this time"

etc

Those are signals.

There's a normalization of sociopathy in the hiring process. That's how we filter. Or maybe it's just financial services?

dasil0034• 1 year ago

I agree with your first paragraph, but I don’t really like the exploitation framing for tech jobs. Sure there is exploitation but there is also a lot of rest and vest going on. When you look at who’s delivering value in software it’s very unevenly distributed and only loosely correlated with raw work hours. A big part is collaboration and team dynamics. The ground dynamics are much more relevant than HR narratives when it comes to how a job feels and whether high expectations are motivating or seem exploitative.

alganet3• 1 year ago

I quit.

ohgr• 1 year ago

I am not loyal to my employer. I am loyal to doing competent work. If our goals align, then we will get on.

Any gaslighting or bullshit past that will be fucked off instantly.

dismas• 1 year ago

I am loyal to doing competent work. If our goals align, then we will get on.

100% agreed here, but I've also noticed I've had a fair few managers who didn't know what to do with someone like this. Sure, promotions are nice and what not, but if I'm not producing interesting work (or managing a team of people producing interesting work), it's pretty difficult to care about said job, and I'll move on quickly.

romanovcode• 1 year ago

I think one of the most important part of an employee is being loyal to the company. But if there was some other company that pays more for my loyalty...

I'm going to wherever they value my loyalty the most.

OutOfHere3• 1 year ago

That's not what loyalty means. It means that the employer will pay you fairly and treat you decently. It doesn't mean they will pay you top dollar. What you described is a purely contractual relationship, and such job hopping comes with its own strong risks.

agubelu2• 1 year ago

I dislike the word "loyalty" when talking about employment. Loyalty is for your spouse, friends and family. Your relationship with your employer is a contractual one.

When it comes to my job, I believe in doing your best possible work, being professional and acting in good faith. I expect to be paid fairly and treated with respect. If this relationship is mutually beneficial, it can go on for a long while. But it's important to remember that, as soon as it stops being beneficial to one party, it will be unilaterally rescinded.

shinycode• 1 year ago

100% agree, loyalty goes both ways and we rarely see loyal employers (massive layoffs including hi-profile employee who dedicated their life to the company)

dasil0034• 1 year ago

Loyalty to a corporation is misplaced because it can only be as loyal as its agents are, and those are numerous and constantly shifting.

I think its fine to be loyal to individuals that have earned it, but don’t make the mistake of thinking your boss can guarantee your employment in all circumstances, that’s not how the corporate world works.

Haul4ss• 1 year ago

This is a very rich-world view of work. Most people can't just "unilaterally rescind" their employment if they decide they don't like it anymore.

I don't disagree with what you're getting at, just understand that loyalty is a necessity to a lot of folks, and I don't think it is because their values are misplaced.

agubelu2• 1 year ago

I understand your point, but I wouldn't call that loyalty either. Loyalty is a choice, you could cheat on your partner, but you choose not to.

What you're talking about is necessity. If you don't have the possibility to simply walk away from a job, then you're sticking around because you must, not because you're loyal.

k__3• 1 year ago

They said "stops beneficial to one party", not that any of the parties stops liking it.

Many people don't like their jobs, that doesn't mean they don't benefit enough from it to pay bills.

ubermonkey3• 1 year ago

Most people can't just "unilaterally rescind" their employment if they decide they don't like it anymore.

I suspect what's meant here is that most anyone can take a different job and leave one that no longer serves them, not that most anyone can walk away from a job without another lined up.

energy123• 1 year ago

Red flag if bosses use that word, it's either an attempt to manipulate or they have a weird entitled view of what you owe them.

kgwxd• 1 year ago

I don't like the word "loyalty" when talking about anything. It's not a virtue in any circumstance. Spouses, friends and family are just as likely to abuse it. A bullshit concept celebrated by those who crave power. It's Religion Light.

lapcat• 1 year ago

Note: This post originally appeared in HackerNoon in 2018. I’m republishing it here in order to preserve and share the original piece.

scyzoryk_xyz• 1 year ago

Hustle hard! Work is not everything! You are what you do! Life is adventure! Your team is your family! It's just business! Don't have expectations! No, do have expectations! This company is different! Wait, all companies are the same! Go on vacation! No! Come back! Be more productive! No, wait, be less productive, have work-life balance...

Just don't be an asshole. Some loyalty is fine... or not! It depends!

oofManBang3• 1 year ago

I’m constantly witness to colleagues in the tech industry posting on LinkedIn about how great their employer

Whatever happened to dignity?

keiferski3• 1 year ago

Meta comment: the situation with employee-employer loyalty seems pretty similar to the loyalty situation in other aspects of modern life like dating/marriage partner-partner, politician-constituent, or friend-friend: you're not incentivized to be loyal and in a lot of situations, you're actually incentivized to not be loyal and to continually look for better opportunities.

To me, that feels like a failure of the deeper social system. I want to be loyal to the people I work for/with, not treat our relationship like a transaction that is socially acceptable to end at any minute. And in a bigger sense, I don't think it results in organizations that do truly good work over longer timescales.

Maybe the solution isn't Japanese-style one megacorporation for life employment...but a few steps toward incentivizing loyalty probably wouldn't hurt.

OutOfHere3• 1 year ago

That's complete nonsense. An employer is nothing like a partner. And as for those who are not loyal to friends, they will quickly find themselves without any.

As long as the employer is not solving world hunger or finding a cure for disease, the relationship is strictly transactional, and will remain as such.

keiferski3• 1 year ago

I didn't say that they are similar types of things, but that similar incentive structures are at play across them. That seems pretty obvious to me if we look at 1) the way employees make more money by changing jobs often and 2) how people using dating apps are always complaining about FOMO, infinite choice, and so on. In both situations the "user" is incentivized to not be loyal.

stuxnet79• 1 year ago

To me, that feels like a failure of the deeper social system. I want to be loyal to the people I work for/with, not treat our relationship like a transaction that is socially acceptable to end at any minute.

Great comment. The confounding variable here is culture.

American cultural norms devalue stable relationships in favor of personal fulfillment and self-actualization.

It isn't like this everywhere. There's a reason why business culture is different in Asia. The underlying attitudes there regarding social norms and how people can relate to each other i.e. what's acceptable and not acceptable, are very different. As a result, commerce there is conducted differently as well. Richard Nisbett wrote a book that goes into detail on this topic [1]

I will not make a judgement on which approach is better, or tie it into economic metrics but the bottom line is that attitudes towards work such as this one are highly influenced by the underlying behavioral norms. Without acknowledging this I don't think you can have a productive conversation on the topic.

[1] The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently...and Why - Richard Nisbett

keiferski3• 1 year ago

Thanks for the book suggestion.

I would push back on the notion that this is purely a geographical phenomenon though, because in the very recent past, it was totally normal for Americans to work for the same company for decades. You could say that recent developments are just an inevitable consequence of underlying social attitudes, but I’m not so sure it’s that simple.

thuanao• 1 year ago

It seems similar to slavery. The employees work to produce a surplus and through a system of physical and ideological violence only the employer gets a claim on the surplus.

Even pointing out the facts of this material relationship is considered a thoughtcrime.

Now go back to work “partner”

smokel• 1 year ago

This article is written by a recruiter. Recruiters make less money if everyone stays put. So repeating this trope about employees being transactions might be great for them, but it does not contribute to a more friendly society.

A bit of trust and loyalty makes working together a lot more enjoyable. And not every CEO is a narcissist. Just stay away from the really big companies, and you might be fine.

surgical_fire• 1 year ago

So repeating this trope about employees being transactions might be great for them, but it does not contribute to a more friendly society.

And repeating the trope that employees should be loyal to employers only benefit corporations and those that profit from them, to the detriment of labour.

Peroni3• 1 year ago

I hadn't considered the idea that my motivation for writing this might be interpreted as a ploy to generate more business. :)

Most of my perspective comes from working for and with startups. There's nothing wrong with a bit of mutual trust and loyalty. I'm simply warning that too much of either can be detrimental.

borgster• 1 year ago

Most wars involve deception at some level and then loyalty is vital. You need to prove that to the command center in stages. But when you get in you're rewarded handsomely.

Many low quality engineers have accidently stumbled upon this lucrative truth, simply because they had low optionality to move elsewhere and therefore also rank ethical considerations very low as a motivating criterion.

alganet3• 1 year ago

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.

datadrivenangel• 1 year ago

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

kjellsbells• 1 year ago

Even if you are content at your job, there are risks in staying for very long periods of time.

If you've ever joined an org where key people have been there for decades then you'll know of the immense amount of interior knowledge that these folks have. At best, they become instituional memories of the org, at worst, a cabal. The worst case is obvious: you can't get anything done barring their approval, and as a newbie you aren't in the club. But the best case is more insidious: because of the long timers, no one has documented processes, recorded the special tricks needed for the job, or done a simulation of what would happen if one of these key people were to evaporate. (And it does happen, because after 20+ years on the job, they are at the age where sudden death strikes happen, eg heart attacks.)

If you become one of these people, great, but you may find that you have expert knowledge in a very small domain, which is difficult if you get laid off. Which brings me on to my next point.

If you stay at a place for a long time, you are going to build a network of work friends, who, naturally, also stayed at the same place for your tenure. This is great, but also dangerous, because the network of people who can help you find a new job are not dispersed and at the same risk of layoffs as you.

If you work in the widget industry, and you and all your buddies work for WidgetCorp, what happens when WidgetCorp lays you off? Who do you call to start finding work in widgets? You need a diaspora of people in your industry who you knew from WidgetCo but who moved on to WidgetInc or whatever, and likewise, you yourself can be that person by moving on from your company after a few years.

chii2• 1 year ago

what happens when WidgetCorp lays you off?

While you're at widgetcorp, make your name known in the industry as the expert of widgets. Essentially, it's a sort of public portfilio. Surely, there are widgetcorp competitors out there, which if they get wind of your immenent layoff, might take a bet at hiring you. Not to mention you might be able to poach the other members of widgetcorp as an entire team.

mytailorisrich3• 1 year ago

My view is that you can't be loyal to a company because a company can't be loyal to you.

Loyalty is personal. You can be loyal to a boss because that boss has earned it over time by demonstrating that they are also loyal to you and will have your back.

begueradj• 1 year ago

Everybody hides his true opinion about this subject.

k__3• 1 year ago

You should be loyal to your craft, not to your employer.

You might have a job as a developer at some company that could get terminated at any time. Your skills and reputation remain irrespectively.

catmanjan2• 1 year ago

What about the loyal loom operators?

francisofascii• 1 year ago

I am guessing some of those loom operators transitioned to mending and patching, and operating the new machines. Guessing we will do the same. Just not all of us will make it.

k__3• 1 year ago

Transfer skills are important too.

I saw quite some Flash devs struggle after the iPhone release. Still, there were some that were good Devs that transitioned into other technologies.

lr4444lr2• 1 year ago

Do not buy into the bullshit hype of “hustle” to appease your employer

I completely disagree here. Hustling under the right leadership is as good for you as for the business. You learn the industry, hone your skills, network, and improve your understanding of the interactions between different business functions. IME, people who go above and beyond and produce value beyond just doing what their immediate supervisor tells them - even challenging them in the right ways for a better outcome - tend to survive through layoffs too. You can make work a reasonable part of your life, but still try your damndest during those hours.

Loughla• 1 year ago

There's a difference between trying your damndest during working hours, and hustle nonsense. In my experience, employers see time spent on site as a measure of success more than how productive you are during your regular workday.

So I read that to mean, don't kill yourself working unpaid overtime. You can still do a great job, working established working hours. I agree with that 100%. While I'm at work, I'm at work. But the moment that the day is over, work does not exist and will not exist.

ubermonkey3• 1 year ago

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 retention of insurance here.)

PEOPLE can be worthy of loyalty, but in a large corporation being loyal to a manager who is 4 layers down the tree is silly. You can and will be laid off by people who don't know your name. It's one reason I've stayed in smaller firms. I'm loyal to MY boss, because he owns the firm, and because he's showed ME loyalty.

grvdrm2• 1 year ago

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?

ubermonkey3• 1 year ago

I'm not sure what you're asking.

bsnnkv4• 1 year ago

Others have already written in their comments on this post about how silly the idea of loyalty to a company is.

I think all I'll add to that is that I have ended up at the point where I doubt I'll ever give my "best" work to an employer again - I'm just there to put the JIRA tickets in the bag, so to speak.

My best work is now exclusively reserved for things in my free time that I have a personal interest in.

dasil0034• 1 year ago

What does loyalty have to do with the quality of your work?

I’m all for boundaries by the way, not overworking etc, but my “best” work tends to come out unpredictably when the conditions are right. The people and project matter, but the fact that employment is transactional doesn’t really factor in for me.

bsnnkv4• 1 year ago

What does loyalty have to do with the quality of your work?

For me? Everything

Maybe this won't be the case anymore when I get assigned to the severed floor, but until then...

but my “best” work tends to come out unpredictably when the conditions are right

I get this, but the moment this "feeling" comes up during my 9-5 I nip it in the bud

grvdrm2• 1 year ago

Did a switch flip or was it a gradual turn?

I think about this too: should I just have a job to do the job well enough / adequately so to speak and then focus my brain power elsewhere (kids, house, amateur trades, etc)

bsnnkv4• 1 year ago

Switch flip after I was unceremoniously laid off from a Series C (now D) company (along with 25% of my fellow comrade workers) that I went many extra miles, many times, to stop from going under between Seed - Series C.

I'm still what people refer to as a "10xer" (though I don't like this term) when it comes to my own projects[1], but at this point if an employer wants this kind of quality from me, they'd need to x10 whatever initial salary offer they present me with.

Besides my own software projects, I now put the extra brain power into music, dance, videography, editing etc., and life is good.

[1] https://github.com/LGUG2Z/komorebi

alexfromapex• 1 year ago

Don't do it. Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.

rckt• 1 year ago

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 employer-employee relationships. One side pays money or whatever, the other is delivering the job being done. That's all.

StormChaser_5• 1 year ago

Agree 100% but for my own mental health I like to pretend loyalty does exist day to day but give myself a wake up call if that credit account as you call it is getting too big

Scene_Cast2• 1 year ago

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.

xingped• 1 year ago

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.

thunky4• 1 year ago

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

teucris• 1 year ago

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.

HEmanZ• 1 year ago

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 soulless existence to have no loyalty to your place of work, in the same way it would be a pretty soulless existence to never form loyalty with the people in your life, even if it isn’t absolute loyalty.

horsawlarway• 1 year ago

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.

convolvatron• 1 year ago

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.

Apocryphon7• 1 year ago

This soullessness wasn't always the case. Prior to the cost-cutting minmaxing of Jack Welch's industries-influential tenure as CEO of General Electric, corporate America wasn't quite so brazen about layoffs, because they weren't viewed as a way to maximize shareholder returns- and shareholder value wasn't viewed as the only priority for corporate leaders. (He also introduced what would later become stack ranking at Microsoft and other tech companies.)

On the other side, certainly a fluid labor market such as tech was a couple of years ago would foster a lack of loyalty, as employees hop from employer to employer for rapid career growth.

None of this necessarily contradicts with your point. It's just labor relations don't exist in a vacuum. Sometimes a lot needs to be done to earn trust in a low-trust cultural environment.

sanderjd2• 1 year ago

In addition to what others have said about loyalty to the people who happen to work at a company, which I agree with entirely:

I think it's good to have admiration for the company (or any organization) you work for. If you can't find anything you admire, it might be better to find another place to work where you can.

This implies having the privilege of having options. For me, it's probably the primary reason I try to direct my career toward having skills or connections that give me options.

atoav• 1 year ago

Yes, all loyalty is a risk. But the expectation in interpersonal relationships is typically that if you are loyal to someone they are loyal to you. There are literal rituals for people to swear that to each other in front of witnesses. Most people also intuitively understand that an unilateral breach of loyalty is a legitimate reason for ending this agreement.

With hypercapitalist corporations loyalty is a one-way street. The employee is expected to be loyal, while corporations drop them casually if it benefits them. Loyalty is realized when one of the sides endure some downsides in thr expectations that these will be resolved in the long term. So if you dump someone the minute that downside appears, you aren't and never have been loyal.

pkdpic• 1 year ago

I think I agree with both perspectives. And it makes me realize that in the past when I've tried to draw hardcore no-loyalty / emotional attachment boundaries teammates / employers pick up in the vibe and it slowly becomes mildly but chronically toxic.

It's 100% an emergence scam behavior of corporate entities to trick their employees into developing loyalty and tricking managers / founders etc into thinking its not just a way of scamming lower-end employees imo... I never got the feeling that managers were consciously trying to trick us into developing loyalty, felt more like they were then ones drinking the most coolaid on it...

Also agree with the base human need to feel at least some loyalty in any relationship to feel like it's healthy.

I think my hack has been to develop loyalty to people on my team laterally. Seems to work but sometimes leadership / management still seems like they catch a whiff that I dont have a deep emotional need to respond to their frantic 8pm or Sunday afternoon Teams messages...

But if they fire me for not being loyal who cares, the economies doing great right?

lo_zamoyski7• 1 year ago

It's not about feelings. It's about making human life possible, as we are social animals. We develop through relationships.

Loyalty is a commitment to the objective good of the other, of skin in the game. Loyalty is hierarchical and the particular variety and its entailed commitments depends on the particular nature of the relationship.

In a hyperindividualist liberal society, the presumption is basically Hobbesian; life is taken to be intrinsically and thoroughly adversarial and exploitative, and relationships are taken to be basically instrumental and transactional. (This even informs scientific interpretation, as science is downstream of culture.) Society is taken to be intrinsically a matter of "contract" or a kind of Mexican standoff. Loyalty is a quaint and anachronistic notion, a passing emotion that expires the moment the landscape of opportunities shifts. Provisional and temporary.

bitwize• 1 year ago

Loyalty is worth it if you can reasonably assume it will be repaid in kind. Assuming you didn't make a huge mistake in partner selection, that assumption is valid for your spouse. It emphatically does NOT hold for your employer, who will drop you the instant you become a problem. Therefore, it makes no sense to be loyal to your employer beyond the bare minimum.

5423542342353• 1 year ago

You shouldn’t bet your life that a mega-corp has absolute and utter loyalty to you.

But your mega corp doesn't have loyalty to you. They have loyalty to their shareholders, and you are a means to that end. The shareholders are the spouse, and you are just the person they paid to make the yearly birthday present. If a little flattery gets them a better price, then they flatter. If their spouse's interests change, you'll never see them again.

jimbokun• 1 year ago

Your soulful loyalty should be all for personal and family relationships like a spouse, zero for any corporation.

Employer employee relationships are completely financial. Almost legally required to be that way on the employer’s side.

kemayo2• 1 year ago

You can think of mutual-loyalty as an extended transaction, if you prefer. If, in exchange for you not planning on leaving the company, the company actively does its best to treat you well and preserve your job long-term, that can be a good trade-off.

The mutuality is important. You absolutely shouldn't think of yourself as "loyal" to a company that won't stick up for you. (And many companies won't, to be clear. If asked to choose between cutting executive salaries by 2% and firing you, most companies won't think too hard about that. You shouldn't be loyal to those ones.)

pc86• 1 year ago

I like the thought of this but how does it work in practice?

The company treats me well and preserves my job while I'm planning not to leave. Until they don't. Because once the transaction is more trouble than its worth - either financially, or politically, or interpersonally - I'm gone. But if I am planning to leave, the company doesn't know that and treats me the exact same way.

harles• 1 year ago

It’s definitely not a transaction. Every time I’ve seen push come to shove, companies prioritize the folks they see as critical to their company’s success with loyalty not even being a small factor. And if it’s a moderate to large sized company, many of the decisions will be made by a consulting firm with 0 context (or care) for loyalty.

dogleash• 1 year ago

the company actively does its best to treat you well and preserve your job long-term

Like fuck they do. They make a cost-benefit guess about proactive moves to reduce attrition, and the amount they do is tied the cost of replacement for the role in question.

swatcoder• 1 year ago

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 they don't experience loyalty or attachment. But they do benefit from yours, and so they'll milk it until you give up

But in smaller groups and smaller communities, where you're actually working with people, loyalty and even affection can really make a difference in how satisfying your worklife is, how much security you can feel in your opportunities, etc

It's not so much that there's "no place for loyalty in employer-employee relationships", it's just that the place for loyalty is different depending on what's inhabiting the employer role opposite you -- and the high-profile large employers of the modern age are incapable of reciprocating. But if loyalty comes naturally to you, and feels good to you when reciprocated, you have the option to look elsewhere instead of seething in resentment and disappointment.

throwaway77832• 1 year ago

I agree in parts. Loyalty and corresponding benefits are a local optima. But when the macro is controlled and influenced by external (to the local) forces, and these forces have power, loyalty means nothing in terms of security. But you will still have good relationships with people and new opportunities may surface as a benefit.

But loyalty to a company is complete, utter BS.

kermatt2• 1 year ago

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 movies.

gorbachev• 1 year ago

There is a special form of small company that's even worse. It's the kind where "we're a family". Those are worse than anything a big company bureaucracy / bean-counting could ever be.

jorblumesea• 1 year ago

tbh that feels completely backwards. In large orgs, you are a number and transparently so. People come and go, processes are set up that assume attrition.

In a smaller shop, there's less flex overall for departures and more incentive to abuse the personal relationships built.

You are right that loyalty changes depending on org chart, but it's how senior you are. Senior execs have more vested in the company, both in their career and stock options.

jjmarr• 1 year ago

My parents told me to be loyal to people, not companies.

People get me a job when I look for one.

KittenInABox• 1 year ago

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.

ivape3• 1 year ago

The larger the company, and the more they're ballooned out with abstract drones chomping on abstract work items

I was actually thinking about this the other day. When an employer implements an "aloof" layer between the work done and the bottom line, the employer and employee don't get to bond. You and your company should be on the same page when it comes to generating business and on the same page when it comes to concerns. Shipmates, for real. With layers of management of all varieties (middle management, project management, developer management (this is tricky because the Dev Lead becomes your only connection to the bottom line)), the "aloofness" leads to unfulfilled lives. That's when the employee doesn't feel fulfilled or understands who they are on the ship. And it follows that the captain(s) of the ship (leadership) are unfulfilled because they are no longer in love with the crew (can easily fire, hire, layoff, disconnect from the employees lives). I haven't fully thought this thought out so I will probably expand on it as time goes on, but this is my line of thinking at the moment.

It's a love issue due to a lack of direct bonding (and no, company social gatherings and "fun" is not the bonding I am talking about. I am talking about taking on Moby Dick together). The love is indirectly routed through these other layers until it's been fully diluted and misunderstood, unfulfilling to all. Everyone must love the ship, the crew, the captain, the ocean, and the whale they are hunting.

jacobsenscott2• 1 year ago

That loyalty and affection your are feeling is only going one way. I've worked for small and large places. Work is always transactional. The day the CFO at your 10 person startup that "feels like a family" gets some pressure from investors to cut costs, well, your loyalty does not factor into the decision making.

MangoCoffee2• 1 year ago

But in smaller groups and smaller communities, where you're actually working with people, loyalty and even affection can really make a difference in how satisfying your worklife is, how much security you can feel in your opportunities, etc

I've been in IT for over 20 years, mostly working in small to mid-sized companies. Small companies will let you go as soon as they feel a pinch. every company is the same, no matter their size.

You're expected to give two weeks' notice, but they can let you go without any notice.

Corporate loyalty is the dumbest trick employers ever pulled.

int_19h7• 1 year ago

This difference is because smaller organizations are less of an entity in their own right, and more of an actual group of people doing things together (even if legally the company might still be a separate entity).

As organizations grow, they become more than a mere sum of its parts. It seems to be an emergent phenomenon driven by complexity - as humans interact, this very interaction creates something resembling an entity in its own right past a certain scale, with its own agenda (distinct from individual agendas of its constituent humans) and drive for self-preservation as a whole - the egregore that you mentioned. My pet theory is that this starts to happen when you scale beyond the Dunbar number, but the effect is only obvious at scales where most members of the organization are faceless strangers to each other.

Either way, this emergent entity is decidedly amoral.

Exoristos• 1 year ago

I've worked at large companies (a Fortune 50 for ten years), and small (current employer is six people), and in my experience the small businesses treated employees the worst. At a large organization, there is a sense of orderliness and process that sometimes works in the employee's favor; your "loyalty" is on the record and categorizes you in a specific way. In a "family"-size company, it's often the case that only family members, family friends, or family co-religionists are of value to the owners; this truth then emerges at the worst time for you.

academia_hack• 1 year ago

At least to me, loyalty _is_ the benefit. I can't conscience working for someone I hate or someone who I don't feel like I want to help succeed. I've definitely quit jobs before just because the senior leader in my reporting chain was replaced with some smarmy windbag I didn't believe in.

That's not to say it's _much_ of a benefit, but if the only thing a job gives me is a market-rational amount of dollars and health benefits in exchange for life-hours, the invisible hand ensures I can find that virtually anywhere.

TheGRS• 1 year ago

I think that loyalty counts when the decision-makers are more localized. People who show up and demonstrate that they care will generally get the bonuses from their direct managers or higher up managers who recognize the effort (because it happened to cross their path somehow). But these monetary decisions are more and more just calculations on a spreadsheet - here's your 3% annual pay increase and we can allocate 10% of the workforce gets a larger raise to ensure 80% retention. When the layoffs come it has nothing to do loyalty and often has little to do with competence in the role. Hopefully the guy with the spreadsheet is considering whether they can continue to run the business with certain individuals or not, but I don't think it ever gets that granular. This is the MBA era of business.

seneca• 1 year ago

This isn't always true. I've been in engineering leadership a long time, and I've absolutely gone out of my way to cover for, or help out, engineers that I know put in the extra work, and I've seen other leaders do it too.

It's not unlimited, but it exists.

tomrod• 1 year ago

Loyalty to a company is broken because companies are typically too big.

Loyalty to people still has significant returns, _especially_ when you are specific with what you want and take control of how your interactions should work.

When I started my own business, a few-times-former employer became a client. The way they interacted with me changed dramatically overnight -- the CxOs treated me as a peer versus an employee. Was very strange to experience and a very welcome change.

eitally2• 1 year ago

This isn't universally true (and I'm saying this as someone who's been laid off three times in my career). When searching for a job, it's important to perform due diligence to ascertain whether the company is on solid footing, their strategy makes sense, and your role will be valued. But once you're there, who your boss is, including how well they mentor you and what their political clout is within the business, can absolutely make "loyalty" worthwhile because the ROI can be career acceleration (in terms of compensation, job title and also breadth/depth of experience/exposure) that goes far beyond just the direct pay when you consider the overall value.

FireBeyond2• 1 year ago

Not even specific to the tech industry (not that you were saying it was).

My ex- was working towards becoming a veterinarian. During a gap in schooling, she looked at some jobs as a tech or assistant.

She found a good fit, and got to the point of having an offer. But she was having a crisis of conscience. The ad, and interviewers, had talked about how they wanted people who would be invested and committed in the practice. Not in and out in a few months. But she knew that in 9-10 months she would be doing more schooling. Could she take the job in good conscience, knowing that?

Absolutely she could. I said this to her:

Okay, so they're asking for someone who'll be there for years, is committed to them.

Say you start work, and in three months there's a recession, or just a downturn in their business. Is their response more likely to be:

1) "Business is hard, times are tough, but you are committed to us and we are committed to you, so no layoffs, no firings, no pay decreases. Let's get through this together."

or will it be

2) "Business is hard, times are tough, so today will be your last day at XYZ Vet Hospital, thank you for your service."

FireBeyond2• 1 year ago

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").

aprdm• 1 year ago

I feel this is a pretty cynical view. We can all be adults and understand it is a business relationship.

The "reward for loyalty" varies greatly per company, but I would like to see it defined. I have worked on 12 companies since I started my career, some of them would probably rank very high for your definition and others very low.

usrusr4• 1 year ago

There's more to loyalty than imagining it as a credits account.

The baseline is absence of disloyalty, which does not mean "stay aboard despite lower pay or benefits" but simply not cheating the organization you are (or were) part of. An employer who has to distrust every move of their employees will inevitably be a terrible employer to work at. No matter how hard they try not to be.

Not going below that baseline won't magically protect you from bad employers, but going below will inevitably turn any employer you work at into a bad employer, at least if enough of your peers aren't above following your example.

__xor_eax_eax• 1 year ago

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

goostavos• 1 year ago

I similarly got this lesson early in my career. One of my first jobs. I was young and excited to be at a startup. Learning a ton. I poured hours into that job. Then, one day we were pulled onto a call, told they couldn't afford us any more, and fired on the spot. We were immediately locked out of everything and that was that.

It was shocking at the time. To young me, it was a big "....oh" kind of realization about what kind of relationship you can/should have with any kind of business.

Now, I'm here cause you pay me. I don't keep stuff at my desk or decorate 'my' space. I show up, do the job, and leave. Once I close this laptop, work is dead to me until the next day.

I'd be lying if I said I didn't occasionally work more than 40hr/week, but most of the time my work/life balance is fantastic by choice.

seer• 1 year ago

If your loyalty is to your team / admin people, it could be quite profitable.

Plenty of examples of people (me included) that when their superior changes projects or leaves the company etc, they know and trust you and they want to move you with them.

I for example managed to switch from a dull team that drove me to almost the verge of quitting to a very exciting skunkworks team that I had a blast working in for almost 2 years, let alone doubling my compensation.

That happened because I was loyal to my SEM, in the sense of giving extra time if he was on the line, giving honest feedback and generally trying to make them “succeed”, the moment a risky and important project was on the table at the org he was like - “let’s organize a crack team” and invited me on board … and it was such a cool experience.

“The company” itself doesn’t “feel” anything towards the people working for it, it’s the people behind it that are influenced by such things.

The best orgs would have those personal loyalties also align with the orgs mission, but they are still personal - given from humans to humans.

Of course there is a fine line in “being a good resource” and “sucking up”, but good managers usually know the difference.

jayd162• 1 year ago

Its better to think of your reputation than some kind of loyalty score you can cash in. Some people in the org care about your rep and some don't and that's all there is.

nick__m• 1 year ago

I am loyal to my employer because I have almost absolute job security, work for my almamater and agree with our mission :

  1- research
  2- teaching
  3- service to the community

But if I had a corporate job I would be loyal as much as a mercenary can be!

ldjkfkdsjnv• 1 year ago

The jobs that pay > 2 million a year do require loyalty. Loyalty in commoditized work positions is a completely different thing, and as noted a mistake. But once there is alot of money on the line, trust is actually as important as anything else.

makeitdouble• 1 year ago

the idea of spending 30 years working for the same employer is mind boggling

I've never seen someone staying at a job for 10+ years explain it by loyalty.

For some it's pure habbit and no need to move on, for others it's an equilibrium and they get better benefits from staying than the money they'd get leaving.

And in so many places, the people who were staying there their whole life just loved the job. They loved what they were doing either for society or for themselves. Some actually hated their employer, but it was a price to pay to do the job (I'd expect a ton of the Publix service people to be in that bucket)

Peroni3• 1 year ago

My Dad would agree with you. He enjoys his work, he likes the people, and he'll be the first to admit that he's been happy enough with the convenience of it all to prevent him from wondering if the grass might be greener elsewhere.

stego-tech2• 1 year ago

I think we lost something important when company loyalty was thrown aside in favor of the present "every person for themselves" attitudes.

We lost long-term planning. When companies and employees both view their relationship as inherently limited to just a few years before one or the other tires of them and trades in for a new model, we lose the ability to envision a real, tangible future for the organization. We stopped building institutions meant to withstand the tests of time, and built an armada of startups solely designed to cash out as quickly as possible, sold to corporate conglomerates leaping from fad to fad without any inkling as to how everything comes together or integrates. We deluded ourselves with maths, formulas, models, spreadsheets of information demonstrating that this attitude was the most valuable approach, tacitly admitting that long-term planning and execution was so difficult that the only viable approach is making more money tomorrow than we did yesterday, and everything else will work out fine because that's someone else's job.

Not related to OP's article (which is excellent and concise, highly recommended in general), but just a personal mourning of a lost future by someone who thrives in said environments, but can't find any that exist in this world. I'm a literal dinosaur in that regard, I guess: thriving through consistent adaptation and execution on long-term strategies and plans, built for a fifty-year tenure but living in a society where gig work doesn't even last fifteen minutes.

Alas.

Apocryphon7• 1 year ago

We lost long-term planning. When companies and employees both view their relationship as inherently limited to just a few years before one or the other tires of them and trades in for a new model, we lose the ability to envision a real, tangible future for the organization.

Yeah, and there is an actual historical moment and culprit to pin this on:

https://www.npr.org/2022/06/01/1101505691/short-term-profits...

stego-tech2• 1 year ago

YEP. No joke, when I started making this observation in organizations I worked at over a decade ago, that name was the one that started me down a rabbit hole of learning, reading, and discovery.

Every era has a Jack Welch, but ours was particularly awful.

vintagedave• 1 year ago

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.

hirvi74• 1 year ago

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.

noname120• 1 year ago

Unless you have stock in the company I suppose

Peroni3• 1 year ago

Glassdoor isn't gospel but it is a useful data point.

How do you realistically tell from outside if a company does treat their people well, or has a difficult culture?

The challenge there is that everyone has different interpretations of 'a difficult culture'. What's important (albeit difficult) is establishing an understanding of the type of environment you thrive in and the types of environments you struggle in. With that understanding, it's important to spend time during an interview process asking open-ended questions that might reveal the aspects you love/hate.

curiousllama• 1 year ago

Never confuse loyalty to a person with loyalty to an employer.

I have found loyalty to managers - when reciprocated - is the most valuable currency I have. It's led to both rewarding experiences & safety from the exact type of organizational change that makes loyalty to an employer useless.

Loyalty is for people & ideas, never organizations.

vb7132• 1 year ago

After working at the same (big tech) company for nine years, I feel like an outlier. My career has had phases of intense hard work and periods of rest. However, my happiness was influenced by many other factors. While working hard and being in the flow can be incredibly gratifying, it can also be stressful. Additionally, the relationships at work play a significant role, more so than the work itself.

In my friend circle, I’ve noticed that the happiest people are those who are pursuing their own interests and achieving moderate success in them. Ultimately, this seems to create a sense of purpose. And I am envious of such people.

Work is also a crucial component of the "work-life" balance dichotomy. If you’re not working enough, you’re likely to feel unhappy.

wonderwonder• 1 year ago

I have found that in the age of work from home its increasingly difficult to have any loyalty or community with the people I work with. Been in my current company for ~4 years and I just feel nothing for them. The pay is good so I work hard. Other than that, 90% of my co-workers are off shore so I have almost no interaction with them aside from a 2 hour or so overlap in the morning. Couldn't tell you what most of their names are or what they do. They are just a series of letters sending me teams messages asking me for help or to work on a ticket.

The entire thing is a black box. I put work in and I get money out.

sudofoo• 1 year ago

Honest question: Is being 'loyal' to a company any different from being 'loyal' to a slot machine that sometimes pays out? Both keep you playing with the promise of future rewards...

o11c• 1 year ago

Yes, there's a difference. Slot machines are regulated.

BlueTie• 1 year ago

The sad fact is that the people best suited to thrive in a context where relationships are transactional and mostly dependent on continued usefulness to both parties - are sociopaths/machiavellian types.

And these are precisely the people who are most okay with shouting from the rooftop that their company is the best in the world - then doing so from a different company 2-3 years later.

It's good for mental health to understand that. These people do not have better jobs or work for better companies on average - they just say they do because it's better for their career and have no shame or accountability in doing so publicly.

runeblaze• 1 year ago

I write from a new grad perspective, but as said, put your well-being and the well-being of those you care about above all.

Meanwhile don't beat yourself up if you are young (bonus if you just relocated for work) and spent too much time at work or feel "loyal" to your employer. Wind down, of course, but don't beat yourself up.

davidw• 1 year ago

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.

twald• 1 year ago

I’ve worked with many “Mittelstand” companies in Germany—often fourth-generation family businesses. Time and again, I’ve seen how the board and CEO go above and beyond to ensure their employees are taken care of, in both good times and bad. And when you talk to people working there, you can feel this mutual sense of loyalty reflected in their words.

I’m not saying this is common in the tech industry at all, but I can confirm that loyalty between a company (and yes, I’m deliberately using company over people here) and its employees does exist—on a broader scale and in the most positive sense. This doesn’t mean that hard, economical decisions don’t need to be made or that people live in a cloud of blind loyalty.

But there’s a lot of beauty and wellbeing in this dynamic, if you’re willing to explore it—and it’s definitely something I personally strive for.

II2II• 1 year ago

While I strongly disagree with the framing of loyalty, it is also important to remember that there is a relationship between what you put into a job and what you get out of it. I'm not going to claim that the relationship is always going to be fair, but walking into a job while seeing everything as transactional is going to have a negative impact upon your employer, your coworkers, and yourself.

By all means, set boundaries. Make it clear that your time off is for you to pursue your own things (hobbies, families, friends, etc.). Also ensure that you are balancing your personal are professional obligations, which is to suggest that it is not reasonable for your priorities to become other people's problems just as it is not reasonable for other people's problems to become your problem. And if you do cross that line, don't view your trip to the unemployment line as a lack of "loyalty" from the company. It is you failing to hold yourself accountable.

Now I'm not going to claim that my words apply to every workplace. Some workplaces are seriously messed up and are truly exploitative. On the other hand, I have also seen workplaces where the employers try to be accommodating to an employee, yet the employee is "doing their best", either intentionally or unintentionally, to spread their misery.

ChrisMarshallNY• 1 year ago

Well, I won't say I had it major good, but I did stay with my last job for almost 27 years.

That tends to draw some pretty nasty stuff from this crowd, with the most charitable, accusing me of being a "chump," but there were reasons, and I don't regret it.

hosh• 1 year ago

Counterpoint - while the “company” itself (the gestalt of the group) are not incentivized to reciprocate loyalty, the relationships with individuals you work with within the team, across the company, and into customer and vendor relationships are worth cultivating. At the very least, a wide professional network is helpful and can extend beyond your current employment.

ge96• 1 year ago

Delicious swag mmm on that desk

moribvndvs• 1 year ago

I am just old enough to grow up amongst company men, believing that if you take care of a company, they will take care of you, and that a career at one organization is a prosperous and beneficial one. I found out the hard way (worked 20 years at essentially the same company) that this notion was dead or dying before I was even born, is virtually non-existent in tech companies, and is kinda dangerous to your career in this industry.

I still _like_ the idea, but remember loyalty much like respect is earned, not demanded or obligated. When it comes down to it, they don’t give a shit about you, so take care of yourself.

jbs789• 1 year ago

I always scratch my head when someone refers to the “company”. A company is a bunch of people, and that’s the level at which I build relationships and make decisions about loyalty.

waiquoo• 1 year ago

There's a level where institutions are separate from the people that make them move. If your boss can get replaced without destroying your department, then that institutional layer exists.

lenerdenator• 1 year ago

It's not 1950 anymore. Workers are no longer employed by people with a sense of community, duty, patriotism/nationalism, or anything else involving loyalty. The only loyalty is to the bottom line.

As such the employers will receive the same in return.

FredPret• 1 year ago

On the one hand, you are a single-person service provider and should act accordingly.

On the other hand, the individuals you work with will remember how much you helped them and how you made them feel, which will go a long way towards future engagements.

jp572• 1 year ago

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's possible to be diligent and work hard, and still leave if you are mistreated.

Yes, employment is inherently transactional, but for jobs like software engineering, machine learning engineering and other high education jobs, the aggregate of the transaction is much closer to a year of work than an hour or day of work. Also, the terms of the transaction often include a variable bonus for performance, as judged by the employer. It seems reasonable to incent people to work harder by offering more compensation in return. It's up to everyone to decide whether the terms of the transaction work for them, but there isn't One True Way™ for everyone regarding company loyalty.

It's also possible to be loyal to the people you work with--even your boss, if she merits it--without being loyal to The Company. I've worked in great teams in companies that have a reputation for being shitty employers. In one case, that didn't stop me from leaving because the job wasn't the right fit for my family and my wife was unhappy. I felt somewhat bad about leaving, but I still left.

Mixed feelings are okay.

whatever1• 1 year ago

Companies don’t appreciate craftsmanship, in fact they openly state they would rather replace craftsmen with llm-based blop generators. So why not spend your time on your own thing? Be it your family/hobby.

nyarlathotep_2• 1 year ago

This is underdiscussed. The gap between the perception (accurate, largely) between the 2010s and now for "software jobs" (broad term for all related professions) is stark.

We'd hear stories of ballpits and "20% time" (or whatever Google had), and now we've seen rounds of layoffs, thunderdome for even marginal employment, and Big Names publicly saying they intended to replace staff with LLMs.

How could anyone have loyalty in this environment?

kemiller• 1 year ago

I was leaving a company recently and the fresh grads, with whom I had a good relationship, asked if I had any advice.

I said, “Always remember that the company is not your friend. I don’t mean your boss or your coworkers, they might well be or become your friend. I mean the company itself. If all is well, it may be an excellent ally, but the company can and sometimes will turn on you in an instant if its goals change. Your boss’s job, even if they are your friend, is ultimately to serve the company.

Go out there, work hard, have fun, but put your needs first in the bigger picture.”

pklausler• 1 year ago

My version of this: "The company gives you their best and final job offer every two weeks on your paycheck, and if you get a better offer, it's okay to take it, no hard feelings."

scarface_742• 1 year ago

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.

rachofsunshine• 1 year ago

This is basically how I approach it with my employees.

I'm very clear with anyone who works for me that our interests won't always align. I'm also clear with them that I'm not going to screw them over and that I won't take any offense if they negotiate with me or ask for things. I lay out what my lines are: I will not knowingly lie to them, and I will usually provide complete information except when I have a good reason to. I ask the same of them. Beyond that, we're adults who can negotiate like adults.

There's nothing wrong with a transactional relationship, and it doesn't mean you can't be human. Things only get unfair when the relationship is only expected to be transactional in one direction, where employees are supposed to have undying loyalty to a company that will lay them off as soon as it becomes convenient to do so.

rich_sasha2• 1 year ago

"Loyalty" is also worth something to self - to the loyal employee. It is a signal on CV that given the right environment, you commit to projects and people value your input. That's not to say, stay at all cost, but that when you leave, you pay a price too, and sometimes it's not worth it.

In my line of work, it can easily take 6-12 months until people are really productive, I'm reluctant to hire someone who will be a time sink for all this time then leave 3 months later.

mystified5016• 1 year ago

By default I give loyalty and dedication to my employer until and unless my trust and respect are broken. I'm one of those engineers that will happily give 115% for extended periods, but only if I feel I'm being treated fairly and with the respect my abilities and position deserve.

Once that social contract is broken, I'm just a clock puncher until I find a new job. If my employer doesn't appreciate the amount and quality of my work, I'll just find someone who will.

I don't think my standards here are particularly high, but I've never worked anywhere that didn't wind up treating me like trash after a year or two. I guess they just take me for granted after a while and assume I'll never quit. I dunno, I can't make sense of it.

thesuitonym• 1 year ago

A person that is happy with their job, but not in love with it, will often not engage in these conversations at all. They're too busy living life. They're probably the majority of workers, if you ask them how the feel about their job, they'd probably say they like it, but they have no strong feelings. It's the people who have been ground to nothing that get online and talk about it, and the true believers who get out to defend the status quo.

And really, it only takes a small push for a person who diligently does their work to become an overworked husk of a person. A bad manager, a raise that didn't come when expected, or even a tough project, and the relationship has soured--sometimes forever.

And sometimes, those people move on to a different job, and the attitude moves back to the center. And then they're not as vocal about it.

jp572• 1 year ago

True, though I'm still surprised, on a site run by a startup incubator, at the number of seriously jaded clock-punchers who chime into these threads with their cynicism and proud declarations of how they go through their careers phoning it in.

I have to wonder if those people interact with the "Who's Hiring?" and "Who Wants to be Hired?" threads and if they get any interest from employers.

shusson• 1 year ago

I find it interesting how starkly bimodal attitudes toward employer loyalty are.

It's because employers create a narrative which makes people think they are valued beyond the transactional. People develop relationships with employers and have trust in them. In my experience it is very easy to fall into this narrative unless you have experience otherwise.

tyleo• 1 year ago

I appreciate this take and like to view myself this way. My employer isn’t special… but I chose them because I like their product team and I want to use my skills to make it better. As long as that’s working I’m going to do the best I can for them, but I’m happy to leave if the scales shift too far.

synergy20• 1 year ago

I read a book 20 years ago(forgot the name), one chapter is called "work as a mercenary', since then I detached my personal feeling from the companies I worked at, it served both sides well over the years.

j45• 1 year ago

If you die, would the employer bat an eye before they reposted your position, or would they hold your position and chair to honor you.

Loyalty doesn't last. At the most you can build up some good will and favour, and that almost always has a clock running.

DrBazza• 1 year ago

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'"

hshshshshsh• 1 year ago

This is one of the things that make me suspect we live in a simulation or something.

Companies are legal entities. They don't even have an existence but a lot of people live just to work for random legal entity and cherish the accomplishments. They care more about the legal entity than their own life.

And the stuff in LinkedIn. Either there is mass Psychosis going or a lot of people are philosophical zombies.

okwhateverdude• 1 year ago

It isn't like we're born with a guide book on how to live life. Drinking the kool-aid is very tempting when you don't have a good reason not to drink it. If you never have the self-awareness to ponder your place within the org and how it functions, and just accept the good vibes corpoganda, what other outcome could there be? "They showed up to be exploited and are getting exactly that," thinks their sociopath exec.

I suspect that a lot of the virtue signaling on LinkedIn is only sales puffery for their personal brand. If they can show just how exploitable they are, then maybe riches, recognition, and power will magically materialize for them. And they think this because they were fed tall tales all their working lives.

trefoiled• 1 year ago

There's an exception to this I've seen since a relative started working in the game industry. There are executives in that industry who have a retinue of loyal followers. The studios the executive works for may change regularly, but his followers come with him each time. These workers will spend their entire career serving one man, and in exchange he always has a job lined up for them and seems to trust them the same way they trust him. It's very different from my experience in the rest of the tech industry, but I'm sure it happens to a limited extent there too.

stephen_cagle• 1 year ago

That's interesting. I wonder what other industries are like that, where a single person keeps bringing his (mutually) trusted cadre of employees with them?

I've heard in the past that the skill of a surgeon is actually more a reflection of the surgeon's team than the actual surgeon. So "great surgeons" are actually people who have "great teams". Sounds similar to me.

darkwizard42• 1 year ago

Finance can have this at times; software engineering can have this at times as well (especially at the senior levels and in specialized fields OR at the startup level - people like working together and will often work together again).

noisy_boy• 1 year ago

It is not so dissimilar in Finance. Senior manager comes, understands the lay of the land for a little while to form a picture of what changes they need/want and pushes out people to get his own people in. There is a lot of politics in banks etc and it becomes very important to them that they get rid of threats or those who won't unquestionably carry out their wishes. It is usually justified as shaking things up. Predictably such things are not great for quality of work but then again, that is secondary in a politically active space that a lot of Finance places are.

pvtmert• 1 year ago

This is true in mid-sized startups. I actually witnessed it three times during my _short_ period of experience (7 years of different startup contracts) with different startups.

Firstly, it does not have to be immediate or deliberate. The cycle happens approximately through period of 6-months. The followers per-se does not have to actually _follow_ or loyal to the main person. The said main person is generally the CTO or an engineering manager.

Essentially, one way or another, the company needs to hire a CTO to fill their technical gaps and propel their growth. The company looks for an experienced and preferably startup experience in a certain field. There are already very limited number of folks satisfying these conditions. In which, mostly will already be working somewhere.

From the available ones, company hires 1 person, the CTO. CTO identifies several gaps in tech stack and hires couple of _senior_ folks, with of course, recommendations/references. (now called staff engineers mostly, as the seniority sort of lowered at the 5-6 years mark).

After couple of months later, the senior folks hire couple of mid-level folks because there are too much work to do. Since the senior engineers were busy both with design _and_ the implementation, they need to focus more on the design and make big-picture decisions, cannot be bothered with bug-fixes anymore. Therefore, they need some mid-level engineers to cleanup things and keep the lights on...

After 6 to 9 months period, the newly hired folks become 7 or greater in the numbers. As now they are the majority in the organization's technical hierarchy, they can easily push-out _older_ members which are not part of their circle and let more folks from their circle in.

As you guessed, this is a pyramid scheme in employment, as the lower level folks look up to people who hired them (created a position/opening).

Even if the actual scheme is not intended initially, usually this is what happens. It doesn't even have to be a grand plan to take-over, the unconscious biases and past relationships always prevail, causing the same cycle to repeat.

Also another perspective is the people whose boss (CTO) has just left. These folks also leave over time not just they blindly follow their CTO or loyal to them, but because the _new_ CTO changes how things work, maybe a new tech stack people are not familiar with. In turn, it stagnates peoples' carreers, causes confusion and even takes them one step back. (i.e. An engineer on a promotion path now has to re-prove their skills to a new manager/CTO)

I think for all the cases, I did not find this approach useful in the business sense. Because in all cases, it took the startup at least a year to adapt into a new CTO and the tech stack. As the new CTO always assures X is better than Y, all the problems are there because Y is older, and X is the new paradigm. Just to be replaced by Z when the next CTO arrives after several years...

So the moral of the story is, people don't need to be loyal, the incentives make them so.

xp843• 1 year ago

I've seen this in software in various roles. Usually a CTO will be hired, and will draw from his previous lieutenants to build a leadership team and key IC roles such as architect or staff engineer. I think it's a very smart way to quickly build out a trusted team by simply hiring people who have delivered successfully for you in the past. I've worked with a cadre of brilliant former-Zappos people in one job brought over this way, and in another, a CTO was hired away from a Hollywood talent agency and he brought over some stellar people from there to lead some teams.

Magi604• 1 year ago

This happens in sports too. GMs of teams will always make room for players that delivered or were loyal to them in the past, even on lesser contracts.

ycombinatrix• 1 year ago

That happens in the tech industry too.

foolinaround• 1 year ago

In general, people leave or stay for their managers, not their companies.

In retrospect, in one of the earlier companies, I could see the company not doing well, but had a great boss and stayed, and then got hit by downsizing.

mnemotronic• 1 year ago

I misread this as "On loyalty to your emperor". As it turn out I ain't got that either.

RHSeeger• 1 year ago

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.

sys_64738• 1 year ago

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.

mymacbook• 1 year ago

The valley is small. Loyalty to your peers and friends will outlast the companies you stop at to work throughout your career. It’s all about the people you surround yourself with.

samspot• 1 year ago

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 transactioned out, I'll have no regrets.

It's ok to reward an employer with some loyalty for treating you well.

But also, this quote needs to be here :)

Would I ever leave this company? Look, I’m all about loyalty, In fact, I feel like part of what I’m being paid for here is my loyalty, But if there were somewhere else that valued loyalty more highly… I’m going wherever they value loyalty the most. — Dwight Schrute

asr• 1 year ago

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.

arrosenberg• 1 year ago

I refer to this as my "Work for Money" scam. At any point, one side can pull the rug on the other, but in the meantime, I do work and you pay me full freight for it.

darkhorse222• 1 year ago

The true issue is that many middle and upper level managers are sycophantic and short term incentivized, while valuing loyalty only really shows its benefit over the long term. If you're leadership is always trying to have a green number for next quarter and your manager is always trying to only please his boss to get promoted, those two will disavow loyalty the moment anything gets in the way of that. I truly think public companies have the worst incentives in this regard.

MangoCoffee2• 1 year ago

Corporate loyalty is the dumbest trick employers ever pulled. I hope Gen Z don't fall for that shit.

gwbas1c• 1 year ago

Do not buy into the bullshit hype of “hustle” to appease your employer.

Oh gosh that's the first time I've seen anyone put that concept into words. I wish we had a word in English to mean this.

hintymad2• 1 year ago

I think a strong loyalty towards a company will work only in a society like Japan: companies are culturally committed to taking care of them employees until their death. In the meantime, the income gap between ordinary employees and the executives is small. Per this article (https://japanoptimist.substack.com/p/japan-reality-check-4-i...): "The biggest difference between the Salaryman CEO and the Superstar CEO is, of course, the absolute gap in CEO compensation relative to average employee pay: in Japan this is now just about 50-times (for top 50 CEOs; the average is about 12-times)". And there is a seniority system. In contrast, the US companies have none of those.

I'd rather subscribe to Reed Hoffman's notion on company-employee relationship: alliance. That is, a company and its employees are allies. It is a two-way relationship that enables companies and employees to work together toward common goals, even when some of their interests differ. If either a company or an employee feels that the alliance does not exist any more, they part ways. Note that this notion is orthogonal to the power dynamics between a company and its employees. The power dynamics has to do with supply-and-demand of the market and the negotiation power of the employees.

devmor• 1 year ago

"Mutual Respect" is the key term here for sure, and I wholeheartedly agree.

I have worked for a lot of employers that did not respect me, and I, despite all intentions, eventually came to not respect them with my work effort.

My current employer does a lot to show that they respect my time and effort. As such, the lethargy in my work effort that has been present while working for other employers does not exist. I am just as energetic and invested in my work here as I was when I started.

I think that this is certainly a lesson not just for employees when considering career moves, but a lesson for employers who are interested in retaining talent. In my opinion, it should be a no-brainer; treat your employees well and they will treat you well. Conversely, treat your employees as an expendable resource and do not be shocked when their resourcefulness to your company is expended.

pipes• 1 year ago

Why would anyone be "loyal" to a company? What does that even mean?

It makes about as much sense as expecting shareholders to be loyal to the companies they hold stock in.

JSteph22• 1 year ago

Why would anyone be "loyal" to a company? What does that even mean?

Find a company that pays you in cash and stock. They exist.

beastman82• 1 year ago

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.

necessary• 1 year ago

Why must employees put in 100% effort? Where does that expectation come from? I’d be surprised if most companies put in 100% effort to support each employee.

Isn’t it all about expectations in the end? The company expects you to meet some set of goals. Conversely, you expect the company to give you benefits and payment.

mancerayder6• 1 year ago

And why is there such an antiwork sentiment?

Housing prices as a ratio of income is higher than it was in the good old days of employee loyalty; pensions have mostly disappeared; most people don't get greater than inflation raises unless they leave. In the US, new hires get paid more than previous employees, due to the bargaining power the former have. We can give work from home, and out of nowhere it's RTO again, because contracts and employee hand books favor employers.

It's not sad at all, it's normal and healthy. Why does it make you sad?

catigula• 1 year ago

Work 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.

conductr2• 1 year ago

I'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)

nemomarx4• 1 year ago

it seems silly to be that companies will budget for new hires more than they budget for retention incentives. I'm sure they have measured which one pays off better but it feels backwards

conductr2• 1 year ago

The best retention incentive is paying good people well to begin with. And, it doesn't have to be huge. Paying people 10% above market when you know they are a strong asset defends you from that person ever wanting to leave. [Aside - but, Budget's should be offensive versus defensive so the whole retention bonus strategy should be an exception (unplanned) in my opinion. Granted that's from an operational view. From a cash flow planning view, the CFO knows it's going to spend money somewhere and probably needs to account for that somehow in their financial plan, but it's best to keep it out functional budget - otherwise department heads will be tempted to spend it, or repurpose it on something else.]

Instead, companies try to hire people 10% below market, end up passing on high quality talent that knows their worth, and obtaining talent that is effectively only delivering 70% or less than the high performer would. A lot of companies rely on HR or recruiters to do the initial 'expectation within budget' screen, so the hiring managers never even see the talent that gets turned away or disinterested by a potentially small budget discrepancy. Also, budgets almost always have exceptions especially for outstanding talent that may come along so really think this is unnecessary sacrifice.

eikenberry2• 1 year ago

Given 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.

nemomarx4• 1 year ago

coops have great difficulty raising money, and this is a VC forum.

eikenberry2• 1 year ago

That would explain way they aren't discussed here to much but doesn't explain why there aren't more out there.

clayhacks• 1 year ago

Yeah I think there’s a bit of regulatory and or legal hurdles, but I think the other part is co-ops aren’t as incentivised to grow so big. There are some smaller co-ops in tech they just usually do stuff more local scale. Less likely to hear about them and be spread widely

neilv• 1 year ago

Some people need to be told not to have loyalty to the company. Such as when the company is screwing them (which might or might not be necessary). Or when you can tell just by talking with the leadership that they will screw the employees. Decent people at such companies need to extricate themselves.

But other people need to be told not to be toxic baby diaper loads. People exhibiting the same kinds of thinking as the leadership in those other companies.

I've seen companies show a degree of loyalty to people, and much more of that from managers and teammates. In that environment, someone coming in and priding themself on their savvy at thinking this is all purely transactional-- that person is going to be toxic, if they don't quickly realize their misconception, and join the others more cooperatively.

kinow• 1 year ago

My father worked for many many years at IBM Brazil with mainframes.

When I got into IT, his first advice for me was (translating from Portuguese): "Companies do not have feelings. So do not harbor feelings for it. The moment they have to fire you, they will".

I followed his other other advices and experimented several companies and industries. No regrets so far (20+ years gone since I started).

Buttons840• 1 year ago

I've identified 4 distinct attitudes I've had towards work, and I'm constantly fighting not to slip into full psychopathy:

1) I have a meaningful job where I work towards a goal that is personally meaningful. I would do this work even without being paid, although I probably couldn't spend 40-hours a week doing it.

2) I have a job where I work towards making the company money. I may not be personally invested in the business, but I can work with a team of good people towards the mutual goal of making the company profitable.

3) I have a job where I can't identify any logical reasons behind decisions and what I'm being asked to do. The only logic (or lack thereof) seems to be towards making those with the power to fire me happy. Any attempts at finding a higher purpose fail because the company is taking actions contrary to those higher purposes.

4) My job is just a source of money, there is no purpose or logic. This encourages a full-psychopath mercenary approach to work and power--like study "48 Laws of Power" and use them--screw anyone over for a buck.

Obviously #1 is the ideal, and the hard part is I'm always quite close to it, because I love programming, even in my spare time.

I see #2 mentioned on HN fairly often as a supposedly clear-eyed view of work. I would be relatively happy to remain at #2, but corporate infighting and other stupid decisions quickly break it down. It's also hard to maintain #2 because society itself isn't the meritocracy that #2 pretends it is.

I'm usually going back and forth between #3 and #4, both of which are miserable--layers of hell. I'm not a bad person so I have a hard time remaining at #4, but #3 is miserable in-between land.

What level are you?

imoreno• 1 year ago

First of all, loyalty happens when both sides have moats. I'm not talking here about the case where one side is very loyal and the other is very disloyal - I'd rather call that "suckering". But in the US, government jobs have lots of mutual loyalty. The business can feel confident the employee isn't likely to leave, because for those jobs a huge part of the package is the pension which you only get after staying 20 years. And they heavily reward tenure. Meanwhile the employees also feel confident they won't be dumped (DOGE aside) because these orgs are structured in such a way that it's very hard to fire people due to process and culture. Lo and behold, plenty of loyalty in government jobs. US companies fire much more easily.

In European companies both firing and quitting is much more complicated, so you get employer loyalty in Germany or UK for example, because you actually get long term benefits there and termination is not as simple. The US companies of 50-80s like the author's father's employer were similar as well.

By the way, US companies don't actually demand loyalty. They pay lip service to it, but complaining about that is like complaining that people in clothing catalogs are too attractive. That's just how the field works, nobody takes it seriously and you look silly complaining about it. "Demanding loyalty" doesn't look like this. If an employer offered a $1 million bonus on your 10 year anniversary, that would be demanding loyalty for real. But neither the employee nor employer side has interest in this, not to mention the implied slowing down of the termination process. Plus the can of worms of knowing the company will even be around then.

Everything is fine, zoomers are not some insanely disloyal alien changelings. We're just in a transitional economy.

jl6• 1 year ago

I have never felt loyalty to an employer but have often felt loyalty to a manager, and in turn to my own teams. Mutual loyalty between humans is a natural outcome of mutual trust and respect, which every manager should be striving to cultivate. The highest functioning teams I have worked with have had that bond, and it’s quite independent of whether the overarching corporate org is shitty at the macro level.

I’ve also felt disloyalty to a manager. That’s when it’s time to move on.

freitasm• 1 year ago

My second job, in the late 80s and early 90s was with a mainframe company. Not the Big Blue, but the red one.

I mentioned to my uncle, a MD. He was happy for me because I had "found a job for life".

This was his world view. Being a self-employed, practice-owner MD he had a job for life. He thought this was the same in other careers.

I worked that job 18 years, in two countries. Then I left and have had three jobs since then. Changed careers. But I never thought being loyal gave me any credit with the employers.

One of them dropped me like a lead balloon as soon as the acquiring company found someone in another office to kiss someone's behind.

eschneider• 1 year ago

I've worked for some genuinely great companies (and some not so great) over the course of my career and companies change, just like people. A great company you joined, might not be so great in 3-5 years and there's rarely much one can do about that. If it's no longer a good fit, it's not disloyal or unethical to move on.

palata• 1 year ago

Spot on. There is no loyalty, it's a partnership.

You wouldn't pay 20% to Netflix to watch your shows, would you? But it doesn't mean you're a bad customer. And when Netflix raises the prices or includes ads, they won't say "oh, you've been paying us for 5 years, we won't do it to you".

If extra time is not compensated, don't do extra time. Even for startups: startups are ponzi schemes for the founders. Like for any job, you should consider what they offer now, not what they promise. Because startups generally don't meet those promises (that's the whole point of a startup).

But if the company respects you, you can respect it in return. It means meeting the expectations. If one party doesn't, the other party is free to end the contract.

hintymad2• 1 year ago

When I’m on my deathbed, I won’t look back at my life and wish I had worked harder.

An inconvenient truth is that not everyone can find a meaningful career in their own eyes. Case in point, to me tech industry is such a wonderful industry. We are paid exceptionally well. We get to be creative every day. We largely control our own output. We blend product design with engineering design and implementation. We get to geek out on college maths and statistics. We build things that get used by many people, if not millions of them. The list can go on and on. Yet, I'm sure everyone on HN knows at least a group of tech people who are miserable doing their jobs.

tasuki• 1 year ago

Do you pay reasonable salaries?

So overrated.

I work for what I feel is a very non-competitive salary (order of magnitude less than I used to earn), in a programming language I hate, and couldn't be happier: it's a small company with a(n actual) mission, interesting problems, nice people, chill environment. I couldn't ask for more. Well, it could be not-Python. But, can't have it all - it'd be too perfect!

You can do your job hopping and earn your high salaries and spend them on things you don't actually care about...

jefftk• 1 year ago

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

If you don't imagine yourself wishing you'd worked harder, consider whether you've chosen the right work. There are massive problems in the world on which we can make real progress, and if you're not working on these, why not?

Definitely spend time with your friends, family, and those you love. Don't work to the exclusion of everything else that matters in your life. But if your work isn't something you look back on with intense pride, consider whether there's something else you could be doing professionally that you would feel really good about.

dennis_jeeves2• 1 year ago

The big question to me is: "Why are so many young today people gullible?" . Obvious to me: there is a complete lack of conversation with their parents/grandparents/older people.

person101x• 1 year ago

Once upon a time there was an ethos that employers, which were at that time called lords, had a duty and responsibility for the good of their employees, who were called serfs or peasants, and vice versa.

While nobody is advocating a return to that particular social structure, would it not be out of the realm of possibility for a similar ethos to be cultivated among leaders and employers?

On loyalty to your employer (2018)

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