As an employee, I simply don’t give a damn if I create 10 liabilities in 5 years as I won’t be there in 5 years. Creating $10 of future costs for $1 in profit is a great deal for me.
I want a quick buck, my bonus, and to move on to the next thing.
I don't work that way, and I've been with my company for about 12 years now I think. But after watching the recent tech layoffs, it's pretty obvious that tech companies aren't thinking about their employees futures, just the present. The ones that don't give a generous severance are the worst, but even with that it can be rather difficult to find a new job... Especially one that you like.
Many, many companies think of employees merely in terms of the money, and not how they're disrupting that person's life. It doesn't surprise me that there are non-managers that think and act the same way towards the company.
You look at how companies are operating, how they are treating employees, how they are chasing short-term financial performance over long-term sustainability and simply mirror their behavior on an individual level.
Personally, I am only invested in a company to the degree of making my immediate coworkers happy and making it easier for them to do work. I don't care about the long term (5-10 year timeline) success of the strategic goals for 2 reasons:
1. The company is not invested in me in the long term.
2. I don't have strategic visibility to make improvements anyway, because I am not an executive, so it makes no sense to worry about something I can't control.
"Where do you see yourself in 5 years" - "not here because you 100% won't increase pay commensurate with market rate"
Its relatively simple to see how people could operate that way, because companies don't actually care about employees. They're a line item for profit generation.
Would a company cut quality to increase profit? Yes? Then so should you.
I'm not really worried about what other people do because when I have to fix it, I'll be being paid to, and so would the next guy after me.
If companies don't feel responsible for treating employees well/not turning their backs on them in the sake of profit then I feel 0 responsibility for anything I leave behind when I'm gone.
Sounds like the solution is to look for a good company—they do exist—not sabotage the current one.
Whether or not the guy before me leaves a pile of crap behind is not determined by me.
You could choose to stop the cycle instead of biting the next person down the line just because you were bitten by someone unrelated.
> Whether or not the guy before me leaves a pile of crap behind is not determined by me.
Maybe not directly, but it does play a part. When no one cares about doing things right, even the ones who did care get fatigued and stop. The way to fix the situation is to be better yourself, thus giving others the chance to be at their best.
Sucks to be the guy cooperating in this scenario, but it's the only way to start clawing things back from the brink.