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My company, for all its "values", will throw me under the bus to save itself, or for a quick buck. I cannot rely on it to support me into the future: even if it
by PakG1 10y ago
My company, for all its "values", will throw me under the bus to save itself, or for a quick buck. I cannot rely on it to support me into the future: even if it wanted to put money into a pension, i can't rely on that actually remaining solvent. I don't even know if my field/expertise is going to be around for the next 5 years. It is always looking to screw me over, outsource my labour, etc, etc. Its not "too much emails" that does it: its that I know I'm essentially working for a short-term psychopath that couldn't keep its promises to me even if it wanted to (and it doesn't want to).
Reid Hoffman makes a great point about how companies truly aren't like families. https://hbr.org/2014/06/your-company-is-not-a-family https://hbr.org/2014/06/your-company-is-not-a-family quote:
In a real family, parents can’t fire their children. Try to imagine disowning your child for poor performance: “We’re sorry Susie, but your mom and I have decided you’re just not a good fit. Your table-setting effort has been deteriorating for the past 6 months, and your obsession with ponies just isn’t adding any value. We’re going to have to let you go. But don’t take it the wrong way; it’s just family.”
I'll take it to another extreme. Loving families (I won't say real families, because there are clearly examples of families that don't do this) will stick with you through thick and thin during your substance abuse, put you through rehab, and still do their best to help you when you fall off the wagon again and again.
- derefr 10y agoRe that quote: the author apparently has forgotten the existence of royal/noble families. When there are titles at stake, children certainly do get "disowned" for all sorts of reasons. (This doesn't mean they're kicked onto the street, though—they're not disowned by the parents, but rather by the family. Which just means they're no longer expected/allowed to inherit whatever they were going to inherit, and so they stop being groomed for it, which usually means the parents redirect their attention elsewhere and the child ends up raised by a nanny.)
- dredmorbius 10y agoDo you have any references / sources / examples / stories of this? Sounds like an interesting area. Thought there's a difference in being disowned / disinherited, and in simply not being the primo genitur -- the offspring who will inherit the title. I'm thinking of Ludwig von Wittgenstein, born to one of the wealthiest families of the Austro-Hungarian empire in the late 19th century. In his case, he chose to leave the family, or at least its wealth, though AFAIR it remained reasonably supportive of him. I'm not sufficiently versed in nobility/royalty to think of other instances offhand.
- sytse 10y agoI agree that companies are not like families. In GitLab we try to never refer to it as family because families don't have performance improvement plans, underperformers, and offboarding processes. I just made this official in https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/www-gitlab-com/commit/9596443387a6fb7897bd0b188cde5abfd3e7cb59 https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/www-gitlab-com/commit/95964433... I do this that technology will give more flexible work hours. I think it is just that changing a social process is hard and is unlikely to happen in an existing structure. At GitLab we've embraced remote work and work hours are truly flexible. The only exceptions I can think of is that our team call (attendence optional) is at a fixed time. And that we expect service engineers to work 5 days a week on normal weeks to make sure we meet our next business day SLA without bouncing a ticket between many people. I think remote only http://www.remoteonly.org/ http://www.remoteonly.org/ will become more popular but it will take new companies to get there.
- skybrian 10y agoDo they have the equivalent of 401ks in the UK? It seems like that's the solution to the pension issue. If the company goes bust you still have your retirement savings.