9 ms·

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 s

by rckt 1y 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 1y 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 1y 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 1y 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.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - jayd16 1y ago
    After a layoff is when your reputation matters most, no?
- thunky 1y ago
  That's experience, which has nothing to do with loyalty.
  - mycall 1y ago
    There is some coorelation. To get the experience, you need to appear be a team player and show some signs of loyality to continue obtaining the experience. Different employers have different checks on this, often ego based.
    - thunky 1y ago
      > you need to [...] show some signs of loyality to continue obtaining the experience That may be true for a bad employer but no good employer should ever demand loyalty in exchange for continued employment. If you hire a landscaping service to mow your lawn every week do you demand loyalty from them? I hope not, because that would be ridiculous.
  - hylaride 1y ago
    It's camaraderie. Some of the best professional relationships I've had were in terribly run organizations with like-minded peers. I don't know why, but strong bonds form in those situations (and taken to the extreme in the military).
    - thunky 1y ago
      > It's camaraderie Ok, but it's not loyalty. At least I hope not... Those like-minded peers you've had owed you no nothing. You had a fair, respectful, professional relationship with them that was self sustaining and therefore did not demand allegience in either direction. If a better opportunity came along for them I would hope that you would want them to take it despite your history and the camaraderie you've established with them. And same for you.
      - hylaride 1y ago
        > If a better opportunity came along for them I would hope that you would want them to take it despite your history and the camaraderie you've established with them. And same for you. To me, it was not about people leaving you behind, but calling you up when opportunities arise (though I didn't feel that way when it first happened at the beginning of my career). Camaraderie doesn't mean you owe people or are owed anything, but is a mutual level of trust and support. Of the 6 jobs I've had over the past 20 years, 5 of them have been from former colleagues reaching out.
- teucris 1y 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 1y 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 1y 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.
  - BOOSTERHIDROGEN 1y ago
    Unfortunately all managers focus on push rank, so why loyalty to them?
    - 13hunteo 1y ago
      This is an overly broad generalisation - there are many cases of managers that do their best to primarily look after those under them, not just focus on getting higher up.
  - simpaticoder 1y ago
    >Things don't deserve loyalty. Your company is a "thing". A country is a thing and loyalty to it is called "patriotism". A sports-team or TV show or band is a thing, loyalty to it is called "fandom". Loyalty to an idea or philosophy is called "being principled" or "idealism". Do you believe that things don't deserve loyalty, such that all of these are errors? Or do these examples not capture the sense of your statement?
kemayo 1y 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 1y 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 1y 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 1y 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.
  - kemayo 1y ago
    There's a reason I put "if" before that.
swatcoder 1y 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.
- throwaway7783 1y 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.
  - b112 1y ago
    There are good and bad companies. How you are treated is how you gauge it, and good companies do deserve "working" loyality. This is different from personal loyalty. It's a little like politeness. Social grace. Don't demean yourself of course, but treating entities which treat you well reciprocally is valid and even moral.
    - throwaway7783 1y ago
      A good or a bad company is really defined by people you work with - your team. Countless conversations in other forums where you'll see radically opposite opinions about the the "company" from different employees. It all boils down to the local working context. Companies are companies - maximizing profit is their primary goal (at least in the US). There may certainly be some exceptions. Entities don't treat a person in any way. It is the people in the entities that treat you well or not. Entities are impersonal. If the CEO, who is 6 levels removed from me makes a decision to cut an entire department, it is hard to see how "company" loyalty makes sense. As far as I'm concerned, the CEO is an external force. Social grace, treating people well who treat you well - I agree with all that. But that is not loyalty. It is simply transactional reciprocality. If you are calling that "working loyalty", fine, we are on the same page.
academia_hack 1y 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 1y 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 1y 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 1y 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.
eitally 1y 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.
FireBeyond 1y 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."
FireBeyond 1y 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 1y 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.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
usrusr 1y 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 1y 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 1y 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 1y 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.
jayd16 1y 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 1y 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 1y 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.

by rckt 1y ago

StormChaser_5 1y 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 1y 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 1y 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.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- jayd16 1y ago
  After a layoff is when your reputation matters most, no?
thunky 1y ago
That's experience, which has nothing to do with loyalty.
- mycall 1y ago
  There is some coorelation. To get the experience, you need to appear be a team player and show some signs of loyality to continue obtaining the experience. Different employers have different checks on this, often ego based.
  - thunky 1y ago
    > you need to [...] show some signs of loyality to continue obtaining the experience That may be true for a bad employer but no good employer should ever demand loyalty in exchange for continued employment. If you hire a landscaping service to mow your lawn every week do you demand loyalty from them? I hope not, because that would be ridiculous.
- hylaride 1y ago
  It's camaraderie. Some of the best professional relationships I've had were in terribly run organizations with like-minded peers. I don't know why, but strong bonds form in those situations (and taken to the extreme in the military).
  - thunky 1y ago
    > It's camaraderie Ok, but it's not loyalty. At least I hope not... Those like-minded peers you've had owed you no nothing. You had a fair, respectful, professional relationship with them that was self sustaining and therefore did not demand allegience in either direction. If a better opportunity came along for them I would hope that you would want them to take it despite your history and the camaraderie you've established with them. And same for you.
    - hylaride 1y ago
      > If a better opportunity came along for them I would hope that you would want them to take it despite your history and the camaraderie you've established with them. And same for you. To me, it was not about people leaving you behind, but calling you up when opportunities arise (though I didn't feel that way when it first happened at the beginning of my career). Camaraderie doesn't mean you owe people or are owed anything, but is a mutual level of trust and support. Of the 6 jobs I've had over the past 20 years, 5 of them have been from former colleagues reaching out.
teucris 1y 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 1y 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 1y 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.
- BOOSTERHIDROGEN 1y ago
  Unfortunately all managers focus on push rank, so why loyalty to them?
  - 13hunteo 1y ago
    This is an overly broad generalisation - there are many cases of managers that do their best to primarily look after those under them, not just focus on getting higher up.
- simpaticoder 1y ago
  >Things don't deserve loyalty. Your company is a "thing". A country is a thing and loyalty to it is called "patriotism". A sports-team or TV show or band is a thing, loyalty to it is called "fandom". Loyalty to an idea or philosophy is called "being principled" or "idealism". Do you believe that things don't deserve loyalty, such that all of these are errors? Or do these examples not capture the sense of your statement?

kemayo 1y 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 1y 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 1y 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 1y 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.
- kemayo 1y ago
  There's a reason I put "if" before that.

swatcoder 1y 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.

throwaway7783 1y 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.
- b112 1y ago
  There are good and bad companies. How you are treated is how you gauge it, and good companies do deserve "working" loyality. This is different from personal loyalty. It's a little like politeness. Social grace. Don't demean yourself of course, but treating entities which treat you well reciprocally is valid and even moral.
  - throwaway7783 1y ago
    A good or a bad company is really defined by people you work with - your team. Countless conversations in other forums where you'll see radically opposite opinions about the the "company" from different employees. It all boils down to the local working context. Companies are companies - maximizing profit is their primary goal (at least in the US). There may certainly be some exceptions. Entities don't treat a person in any way. It is the people in the entities that treat you well or not. Entities are impersonal. If the CEO, who is 6 levels removed from me makes a decision to cut an entire department, it is hard to see how "company" loyalty makes sense. As far as I'm concerned, the CEO is an external force. Social grace, treating people well who treat you well - I agree with all that. But that is not loyalty. It is simply transactional reciprocality. If you are calling that "working loyalty", fine, we are on the same page.

academia_hack 1y 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 1y 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 1y 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 1y 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.

eitally 1y 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.

FireBeyond 1y 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."

FireBeyond 1y 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 1y 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.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

usrusr 1y 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 1y 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 1y 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 1y 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.

jayd16 1y 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 1y 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 1y 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.