Loyalty and Layoffs
heartmindcode.com
heartmindcode.com
I feel like maintaining this attitude can help with all sorts of stuff, including dealing with job offers, negotiating pay, etc. And key to this is having a fairly good knowledge of the value that you provide so you know what value you deserve in return. (Being acutely aware of the value you provide can also help steer you towards higher-value skill sets.)
Intangibles are great. But don't live in fantasy land. And be aware that no one's obligated to give you anything unless it's written in a contract.
The other big aspect of the same issue is the implied responsibility - for example when you are consulting for a third party. Lets say you are paid $10 per hour while your company charges the customer $300 per hour and the customer expects a solid $300 per hour delivery. Now that puts you in a weird situation, because the context of responsibility and ownership is very different. It affects how you think about the code. It's like the difference between life-support critical software and useless departmental tools. It is up to your company to define the scope of responsibility. You can't force it, you don't have the business input to figure out what they need. May be they just need a cheap and stupid code monkey.
Personally, I wouldn't want an employer going through lots of effort to figure out what's best for me. I think they'd do a crappy job of it.
The employer doesn't have to figure out what's best for you. What's best for them is also best for you. Like almost everybody else, I am driven by respect. If the company measures performance based on profit, so do I. If it's a non-profit, so am I. If you give me what you value most I will do the same. Can't go wrong with that.
Leaving is absolutely the right choice if the amount they're willing to pay you is wildly out of whack with the effort you're putting in and value you're creating, because it frees your time up to work for somebody else who will value you (and pay you) more. Everybody wins.
But this is not the case I am discussing. If you are able to prove objectively that you are not getting a fair share of the value you bring and management doesn't fix it, then everybody loses. You lose what you could have gotten, and they lose because now they have a resentful and demotivated employee. You don't even have to leave or you can't leave until you find another job. It's not that hard for an employee to do the bare minimum and not get fired or demoted.
Your comment is written from the perspective of someone who feels like the inferior party in the relationship. You're not. You always have the ability to say 'no' and walk away from a situation. Are you confused by your compensation? Request full explanation until you're no longer confused and understand your risks. (Understanding risk and reward and making judgments in the face of uncertainy is an art, not a science. Nothing is without risk.) If you don't get that explanation or your spidey sense tingles, saying they might be bullshitting: walk. If you're not sure what you're selling your time for, don't. You're selling tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of your time. Would you sell a house or car if you weren't absolutely sure what you were getting return?
Don't be a dick, just be a peer. And confident. If you're a good person doing quality work, you're valuable. Very few companies run with no employees. Don't mistreat. Don't be mistreated.
But I still have the feeling that simply asking for explanations puts you at risk. Being annoying is a risk. They know that they are not giving you the information you need to do your own valuation. A common tactic from managers is to maintain ambiguity, only to be resolved later against your interest. Many companies have an established scheme with plausible deniability by design. Even if they explain everything to you, you might not be qualified to understand it. I've seen a founder tell me that I don't have to pay for my stock options to become stock, a mistake that is worth $100K+ and I wouldn't have known that if I didn't speak with a financial advisor.
You just can't have the private company information, competence and time to double check everything your management is saying and supposed to do for you. It's just trust in the guy who is in position of power.
Yes, except if you need food and shelter, and have been searching for a job for like 4-5 months (or longer) without much luck...
Lots of Americans tend to think like they all are millionaires (or are soon to be) when discussing business and taxation issues, whereas it's a country with higher inequality than most of the western world, tons of royally fucked up people, and most of them will stay that way for all their lives (plus, far more of them will be impoverished and drop out of middle-class than turn from middle class into millionaires).
Needless to say, these people are in a much more powerful negotiating position than, say, the 9.5% of Nevada residents who are unemployed [1]. And even the Nevada residents are better off than the 20% of people worldwide living on less than the PPP equivalent of $1.25 per day [2].
I think the posters in this thread should state which of those audiences they're writing for.
[1] http://www.cnbc.com/id/100974182 [2] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17312819
Well, tell that to Ryanair. They seem to be doing quite fine mistreating their employees [1]. I find it difficult to understand why people are working for them, but there must be reasons why.
You're suggesting only one option, and that option is to walk away. True, you can do that. In fact that is the ONLY thing you can do. From employer perspective, you're just a resource. Which is relatively easy to replace if there's enough money in their pockets.
Even the "walk away" solution is dictated by the employer, because the reality is that they effectively say "agree to our terms or p*ss off". So walking away is you picking the option #2.
[1] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travelnews/10063697/Ryanai...
I find it amazing people will fight the laws of supply and demand tooth and nail, although it's probably the most solid and universal part of economics (and nature).
That's a false statement whose falseness has been observed by economists since Adam Smith:
What are the common wages of labour, depends every where upon the contract usually made between those two parties, whose interests are by no means the same. The workmen desire to get as much, the masters to give as little as possible. The former are disposed to combine in order to raise, the latter in order to lower the wages of labour.
It is not, however, difficult to foresee which of the two parties must, upon all ordinary occasions, have the advantage in the dispute, and force the other into a compliance with their terms. The masters, being fewer in number, can combine much more easily; and the law, besides, authorises, or at least does not prohibit their combinations, while it prohibits those of the workmen. We have no acts of parliament against combining to lower the price of work; but many against combining to raise it. In all such disputes the masters can hold out much longer. A landlord, a farmer, a master manufacturer, or merchant, though they did not employ a single workman, could generally live a year or two upon the stocks which they have already acquired. Many workmen could not subsist a week, few could subsist a month, and scarce any a year without employment. In the long-run the workman may be as necessary to his master as his master is to him, but the necessity is not so immediate.
http://www.econlib.org/library/Smith/smWN3.html#I.8.11
Smith continues to further detail the advantages of employers. Not all of the conditions he describes apply fully today (trades unions are no longer illegal), though in practice they largely still hold, particularly in the technology sector (in which trade unions are almost wholly nonexistent).
The law of rent (David Ricardo) states the situation simply: your ability to command a wage from one employer is wholly dependent on your ability to claim as much or higher compensation from another, or by striking out on your own.
Smith also makes the observation that it's not the size of an economy but its growth which tends to produce circumstances most favorable for labour (a growing economy has a larger number of alternative opportunities for labour).
The latter would probably be more efficient for the company. However many workers would start looking for a better job.
A week later they made a billion dollar acquisition, and they still made a good profit.
Don't tell me that folks won't take a paycut. They'll take one, and be grateful!
It is illegal for employers to collude to lower wages, while unions gain legal privileges by doing so. Parliament and congress tend to be bought and paid for by unions. Similarly, due to a combination of high wages and welfare, most workmen can subsist for long periods without work.
(Most workers don't value stability, and choose consumption over savings. But this doesn't mean they lack the ability, they merely don't value it.)
> Similarly, due to a combination of high wages and welfare, most workmen can subsist for long periods without work.
Nope, most workers here are living paycheck to paycheck.
> (Most workers don't value stability, and choose consumption over savings. But this doesn't mean they lack the ability, they merely don't value it.)
Savings? You must be joking.
Let's see. Minimal level of enjoyment, a roof over one's head, food, heating, savings. Choose three, depending how skilled you are, for many, choose two.
If it's impossible for a Brit to save, since they must consume everything they earn to survive with a minimal level of enjoyment, then how do the Polish avoid death? Do the Polish simply not enjoy life at all? And surely you'd agree that Americans should be able to save, simply by reducing their consumption to British levels.
Second, cost of living is different in the UK, US, and Poland. If we ignore wage levels and just look at GDP/c, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purchasing_power_parity#OECD_co... tells us that after adjusting for costs, the effective numbers as compared to a US citizen's purchasing power are $50K US, $32K UK, $35K Poland.
Mind you, I don't know I buy antihero's argument that the British are struggling to stay alive, but your argument isn't a particularly strong counter.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)...
I disagree profoundly. Much of the world still operates under conditions Smith would recognize quite readily. Even industrialized nations still have a fundamental set of circumstances as described by Smith which benefits employers.
It is illegal for employers to collude to lower wages, while unions gain legal privileges by doing so.
It isn't illegal to collude everywhere, and even where it is, this doesn't stop the practice. To put this in terms HN readers might appreciate, most of the major employers in Silicon Valley have been convicted or strongly implicated in anti-poaching hiring practices (another reason recruiting is as big a mess as it is):
http://www.siliconvalley.com/companies/ci_22962030/apple-goo...
As I've noted: IT is a very largely non-unionized industry sector. For recent unionization rates by industry sector, this BLS 2007 report notes that even in the government rates are below 50%: 35% public sector, < 25% transporation and utilities, 15% construction, 12% information, 11% manufacturing. Most recent growth has been in service industries (housecleaning, janitor, etc.).
http://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2008/feb/wk2/art01.htm
Parliament and congress tend to be bought and paid for by unions.
Campaign donations from corporations ($25.2m), trade associations ($15m), and individuals and organizations ($16m) all dwarf labor ($7.6m):
http://www.project.org/info.php?recordID=28
While the largest _single_ donor sources are frequently labor organizations, these represent a large number of individuals across a large number of employers. Single corporate and PAC donors aren't far behind. Looking at recipients of contributions, the top Democrat and Republican in the US House of Representatives, it's individual contributions which make the lion's share of contributions in both cases:
https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/list.php
http://www.campaignmoney.com/political/campaigns/edward-j-ma...
http://www.campaignmoney.com/political/campaigns/john_a_boeh...
The remainder of your assertions without any backing data I simply dismiss as non-credible in light of reports that half of Americans have less than $800 in savings (less than a month's expenses in most cases), and less than $25k in retirement funds.
http://blog.credit.com/2013/06/half-of-americans-have-less-t...
http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/2013/0319/Most-Americans-r...
Nice counter-factual troll.
Try disagreeing with what I actually said, rather than some straw man.
The effect is the same result in the context of the original statement: that employers and firms are better positioned to weather a work outage than employees are.
Your aren't holding up particularly well on any of your other points, and I could point at any number of issues, including, for what it's worth, reduced wage-bargaining power, which leaves employees in the US with lower savings than those elsewhere. There are also comparisons such as purchase power parity or costs which are individual and out-of-pocket or just generally higher in the US (health care, education, transportation) than elsewhere.
Most of what you've said has been strawman arguments. QED.
Only rarely and in quite good economy and job market conditions (can differ depending on profession). And that's for better than average workers. For average and below average (ie. most of the population at any give time) not even then.
Normally you are the one needing work and money to feed your family and he is the one with the money to pay you. "He" could even be a multi-national. You are the weaker one here, make no mistake.
Saying, "Only be loyal to yourself" can be short sighted too. People remember. If you refuse to renew your contract mid-project because someone else away is offering $50/day more, people will remember. If you quit your company because you don't want to do any overtime for a month, people remember. More importantly, your immediate boss remembers.
The best work out there is never advertised. It appears by word of mouth. This is true for both full time employees and contractors. The best work at the highest wages come when a prior boss says, "This is very important, and only YOU can do it for me." This isn't corporate loyalty, but it's having someone know that you'll be in the foxhole with them.
One last thought on the OP - I can't imagine a company laying off the folks who "finished first" staying in business for very long. It's very Dilbertesque.
You don't have to be loyal. Instead, be professional.
That means you retain many of the qualities of loyalty -- dilligence and an eye for the advantage of your client or employer -- without being afraid to ask for the going rate for your services.
A professional is also prepared to argue for the best interests of the client and to refuse to act unethically, even when the client doesn't want to hear it. Our cousin professions enjoy pretty strong legal support for the latter.
Though it might come at great personal cost if you end up having to flee to Russia.
The personal cost wasn't due his ethics, it was due to his inability to shut up.
Deep Throat never needed to reveal himself to the world. Things seemed to go fairly well for him. There are better ways to make sure people don't do bad things to you than tell the whole world that you were the leak. A simple program that requires daily interaction that sends an email to one of the people he leaked to if he doesn't interact with it, revealing himself at that point.
It was not his "greatest and only weapon". He was someone who wanted his name to be remembered.
Tangentially, the reveal made the conversation about him, and not the information.
Things have changed a lot since deep throat. As Daniel Ellsberg (from around the same era) wrote, they let him _out on bail_ while waiting for a trial. http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/daniel-ellsberg-nsa-l... Back when the US government assassinating people without trial might actually outrage the public enough to cost politicians their jobs. Times have changed.
The "he did it to be famous" thing is exactly the story the government is trying to tell about Manning too, and it's entirely incredible in both cases, just doens't make any sense. Who puts themselves at risk of life imprisonment or death (judicial or extrajudicial) just cause they want to be famous? It doesn't even make any sense.
The first is to play it sneaky, being covert in your dealings and hoping against all Odds that you don't screw up and get silently caught.
The second is to do everything in the extreme public eye, so that the accumulated eyes of the world are watching you, but also watching out for you.
Both are totally legitimate paths, but the public one has a higher survival rate. It's what I would've done.
So he probably decided to just cut to the publicity part to protect himself. In either case, you don't really know he was in it for fame.
Perhaps the result of too many bad hollywood movies focusing on "character development", a legacy of puritanism, being conditioned by crap news coverage to turn everything into gossip. Oh, and inexperience with thinking politically.
>The personal cost wasn't due his ethics, it was due to his inability to shut up.
You just couldn't contain your disdain for the man, right? I see some projection in play here, if you allow me the same BS pop psychology.
b) When a corporation knows you're "loyal", what they really know is that your threshold for leaving is higher than non-loyal employers of the same skill level, telling them that incentives are better spent on those high flight risk employees than you. You lose.
The other thing is that loyalty is not a binary; it really shouldn't be discussed as if it's an either/or.
We do not have a planetarium. We do not have a movie theater. We do not offer free food to our employees every day. We do not as a policy, pay for our employees' day care. We do not implement the latest and greatest technologies on a whim because we think they are cool.
We do offer one of the best, IMO, health care plans in the industry. We do respect our employees, vendors and co-workers. We do offer generous retirements benefits. We do work very hard to use technology to solve problems that are as or more difficult than your favorite silicon valley startup. We do take into account the ability to sustain every single employee for the next 20 years into every decision we make. We do treat every employee like they are a member of our family and will continue to for the next 43 years.
Consider all of the above when you are looking for a new job or starting a new company.
It is a good idea to always be read to leave. Don't burn bridges but don't assume the company you work for is your family. Why? They extract double the work from you working nights in exchange for fluffy promises. A lot of managers are managers because they know how to promote well. Promote themselves well and promote the company to you. Be aware of that.
Many managers got their education straight from Dilbert or the movies. They think screwing you over and maintaining ambiguity is "business-savvy". It's well known that employees will grow resentful when your actions cost them money. It's one of the few HR areas with actual studies and it's common sense in general. Good managers are pretty rare though indeed.
Limbo, Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Anger, Heresy, Violence, Fraud, and Treachery.
I think our younger generation is much more weary of being loyal to corporations. We've seen what happens in economic crises, and most of our lives have been just that: one big economic crisis after another.
Most people stay for several years or sometimes much more. Staying less than two years, and certainly less than a year, can be so short as to be counterproductive, so that's less welcome, though we always do self-introspection to see if we did something to drive them away (it's rare that someone stays that short a time). But if someone's been there three years or more, they've contributed a lot to the company, and I really do want them to do well, and they have no obligation to be "loyal" to the company.
Sometimes they work for a while elsewhere and then come back. That's great too.
I worked for a similar company, and constantly predicted the fiscal end of it. The CEO was siphoning off money any way he could. I was let go in 2009, and at that point the half-yearly general staff meetings were so mundane, I just stopped going and asked others "how many times did he say 'tighten our belts'.
I visited last year and the mood had changed - the dispatch staff said that they had product and orders to ship, but no money for cardboard boxes to ship them in.
They are still somehow going this year.
Once you are into that it gets difficult to quit by the day.
Next job I worked for a small company where the two directors ended up being unable to pay staff, so they put everything on their credit cards, and convinced everyone to resign and sign up as contractors. It was only years later that it dawned on me, that by resigning they didn't have to pay severance packages. We were young and trusting.
Am I the only one that finds this utterly and totally horrific? Why would you do that? What do you gain by someone who leaves being unable to collect unemployment benefits? Does it directly affect you? I thought that was something that all taxpayers put money into. It reads like "I take pleasure in ensuring that ex-employees are totally screwed" -- please tell me I'm wrong.
He could be 100% liable for unemployment benefits made against his company in the form of increased benefit charges.
Here's a quote from Georgia's handbook:
"Experience rating is a system which relates employer taxes to the cost of providing unemployment benefits to its employees. Lower rates are earned by employers whose unemployment experience costs are less, and higher rates are assigned to employers whose experience indicates greater costs.
"Under experience rating, benefits paid are charged to the claimant's separating/most recent employer, provided the employer has paid wages of at least 10 times the claimant's weekly benefit amount and the separation was under allowable conditions as defined by the Employment Security Law. The employer most directly related to the claimant's unemployment will be charged for benefits paid and thus reflect a true experience rating. This system helps to maintain an adequate reserve fund from which future benefit payments will be made.
"No employer's account will be charged more than the amount of wages that employer paid the claimant and the employer will pay only for the period of unemployment attributable to the separation from his employ."
Employers directly pay for state unemployment benefits; it does not come from the public tax pool.
Unemployment insurance is paid for by employers, and the more former employees that collect unemployment, the higher the employer's unemployment insurance premiums. I save a ton of money by making sure my former employees do not get unemployment benefits. This is also why a resignation is important, in that it gives me assurance my premiums won't rise.
I haven't had to let anyone go simply because I didn't have enough work for them, so I can't say I've screwed anyone out of unemployment benefits. I'm just making sure my costs stay down when I do need to get rid of someone. However, this is also why companies may offer severance. They can either pay increased unemployment insurance premiums to the government, or they can win goodwill from employees by giving them some cash and also releasing the employer from some additional liabilities.
Ah, fuckedcompany.com! I miss that site. It really offered some good insights into what was happening during the internet bubble. For those who missed it (it went away in 2007), here's a description:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fucked_Company
And here's a random snapshot from 2001:
http://web.archive.org/web/20011201061308/http://fuckedcompa...
Starbucks came to Australia... and failed hard. In the news following the closure of three-quarters of its stores, they interviewed one young man who was absolutely distraught, devastated at the loss of his 'family'. He was 18, and had worked there for a whole three months. Welcome to the world, lad.
I don't wear clothing with the company logo, I rarely attend company events, I don't mix anything in my personal life (insurance plans/cell phone contracts ect...) with company provided deals or discounts. I keep over 12 months of living expenses liquid. That being said, I try to remain professional and take the job for what it is. They pay me a salary, I do work. In the distant future I look forward to bootstrapping my own business.
There was a lot more to the lay-off than the company losing their primary income model
This happened in my hometown (Chattanooga, Tennessee).
Before New York regulators cut the businesses off from the automated
clearing house system in early August, the payday conglomerate made
short-term loans over the Internet that typically became due — with interest
— on the customer’s next payday. Different U.S. states have widely divergent
laws governing the interest rates that lenders are allowed to charge, and
Brown often ran afoul of these regulations.
He has been sued in several states for making loans with interest rates well
above the legal limit, was the subject of a class-action lawsuit for sending
thousands of spam text messages and was investigated by federal authorities.
Brown was forced to stop making loans in Tennessee following a series of
Times Free Press articles in 2011 and 2012 that showed he was making loans
with an interest rate in excess of what the state allowed, and was doing so
without a license.
Personally, I go about things in the same way, but hope I get a union job I just applied for. IMO, that changes the whole solidarity/loyalty relationship.
Alternatively, if the business makes losses rather than profits, would you kick in your share to keep things even?
/s
- I pay my employees far less than what I can bill my clients.
- However, if there is no client, I still pay my employees their full rate.
- I pay all associated costs: Workplace and equipment, health insurance, paid holidays, accounting, lawyers where needed, ...
- I pay for the acquisition costs for new jobs
- I bear the full risk of a job going wrong and pay for all settlement costs involved
- I pay the difference if a job is not profitable because the employee fucked up and everything takes longer than planned.
- I get to organise a replacement if the employee falls ill.
Now, $15/hr and $150/hr is quite a bit of a margin, but we don't know if it's before or after taxes and what benefits are included in the pay package. From my personal experience a factor of 4-5 is on the lower end of profitability, so a factor of 10 may still be reasonable.
I invested a lot of capital and time in the company and the reputation that allows me to charge a high rate. That investment needs to pay of at some point.
You choose the safer of two alternatives by getting employed. If you prefer the high risk, high reward route, the go freelance but don't be surprised if things don't go as smooth as you'd think.
One thing I would point out is that in my experience the people who are laid off in a company advance their careers and those who remain stagnate. I am not sure I would put this in a layoff email though.
If times are tough, I still think that layoffs are a real last resort. Your best assets are the entrepreneurs in your business and these can be floor-level employees. The rule breakers, the ones who will fight the system or break the rules in order to do a better job are the ones that need to be paid well, not in terms of money but in terms of owning their job (and ideally a share of profits).
1. Reducing hours by X% instead of sacking X% of employees.
2. Offering voluntary redundancy packages.
Option 1 tends to lead to some people quitting anyhow.
Option 2 has the problem that it can dramaticaly exacerbate the Dead Sea problem. Anyone with any pep grabs the package and looks for a job elsewhere.
I knew so many people during the crash who had the most random computer and office equipment. All 'acquired' when their company went out of business.
Aeron chair. Anthro cart. Sun Ultra 10, loaded. $4,000 Toshiba laptop. Occaisonaly some Cisco kit or a fairly beefy server. "This used to run <insert failed site> dot com."
How'd that work? Didn't the creditors or management care?
So companies will try and package up your severance to include things like your work laptop (which you've maybe become attached to), they can put a $ value on it, and mark it off what you're owed, but in reality you're losing out. Better to take cash rather than hardware, unless there is no cash.
As a matter of fact, my peer in our organization left a few months ago. She felt guilty, knowing that my life would almost immediately become more difficult, but I stressed to her to do what was best for her. She started to waver when management asked her to delay her departure - I reiterated that she should not worry about me or management. She was loyal - which I appreciated. And I was loyal and shoved her out the door.
Remember to ask yourself, "if this startup/firm/company went to shit tomorrow, what would happen to me?" ... if you think that people at that firm are going to take care of you when things get bad ... slap yourself. Just like in the OP, you might luck out and have someone care enough to give you a soft landing, but that is the exception and not the rule. Always make sure you don't get caught out there,
- passively scan the market every 18 months and go on an interview or two. At worst you'll realize how much you're being taken advantage of, at best you'll realize how lucky you are to have your job.
- Stay in touch with direct contacts at companies that sound interesting who reach out to you, especially on linkedin (I ignore 3rd party developers). If they took the time to reach out to you, just respond with a "Hey I'm not really looking to leave right now but lets stay in touch". Grab coffee with them, and find out what they're up to. This way if everything goes to crap you have a warm lead for gigs, instead of competing with your teammates to get your resume in front of hiring managers in your city
- Keep developing your skills, get on mainstream technologies right after they go mainstream/hit critical, that will make it easier to not chase every shiny new fad. That will increase your marketability and make it easier for you to find opportunities that your peers will not
Above all, don't let being an engineer blind you to company politics. Pay attention to whats happening, read the tea leaves so you can be ahead of bad news ESPECIALLY if you are an immigrant. This has served me well over the years. Once I quit a job because I got a bad feeling that new management cared more about head count than quality ... lo and behold, my replacement was laid off just 6 months after being hired.
Your allies and your friends don't weaken you or leave you to rot. Anyone who does isn't worthy of your loyalty.
I've been laid off before, I didn't feel bad about it - I was loyal to them and they were loyal to me, and when the relationship ended we went our separate ways, both the richer for it.
I have watched "layoffs" at two big tech giants (only one was called that) and watched what happened to the people who left and the people who stayed. In general I have found that despite the uncertainty it is actually a good thing, on average, to be laid off. Earning power seems to go up, and people move into more challenging jobs. THose who remain tend to be part of a more ossified corporation and with less mobility.
1. Loyalty to your work. Do a good job, take pride in it, try to always do better.
2. Loyalty to the customer. This goes without saying, but don't let this make you do less of a good job.
3. Loyalty to the company. I disagree with the author in saying this is sick. However, it becomes sick when it is placed above a need to do a good job and take care of the customer's needs.
Loyalty to the company is what glues together the other two into something productive, but it cannot stand on its own without degrading into petty politics.
However also for this to work, the company has to be loyal to the employees and this is harder and harder to find these days.
As an aside, in the distant past, this would have been much more explicitly "loyalty to your guild."
I sometimes call this "ownership of work" which has two components. The first is the ability to do your job your way (but collaboratively as needed), without micromanagement, and the second is to take pride in doing it the best way you can.
This is applicable in the work force in the sense that micromanagement is evil and that good tradesmen are good workers but it is also applicable to things like washing dishes: Do a good job but dont let anyone else tell you how to do a good job!
A company that wants 1950s-style loyalty from its employees should be giving them 1950s-style loyalty. If you as a corporation would prefer layoffs to bankruptcy protection, then you do not measure up to that standard.
Not saying that loyalty in itself is bad, but blind loyalty is -- a symptom of which is accepting a leader's words at face value.
Even nice doggies get put to sleep eventually.
Now, while I realize I have a really unique skillset, and have project knowledge which will see me thru - when I have to take my 45 day break ahead, I realize I may not come back. This would make me sad, but I'm well taken care of by my own savings, and by unemployment.
I may be loyal to employees of said company, if they, PERSONALLY, prove to be worth such loyalty.
I can't speak for everyone, but the people _are_ what I am referring to when I speak of "the team".
When the company engineer claims he lacks loyalty, is not part of the company family, etc... He is not truly believing any of this either. He's just out of ammunition to attack him with logic, so he goes with any pack instinct ad hominem.
And then writing this emotional piece about just ice the cake on how he's sadly clueless on the matter. It's like he's trying to explain that someone who just called him a motherfucker how he is silly because you know, he's gay so he could never like mothers or something. It's all crazy and pointless to believe there's logic in subjective pack mentality attacks.
a) you're allowed to sell them.
b) somebody is willing to buy them
or c) you get a dividend and own a significant portion.
The value of most stocks in companies is overrated. Yes, your company might be the next google and you'll hit gold but most companies shares are worth little to nothing. Depending on the company structure they might have some interesting rights attached - such as being allowed a look in the books, being invited to the shareholders meeting etc. Stuff that allows you to judge how well your company is doing. Just don't take them as if their cash value is fixed. It will be somewhere between 0 and infinity.
If the Efficient Market Hypothesis is true (it's certainly approximately true), then most stocks, most of the time, have exactly the value they ought to have. So no, on average, stocks aren't overrated and investors aren't fools.
A lot of those are not or only partially investor backed. Even of those that are, most fail, their stock value effectively nil. Of the rest, a large share basically just breaks even which makes their stock pretty much untradeable since practically nobody wants to buy shares in a company that will probably never have a large growth. The tiny tiny rest grows in leaps and bounds and is the next google/facebook/, the stock value multiplying by factors of 10 or more.
Investing in stocks of small startups is a risky business - on average you can make a lot of money, but it takes a lot of capital and endurance to have a large enough portfolio that you actually achieve the average. Otherwise it's luck. My point is: Don't see shares in a company as income. It's an investment and a risky one. Do that with money you can afford to loose and effectively write it off until you've really sold it or the company went public.
Also most people's utility functions are not linear in money - but those of rich people/institutions are much closer to linear, and rich people/institutions dominate the market.