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That's a pretty cynical attitude. It's definitely possible to work for a for-profit company and still care personally about the success of whatever they are do

by kogus 11y ago

That's a pretty cynical attitude. It's definitely possible to work for a for-profit company and still care personally about the success of whatever they are doing. You don't have a moral obligation to bend over backwards for a company, but it's ok to be committed for reasons other than a paycheck.

fixermark 11y ago
Stories like this one justify the cynical attitude. Corporations are not family. I personally transitioned from startup life to big-corporation specifically because the expectation to pull nights and weekends was physically burning a hole in my stomach. I will put in extra when requested of me, but I now take a much, much more critical attitude towards such requests; when you work for a publicly-traded company that has to report its balances to the SEC, it's pretty hard for them to claim poverty when they ask more of you.
dspillett 11y ago
> It's definitely possible to work for a for-profit company and still care personally It is certainly possible, and usually very much appreciated (sometimes even rewarded) in the short term. Just don't expect it to make much difference to how you are treated over the longer term. The company won't forget that you are an employee and you shouldn't either. Heck, a company with shareholders is practically legally obliged to screw you over if it is better for the company to do so than not.
- yourapostasy 11y ago
  > Heck, a company with shareholders is practically legally obliged to... You are spreading the myth of a US (and most nations, for that matter) legal obligation (the term of art is "fiduciary duty") of profit maximization to shareholders. Please read the following. http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/8146/are-u-s-companies-legally-obligated-to-maximize-profits-for-shareholders http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/8146/are-u-s-com... http://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2012/06/26/the-shareholder-value-myth/ http://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2012/06/26/the-shareholder-va... https://hbr.org/2010/04/the-myth-of-shareholder-capitalism https://hbr.org/2010/04/the-myth-of-shareholder-capitalism If you are an attorney, then in the past somewhere on Harvard Law's site I found an exhaustively-written piece that gives specific case law citations I could cross-reference from Lexis-Nexis. The bar to clear to prove fiduciary malfeasance in corporate governance is very high, and the latitude granted to company management very broad; shareholders can enforce a fiduciary preference through shareholder activism and throw out management, but the US judiciary has steadfastly refused to lightly step into the management-shareholder relationship in this regard. This blog post delves into the follow-on questions more in the vein of corporate social responsibility once you acknowledge the legal reality. http://www.robertstavinsblog.org/2009/05/12/straight-talk-about-corporate-social-responsibility/ http://www.robertstavinsblog.org/2009/05/12/straight-talk-ab...
  - dspillett 11y ago
    That is why I said practically rather than literally. It depends how scared management are of shareholder action (or, more cynically, how willing they are to use that thought as an excuse for what they wanted to do anyway).

by kogus 11y ago

fixermark 11y ago

Stories like this one justify the cynical attitude. Corporations are not family. I personally transitioned from startup life to big-corporation specifically because the expectation to pull nights and weekends was physically burning a hole in my stomach. I will put in extra when requested of me, but I now take a much, much more critical attitude towards such requests; when you work for a publicly-traded company that has to report its balances to the SEC, it's pretty hard for them to claim poverty when they ask more of you.

dspillett 11y ago

> It's definitely possible to work for a for-profit company and still care personally It is certainly possible, and usually very much appreciated (sometimes even rewarded) in the short term. Just don't expect it to make much difference to how you are treated over the longer term. The company won't forget that you are an employee and you shouldn't either. Heck, a company with shareholders is practically legally obliged to screw you over if it is better for the company to do so than not.

yourapostasy 11y ago
> Heck, a company with shareholders is practically legally obliged to... You are spreading the myth of a US (and most nations, for that matter) legal obligation (the term of art is "fiduciary duty") of profit maximization to shareholders. Please read the following. http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/8146/are-u-s-companies-legally-obligated-to-maximize-profits-for-shareholders http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/8146/are-u-s-com... http://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2012/06/26/the-shareholder-value-myth/ http://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2012/06/26/the-shareholder-va... https://hbr.org/2010/04/the-myth-of-shareholder-capitalism https://hbr.org/2010/04/the-myth-of-shareholder-capitalism If you are an attorney, then in the past somewhere on Harvard Law's site I found an exhaustively-written piece that gives specific case law citations I could cross-reference from Lexis-Nexis. The bar to clear to prove fiduciary malfeasance in corporate governance is very high, and the latitude granted to company management very broad; shareholders can enforce a fiduciary preference through shareholder activism and throw out management, but the US judiciary has steadfastly refused to lightly step into the management-shareholder relationship in this regard. This blog post delves into the follow-on questions more in the vein of corporate social responsibility once you acknowledge the legal reality. http://www.robertstavinsblog.org/2009/05/12/straight-talk-about-corporate-social-responsibility/ http://www.robertstavinsblog.org/2009/05/12/straight-talk-ab...
- dspillett 11y ago
  That is why I said practically rather than literally. It depends how scared management are of shareholder action (or, more cynically, how willing they are to use that thought as an excuse for what they wanted to do anyway).