On loyalty to your employer (2018)

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.

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.

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).

> 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

> 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.

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.

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.

> 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...

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.

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.

> 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

> 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)

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.

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...

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.

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'"

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Everybody hides his true opinion about this subject.

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

I quit.

> 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.

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.

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.

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.

Delicious swag mmm on that desk

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.

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.

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

> 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.

"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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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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.

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

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

Whatever happened to dignity?