Comment by jp57 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jp57 | Hacker News Reader

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I find it interesting how starkly bimodal attitudes toward employer loyalty are.

There is a middle ground between getting a company logo tattoo on one hand and on the other being a clock puncher, who fulfills the minimum job requirements and begrudges any request to put in extra effort.

It's possible, even admirable, to be diligent and take pride in one's work for reasons other than drinking the company kool-aid. It's possible to be diligent and work hard, and still leave if you are mistreated.

Yes, employment is inherently transactional, but for jobs like software engineering, machine learning engineering and other high education jobs, the aggregate of the transaction is much closer to a year of work than an hour or day of work. Also, the terms of the transaction often include a variable bonus for performance, as judged by the employer. It seems reasonable to incent people to work harder by offering more compensation in return. It's up to everyone to decide whether the terms of the transaction work for them, but there isn't One True Way™ for everyone regarding company loyalty.

It's also possible to be loyal to the people you work with--even your boss, if she merits it--without being loyal to The Company. I've worked in great teams in companies that have a reputation for being shitty employers. In one case, that didn't stop me from leaving because the job wasn't the right fit for my family and my wife was unhappy. I felt somewhat bad about leaving, but I still left.

Mixed feelings are okay.

I was leaving a company recently and the fresh grads, with whom I had a good relationship, asked if I had any advice.

I said, “Always remember that the company is not your friend. I don’t mean your boss or your coworkers, they might well be or become your friend. I mean the company itself. If all is well, it may be an excellent ally, but the company can and sometimes will turn on you in an instant if its goals change. Your boss’s job, even if they are your friend, is ultimately to serve the company.

Go out there, work hard, have fun, but put your needs first in the bigger picture.”

My version of this: "The company gives you their best and final job offer every two weeks on your paycheck, and if you get a better offer, it's okay to take it, no hard feelings."

Haha no it's never their best offer. Their profit is literally your unpaid wages. That delta is how this system works.

You could also look at it from the perspective that they pay you fairly, and then profit from the leverage of the apparatus they place around you. IOW you have more impact working for them than you would have on your own. (Obviously that is true, or you would just go work on your own.)

It's not that your perspective is wrong per se, it's just a glass half empty way of experiencing life.

Your company's better offer will go to a new hire, who, barring certain visa types, will always make more than us, the loyal employees.

A person that is happy with their job, but not in love with it, will often not engage in these conversations at all. They're too busy living life. They're probably the majority of workers, if you ask them how the feel about their job, they'd probably say they like it, but they have no strong feelings. It's the people who have been ground to nothing that get online and talk about it, and the true believers who get out to defend the status quo.

And really, it only takes a small push for a person who diligently does their work to become an overworked husk of a person. A bad manager, a raise that didn't come when expected, or even a tough project, and the relationship has soured--sometimes forever.

And sometimes, those people move on to a different job, and the attitude moves back to the center. And then they're not as vocal about it.

True, though I'm still surprised, on a site run by a startup incubator, at the number of seriously jaded clock-punchers who chime into these threads with their cynicism and proud declarations of how they go through their careers phoning it in.

I have to wonder if those people interact with the "Who's Hiring?" and "Who Wants to be Hired?" threads and if they get any interest from employers.

This is basically how I approach it with my employees.

I'm very clear with anyone who works for me that our interests won't always align. I'm also clear with them that I'm not going to screw them over and that I won't take any offense if they negotiate with me or ask for things. I lay out what my lines are: I will not knowingly lie to them, and I will usually provide complete information except when I have a good reason to. I ask the same of them. Beyond that, we're adults who can negotiate like adults.

There's nothing wrong with a transactional relationship, and it doesn't mean you can't be human. Things only get unfair when the relationship is only expected to be transactional in one direction, where employees are supposed to have undying loyalty to a company that will lay them off as soon as it becomes convenient to do so.

Companies don’t appreciate craftsmanship, in fact they openly state they would rather replace craftsmen with llm-based blop generators. So why not spend your time on your own thing? Be it your family/hobby.

This is underdiscussed. The gap between the perception (accurate, largely) between the 2010s and now for "software jobs" (broad term for all related professions) is stark.

We'd hear stories of ballpits and "20% time" (or whatever Google had), and now we've seen rounds of layoffs, thunderdome for even marginal employment, and Big Names publicly saying they intended to replace staff with LLMs.

How could anyone have loyalty in this environment?

By default I give loyalty and dedication to my employer until and unless my trust and respect are broken. I'm one of those engineers that will happily give 115% for extended periods, but only if I feel I'm being treated fairly and with the respect my abilities and position deserve.

Once that social contract is broken, I'm just a clock puncher until I find a new job. If my employer doesn't appreciate the amount and quality of my work, I'll just find someone who will.

I don't think my standards here are particularly high, but I've never worked anywhere that didn't wind up treating me like trash after a year or two. I guess they just take me for granted after a while and assume I'll never quit. I dunno, I can't make sense of it.

> I find it interesting how starkly bimodal attitudes toward employer loyalty are.

It's because employers create a narrative which makes people think they are valued beyond the transactional. People develop relationships with employers and have trust in them. In my experience it is very easy to fall into this narrative unless you have experience otherwise.

A “bonus” is not worth me consistently putting in more than 40 hours a week. That means I’m sacrificing time with my wife, family and friends, my vacation, my time at the gym, my time learning Spanish since we have decided to establish residency in Costa Rica and live their part time before and after I retire, etc.

I am going to give my employer 100% of my knowledge and close to that amount of energy for 40 hours a week. I love the company I work at now. It’s the best employer I have had (10 in 29 years). But I still treat it very transactional. They can ask me to go the extra mile occasionally. But only because they pay me well and stand by their word of “unlimited vacation as long as you meet expectations”.

The other the compsnies I really enjoyed were startups. But they always go to shit one way or the other - get acquired, get big and go public or go out of business.

I appreciate this take and like to view myself this way. My employer isn’t special… but I chose them because I like their product team and I want to use my skills to make it better. As long as that’s working I’m going to do the best I can for them, but I’m happy to leave if the scales shift too far.

"Loyalty" is also worth something to self - to the loyal employee. It is a signal on CV that given the right environment, you commit to projects and people value your input. That's not to say, stay at all cost, but that when you leave, you pay a price too, and sometimes it's not worth it.

In my line of work, it can easily take 6-12 months until people are really productive, I'm reluctant to hire someone who will be a time sink for all this time then leave 3 months later.

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