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> not even unpacked all of their belongings after a year or more. I stopped having any personal effects at work. Purely mercenary. It makes it easier when I g

> not even unpacked all of their belongings after a year or more. I stopped having any personal effects at work. Purely mercenary. It makes it easier when I get walked out when the C-Suite decides they need higher bonuses.

mxuribe 4y ago
My current as well as last two jobs, the only thing i brought in was a single coffee mug, and no other personal effects. (The mug was because i'm doing my little bit to help the environment by re-using my cup...I know, I know, its a very small bit, but still.) I have long seen myself as merely a mercenary. But, my latest job - started only 8 months ago - was supoosed to be the company where i retire from. That is, where i stop being the merc. But in just those 8 months, i already have seen the awful apporoach senior leadership takes towards its employees. So, i guess i stay as a merc. (and slowly plan my pivot towards being my own boss...charging these senior leaders exorbitant consultant rates. ;-)
matmatmatmat 4y ago
Maybe I should've been clearer, but I didn't mean personal effects at work. The people I knew had not even unpacked their things in the apartments they were renting because they were too busy working, particularly professors. And this applied to both tenured and untenured professors. Don't want to name names but one of the high up profs I chatted with there worked roughly 60 hours a week, 6 10-hour days. I mean, he loved it, and he had a lot of responsibility, but I think it's fair to say it's pretty much all he did. His wife mostly traveled and his daughter was already in undergrad by then. It is genuinely unclear to me how a new prof could hope to compete with that or make a meaningful contribution when even the "old guard" have given up everything to just work.
cableshaft 4y ago
I once had my temp contract terminated on my way home from work one day. I was called by the staffing agency halfway back on my commute and they said "Don't go into work tomorrow. They'll mail you your things." I'm not sure if I ever got those things back (to be fair, it was only like six things). Also, I was so insulted that they didn't just tell me in person at the end of the day and let me pack up my stuff and take it home with me. But the staffing agency claimed it was the company's policy to do that with contractors. ...after that I stopped bringing much of anything to the office. Currently my office has a ton of crap in it, but it's a home office :).

mxuribe 4y ago

My current as well as last two jobs, the only thing i brought in was a single coffee mug, and no other personal effects. (The mug was because i'm doing my little bit to help the environment by re-using my cup...I know, I know, its a very small bit, but still.) I have long seen myself as merely a mercenary. But, my latest job - started only 8 months ago - was supoosed to be the company where i retire from. That is, where i stop being the merc. But in just those 8 months, i already have seen the awful apporoach senior leadership takes towards its employees. So, i guess i stay as a merc. (and slowly plan my pivot towards being my own boss...charging these senior leaders exorbitant consultant rates. ;-)

matmatmatmat 4y ago

Maybe I should've been clearer, but I didn't mean personal effects at work. The people I knew had not even unpacked their things in the apartments they were renting because they were too busy working, particularly professors. And this applied to both tenured and untenured professors. Don't want to name names but one of the high up profs I chatted with there worked roughly 60 hours a week, 6 10-hour days. I mean, he loved it, and he had a lot of responsibility, but I think it's fair to say it's pretty much all he did. His wife mostly traveled and his daughter was already in undergrad by then. It is genuinely unclear to me how a new prof could hope to compete with that or make a meaningful contribution when even the "old guard" have given up everything to just work.

cableshaft 4y ago

I once had my temp contract terminated on my way home from work one day. I was called by the staffing agency halfway back on my commute and they said "Don't go into work tomorrow. They'll mail you your things." I'm not sure if I ever got those things back (to be fair, it was only like six things). Also, I was so insulted that they didn't just tell me in person at the end of the day and let me pack up my stuff and take it home with me. But the staffing agency claimed it was the company's policy to do that with contractors. ...after that I stopped bringing much of anything to the office. Currently my office has a ton of crap in it, but it's a home office :).