[Eisenhower]

What caused the dichotomy between corporate loyalty, and the system now.

In the past, it was commonplace for employees to spend years, if not their lifetime at a single company. It appears as if the relatinoship between employees and the company they worked for had a more familial type bond. There was a strong loyalty between a person and their employer, and both did what was best for one another.

Now juxtapose this with the corporate environment today. There is no loyalty between a company and it's employees. People spend a few years at one place and then move onto the the next. There is no family-esque bond between the company and the employee, and more of a taking from one another.

What caused this shift? Was it mainly a shift on the employer side, or employee side, or a combination of both? New generations coming into place and wanting to rebel against the establishment i.e. Baby boomers vs the older generations?

[judymrad]

One of my former bosses had a great thing to say about companies that "felt" like a family vs. a real family: In a "real" family, you can't fire Aunt Edna if she slacks off.

Paternal company management is, like the Model T, a thing of the past, and I am happy to see it end. There is much truth to the saying that the good times were, in fact, not so good.

With only one breadwinner in a typical US household in the pre-Boomer past, the (usually male) employee may not have been as much loyal but felt compelled to stay with one company to optimize stability for his family. He would work his butt off, and companies fed on this reality. (This was my Dad for sure.)

Your notion that "both did what was best for one another" reads like a fairy tale :+) Curious if you asked this question just to get perspective or if you feel this change is a "loss" and you would want to work for a company you felt treated you like family.

Companies that are public have always operated from the view that their first priority is to the shareholder, not the employee, even if they like to say 'employees are our greatest asset." Cultures of big public firms vary widely - but no one should expect job security as a perk there because at the end of the day, business is business.

Private firms may inspire more loyalty if their cultures really are more people-friendly, but they too have to meet payroll at the end of the day.

Baby boomers, of which I am the tail end of, did not create the shift in dynamics so much as the impact of globalization, particularly the rise of Asia as a manufacturing center and now the economic engines from the BRIC nations (Brazil/Russia/India/China). At the same time we have seen a cultural change in what workers want due to the impact of the generation(s) that have come after the Boomers - gen Y and gen Z (Wikipedia has good entries on these next generations.)

As someone who has hired in Y and Z and had to market to them, I know today's generation of job seekers is not expecting security and stability -- they are seeking a paycheck to support their ever evolving lifestyle and a work culture that embraces who they are, and job hopping is more likely to fulfill these needs on an ongoing basis.

It is expensive for companies to hire/train new workers, so from a purely selfish perspective, companies do want to sustain loyalty, especially among their top people. But be clear -- there is no expectations of it being family-like.

Employees have more leverage if they are good at what they do. So, using the family metaphor that you raise, think of it like this: Employee A can ask Dad (the boss) for the car and Dad will say Yes more often because he knows Employee A can easily go across the street and Neighbor Ted (Dad's competitor) will give him an even nicer car to borrow.

[thod]

The quest for ever more profits caused the corporations to optimise their labor force. The effects on the labor force were not considered in this. The people that were working there become to be seen as machines, interchangeable and replaceable. The employees noticed this and resented it. They became mercenaries offering no loyalty because they were shown none. Now the corporates are dysfunctional. Those that can, use their position to award themselves millions. Those that cannot, must accept what is offered. There is no solidarity between labour, management and shareholders.

[Tocsin]

Regarding IBM under Tom Watson, I found this in a PDF on line:

	For Watson, individuals make a difference. From the beginning, IBM has had a policy of promoting from within, and of using extreme reluctance to fire anyone. Non-performers are occasionally fired of course, but Watson preferred to move them to other departments or retrain them, believing that every I BM staff member has some talent which can be put to use.

That paternalistic attitude toward protecting and caring for employees, from nearly cradle to grave, was not uncommon in the U.S. from the post war era up through the early eighties.

The first tremor of change came with the growth of junk bond moguls and corporate raiders. By targeting companies with high worth, low stock prices, and not a lot of liquid cash, they could attempt to buy companies out from under their own boards - or force the stock prices up so high that the boards would have to bankrupt their own company trying to buy back their own inflated stock in order to avoid losing controlling ownership.

The result of these acts of corporate piracy would be that the new pirate owners would come in and pillage the company... raid retirement funds... fire employees... and sell off divisions and/or assets... and then take their sacks of swag and "get out of Dodge;" ruining lives and whole industries for the sake of a quick and sizable profit.

As a result of these cutthroat practices, the large corporations that survived also had to get "lean and mean" to prevent themselves from becoming victims of their own stock investors. Thus began the present era of doing "whatever it takes"to keep the stock prices up - and investors happy.

Since ever increasing stock prices require ever increasing profits, eventually the only way to meet the need is to cut costs - including labor costs. Thus began the era of globalization, the primary pupose of which is to make national governments subservient to trade agreements: trade agreements designed primarily to remove public price and employment protections, through such tools as tariffs aqnd the like.

With national authoriities rendered subservient to the interest of large corporate concerns, business could be conducted by manufacturing goods where costs were lowest, and selling goods where profits were highest; to maximize profits and keep stock prices inflated. The result of this change in business culture has been the total and irrevocable severance of any notion of loyalty of the company to their employees, and the eventual inversion (with the recognition by employees that they are merely expendable) of employees subsequent loss of respect and loyalty to the companies that employ/exploit them.

[Odie]

Maintaining a a complex community requires a wide range of interpersonal skills and a deep personal maturity. That is an extremely uncommon trait in American society. There is an extremely common tendency for people to mistake stupidity with ill-will, malice, and conspiracy. There's no secret hand trying to rule the world by enslaving everyone. The shit system in place is due to stupid people. Billions of stupid people, all influencing the course of the world. You want to change it? Don't fucking research the economy. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Research being a good, strong person who understands yourself and others. Grow the fuck up, help people around you grow the fuck up. Then, now that you have some god damned self control, do your fucking job right. *breeaaatthhhh*

[zibber]

	Originally Posted by judymrad To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	One of my former bosses had a great thing to say about companies that "felt" like a family vs. a real family: In a "real" family, you can't fire Aunt Edna if she slacks off.

Yes. Or indeed if your company is suffering and you need to lay off a couple thousand workers quickly and without consequences to yourself (just to them and their families).

---------- Post added 08-09-2011 at 11:13 AM ----------

	Originally Posted by judymrad To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Employees have more leverage if they are good at what they do. So, using the family metaphor that you raise, think of it like this: Employee A can ask Dad (the boss) for the car and Dad will say Yes more often because he knows Employee A can easily go across the street and Neighbor Ted (Dad's competitor) will give him an even nicer car to borrow.

So true. There are just jobs all over the place today. You just have to be a good worker, and you'll surely land on your feet.

[judymrad]

"That paternalistic attitude toward protecting and caring for employees, from nearly cradle to grave, was not uncommon in the U.S. from the post war era up through the early eighties."

Funny you cite Watson - I was at IBM for 15 years, grew up in Endicott, NY, the so-called birthplace of IBM once it moved into the business-tech field and away from meat scales and other such devices. (I also spent time at HP, which was even more paternalistic with The HP Way, a culture that had made the company less competitive than it should have been by the early 2000s.)

In the early 2000s, IBM off-shored the major testing role that the Endicott facility did, laying off a huge number of folks (my brother included) and rendering a large portion of the downtown business area a ghost-town that has not nor will likely ever recover. Brings to mind the adapt or die mindset that nature uses -- companies are organisms of a sort as well.

What people write about Watson gets more and more revisionist over time. IBM just had its 100th anniversary, you should check out what Kevin Maney, a well known tech writer who spent time in the Endicott region writing for the local paper, has to say -- it sounds way too happy-happy for my tastes, and I posted that view on one of his stories. IBM is a great business, I enjoyed my time there as I learned alot, particularly on management theory, but let's not give credit where none is due about its people policy.

IBM paternalism, while perhaps a good PR move for image, was bad for morale because everyone knew who the rejects were who were transferred to your department and couldn't cut it. It made more work for everyone.

Companies do not owe anyone a job, and I am still surprised people get so emotional about all the 'evil' corporations when they cut jobs or pay their execs outrageous salaries. I don't expect corporations to be kind-hearted or rational the way an individual might; that is not their mission in society.

[thod]

	Companies do not owe anyone a job, and I am still surprised people get so emotional about all the 'evil' corporations when they cut jobs or pay their execs outrageous salaries. I don't expect corporations to be kind-hearted or rational the way an individual might; that is not their mission in society.

A very American viewpoint. The idea is you hire when profits beckon, fire when business turns down. All the risk is taken by the employee who finds himself in and out of work as the business cycles progress. Simply by firing workers, the company can assure itself a steady profit as it sizes to fit demand.

Yet this is not the way it works in many other countries. Hiring is more like a marriage. You cannot simply fire staff when business turns down. You took the profit in the good times, you are expected to take the losses in the bad times. This may mean paying an employee to do nothing. Thus you, as an employer are taking the risk, just as you take the profits. You cannot hire someone for six months, turn a contract, then fire them. You must judge, before employing them, if you can keep them. A bad decision means you will go bankrupt paying for idle staff.

Because both employer and employee are in it for the long term, the business can think long term. It is worth sending staff on training courses, because they will stick around. Not so American firms, which look to extract without giving back. All these moans about "Can't find the staff", yet none of them will offer training. The result is a better trained workforce. The staff are not stupid. If they can see the company is in difficulty, they offer to reduce their hours voluntarily to keep it going. If you do not like these terms, don't hire anyone, stay small.

It is all a question of interests. The American model says that the man that bought a single share in the company yesterday has more interest in the company than the guy that has worked there all his life. Other countries recognise that this is not the case and try to balance interests.

[zibber]

	Originally Posted by judymrad To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	I don't expect corporations to be kind-hearted or rational the way an individual might; that is not their mission in society.

And here I was thinking they were persons.

[Warrior]

Originally Posted by Eisenhower To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

What caused the dichotomy between corporate loyalty, and the system now. In the past, it was commonplace for employees to spend years, if not their lifetime at a single company. It appears as if the relatinoship between employees and the company they worked for had a more familial type bond. There was a strong loyalty between a person and their employer, and both did what was best for one another. Now juxtapose this with the corporate environment today. There is no loyalty between a company and it's employees. People spend a few years at one place and then move onto the the next. There is no family-esque bond between the company and the employee, and more of a taking from one another. What caused this shift? Was it mainly a shift on the employer side, or employee side, or a combination of both? New generations coming into place and wanting to rebel against the establishment i.e. Baby boomers vs the older generations?

I think you are overstating the family atmosphere bertween companies and employees in the past. People did tend to stay with one company longer, but when speaking to older people about the environment in the 40s, 50s, and 60s, I don't get the sense that "family" is the right word to describe the relationship.

However, employment certainly has evolved. Employees have more options today due to ease of travel and communication technologies. Laws have changed that allow more options for retirement savings outside of employer. Companies also have the ability to more easily recruit from a wider pool of potential employees. All this together has created an environment where people are more confident that changing companies several times in their careers can lead to advancement and employers are less afraid to hire from outside the company.

---------- Post added 08-09-2011 at 09:59 AM ----------

	Originally Posted by thod To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	A very American viewpoint.

One of the better American viewpoints, I think. I would not want to work for a company that could not fire me when they no longer thought I was worth what they were paying or that could not afford to keep me due to financial concerns. It's demeaning.

	The idea is you hire when profits beckon, fire when business turns down. All the risk is taken by the employee who finds himself in and out of work as the business cycles progress. Simply by firing workers, the company can assure itself a steady profit as it sizes to fit demand.

Companies cannot arbitrarily reduce the size of their workforce to raise profits. A company's ability to do this depends on their hiring practices and on practical limitations in their business model. There is a practical limit beyond which the business itself cannot be sustained. Having said that, as an employee, I will take that risk. I can estimate it and see whether the reward is worth it.

[peppersasen]

I did an internship (my first office job) and I desperately wanted them to be my second family. But they bullied me for not wanting to play politics. And the woman who bullied me was a late Boomer/early Gen X-er (born mid '60s).

They just didn't want me there. The entire organization consisted of older people. Entry-level age was 33. I became very resentful of them and eventually disgusted by them.

I'm much happier and pleased with my current employer (I didn't study to be in this field, but it was only because I didn't know you could make a career/job out of something like this). And I do feel a sense of loyalty, in that I want to give them my best work/effort (not just to forward my own career but because I care about how well we do as a firm and I am concerned about keeping our clients happy).

[Ericds84]

Disloyalty is a vicious cycle that's been accelerating over the past few decades. Once upon a time you paid your dues with a company, climbed the ladder, vested & were entitled to a pension, and quite possibly health coverage/other benefits, for life upon retirement.

Then, with a little help from fierce competition here and abroad, companies realized these liabilities were expensive--especially as life expectancies began increasing. Before you know it pensions are a thing of the past, replaced by 401(ks), 403(b)s, HSAs, etc. You're lucky if your employer contributes a dime.

And when corporate earnings start disappointing shareholders, executives whose primary income comes from stock options have no qualms about hacking the workforce.

Employees who have any sense of self-preservation must be prepared to jump ship & job hop any time things start looking grim. And surely the employers' costs of high turnover are shared by employees in the form of reduced wages.

-----

A personal anecdote about corporate ruthlessness:

I worked for a big-name online brokerage firm here in Denver. The brokers were horribly mistreated, overworked, and woefully underpaid. I left to work for an annuity /insurance company, where I saw a nearly 50% increase in pay for a job that requires fewer qualifications, and many of my collegues soon followed suit.

The former firm first sent my new employer a cease & desist demanding we stop stealing their employees. When that didn't pan out they took advantage of an obscure non-compete clause in their contract stating that a former employee cannot recruit for 18 months within leaving the company. They filed suit against a colleague of mine, claiming he was personally responsible for recruiting every single person who left. This company's willingness to crucify a single, innocent individual over their own inability to pay fair wages disgusts me.

[peppersasen]

If I may add: I was born in the '80s and it takes a HIGH LEVEL of evil for me to lose my loyalty toward an employer (which is what happened to the organization I interned with/was my first office job). I know the stereotype is that Gen Y-ers have no sense of loyalty toward their employers, but I really wanted them to be my life and build a career on that. I really did. UNtil they showed me just now UNwanted I was there for not playing office politics. And then I lost all my respect for the authority figures there (selfish shits who have no idea what hardship is because it was so damn easy for them).

I should also add that I come from a dysfunctional biological family, so finding a place to belong (in addition to something I could contribute to, make my "own") was a huge deal for me. I wanted a "sustainable LTR", if you will. First thing I did was draw familial analogies. I had really high expectations about being part of something like that, I was very, very disappointed. It was nothing like a family, you fend for yourself and everyone had to watch their own backs. You can get your back stabbed by anyone, at anytime, for the pettiest of reasons (even now I wonder whether they thought it was worth it, whether
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). You expect me to be loyal to those people? Over my dead body.

It's not like they cared about their jobs either that they didn't want me around. They didn't care about what they did. The "gender specialist" was sexist, the "environment specialist" threw crumpled paper (only printed on one side) on my desk to intimidate the intern (me). How is that loyalty if you don't practice what you preach on the behalf of your organization? The hypocrisy. The Boomer who bullied me admitted she didn't care about the organization, she was just there for the pay. She didn't want me around because I held a new position which didn't exist before and my job was to track down everyone's progress (she didn't like how it exposed her low productivity). I don't think she's loyal. And she's a Boomer. The only reason why I think some stay up to 20 years is just because they're well compensated and their lives have been made easy and simple from beginning to end.

Money and comfort get addictive. Fact.

[Tocsin]

	Originally Posted by judymrad To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	In the early 2000s, IBM off-shored the major testing role that the Endicott facility did...

I never meant to imply that IBM was the only company that had a sense of responsibility to their employees before the mid seventies; a lot of companies did - from auto manufactureres to steel producers... even "ma bell." In "the old days" there were fewer people and more jobs: capable people were a valuable resource then, and employers did their best to protect their own supply.

I also never meant to imply that IBM was immune to the changes in business culture after the beginning of the eigthies. The fact that the incidents you have cited happened in the "new era" of business dynamics tends to support my contention rather than refute it.

	Originally Posted by judymrad To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	...laying off a huge number of folks (my brother included) and rendering a large portion of the downtown business area a ghost-town that has not nor will likely ever recover.

And this of course is the result of the modern business ethcis: people and communites are cast off and destroyed. Business maintains no responsibility for its employees, yet demands reponsibility and loyalty from them. The result is greater profits for a rich few: turmoil, anxiety, and poverty for many others.

This is the kind of world that economic model ends up producing:


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Gary, Indiana.

	Originally Posted by judymrad To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Companies do not owe anyone a job, and I am still surprised people get so emotional about all the 'evil' corporations when they cut jobs or pay their execs outrageous salaries. I don't expect corporations to be kind-hearted or rational the way an individual might; that is not their mission in society.

This, of course, IS the perfect example of the "new ethic" in action. Corporations are not even expected to act with any sense of responsibility. They are expected to act selfishly, like litlle chidren, only concerned about "me, me, me," which translates into "profits, profits, profits."

As has been pointed out, this sense of corporate entitlement and overlord worship is notably peculiar to the United States. It is the abject loyalty to notions of private gain over public responsibility that has reduced America to it's current economic situation. Slashing corporate and commerical tax rates did exactly what should have been expected: it made a few rich people extremely rich, bankrupted the nation, and left us with a decaying infrasructure and impending third world economic prospects of debt and austerity measures.

	Originally Posted by judymrad To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Brings to mind the adapt or die mindset that nature uses -- companies are organisms of a sort as well.

Call it what it is: social darwinism.

The "survival of the fittest" mentality. As in: "it's a dog eat dog world," "to the victor goes the spoils," "the weak get taken," "nice guys finish last." "ya gotta look out for numero uno," and so on.

The result of such a model of ethics is a world of the exploiting and the exploited. You're either a perpetrator or a victim of them. It is a world where selfishness, viciousness, ruthlessness are considered virtues, and social responsibility, and concern for "the common good" are considered weaknesses or liabilities. The latter of these social models helped produce the "age of enlightenment" and the growth of democratic thought and notions of civil rights: the former, current model will devour and destroy such an age, and is leading us into a new dark age of extremes of wealth, with general poverty, ignorance, and despair being the lot of the vast majority.

A "dog eat dog world" is fine... for dogs.

I am not a dog, nor do I want to act/live like one.

---------- Post added 08-09-2011 at 10:56 AM ----------

I would add that in the late seventies, it was primarily the "punk" community that held notions of cynicism and distrust toward large corporations, and regarded the conformist, paternalist culture of corporate parenthood as a pictue of modern servitude. Just listen to songs like the Avengers
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Devo's
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or Wall of Voodoo's
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and you'll get the idea.

Thanks to changes in the social/business environment, that cynicism and distrust in the employer/employee relationship has become "the new norm." When asked about their relationship with their employer, and whether or not they would fire them to protect their profit margin, most employees now would probably just say, "of course they would, why would you even expect anything else?"

In a sense, Ronald Reagan and the Free Market evangelists did more to turn the U.S. into a "punk planet" than the Sex Pistols or Dead Kennedys could ever have even dreamed of.

[Les Payne]

The 401K retirement program along with artificially low interest rates has caused this problem. I attended a meeting, it must have been about 2000-2001, the corporation, for whom I worked, was installing a new network system. With this new system the people in one facility would be able to see where an in-process product was in any one of the other facilities. When asked why someone in another facility would need this information; the CEO answered: “Our research shows that the people that buy stocks are interested in companies that are heavily invested in networking and the internet and this is the idea that that we think will appeal to those people.”

Every pay period millions of dollars goes into the 401K program, with the interest rates the way they are, most of that money is dedicated to stocks; the fund managers have to buy something. They like companies that pay out dividends and big bonuses. As a result a big push has been made to free up capital. This is where programs like “zero inventory” and “lean manufacturing” come into play. The cost of these programs is not important because an increase in the value of stocks promises a better return on investment than the company itself making a profit. The aforementioned company eventually closed the facility where I worked and outsourced everything; it had been there for 101 years. The cost of outsourcing was actually higher than doing it in-house but they had an anxious buyer for the real-estate and that equaled a lot of freed up capital.

If an executive refuses to go along with this charade they are quickly replaced with one that will and to insure their commitment to higher stock prices a large percentage of their compensation is in company stock. Essentially the operational management of American corporations has been ceded to the “people that buy stocks” (the fund managers) and although this is market driven, it’s hardly free market when you consider the 401K program is government subsidized and the principal competition for 401K money is interest bearing accounts. The worst part is; if the Fed were to push interest rates back up now it would be the “Dot Com Crash” times ten, simply because such a large number of people would move their 401K money out of stocks and a large number of corporations would not be able to survive on their bottom line profits.

[Purgatid]

Holding companies under their arms isn't necessairly a good idea either. Saab is a vivid example of this. Unable to produce the cars people want to buy, they desperately cling to loans and suspect investors. Their employees gets their pay late, and in some cases their pay has to be guaranteed by the state, because Saab can no longer pay neither workers nor their suppliers. I think Sweden needs to let them die. I think that the employees should just quit their jobs, and look for something else.

But they don't. They're so loyal it breaks my heart. Saab will not survive. It's been losing for a decade and these last owner changes with GM and whatnot are just death twitches. Yet the employees stay. They're not leaving. When they don't get their pay they say "well, the company's going through a hard time, they'll fix it, I'm sure." Such loyalty is not rewarded, and that's a bit sad. On the other hand, I wouldn't want society geared towards saying I can't quit a job (or shouldn't).

Because I'm a job hopper. I take a job, and I stick with it until I feel I know everything there is to know about it. Then I quit, find a job I have never done before, and stick with it until I know that one too. I'm 30 and I've had at least a dozen jobs by now. I even let employers know that this is how I function, and it seems to be appreciated because I get a call a month asking if I'm free. Which I'm not.

[AnaK]

Originally Posted by Eisenhower To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

What caused the dichotomy between corporate loyalty, and the system now. In the past, it was commonplace for employees to spend years, if not their lifetime at a single company. It appears as if the relatinoship between employees and the company they worked for had a more familial type bond. There was a strong loyalty between a person and their employer, and both did what was best for one another. Now juxtapose this with the corporate environment today. There is no loyalty between a company and it's employees. People spend a few years at one place and then move onto the the next. There is no family-esque bond between the company and the employee, and more of a taking from one another. What caused this shift? Was it mainly a shift on the employer side, or employee side, or a combination of both? New generations coming into place and wanting to rebel against the establishment i.e. Baby boomers vs the older generations?

I like the impersonal way it is today. I'm a contractor. I get paid because they need a specific task done. I like that. Very quid pro quo. I am not in love with my employer. I may or may not agree with the "mission statement" of my employer. I may or may not be a customer. I do not want my employer to care about my health or retirement. Want someone to come in and write a program? Fine, I'm down with that. I'm not looking for a second family. I may or may not make friends at work, but that is up to me, not my employer.

Don't love your job, it may not love you back.

---------- Post added 08-10-2011 at 06:48 AM ----------

Originally Posted by Ericds84 To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

A personal anecdote about corporate ruthlessness: I worked for a big-name online brokerage firm here in Denver. The brokers were horribly mistreated, overworked, and woefully underpaid. I left to work for an annuity /insurance company, where I saw a nearly 50% increase in pay for a job that requires fewer qualifications, and many of my collegues soon followed suit. The former firm first sent my new employer a cease & desist demanding we stop stealing their employees. When that didn't pan out they took advantage of an obscure non-compete clause in their contract stating that a former employee cannot recruit for 18 months within leaving the company. They filed suit against a colleague of mine, claiming he was personally responsible for recruiting every single person who left. This company's willingness to crucify a single, innocent individual over their own inability to pay fair wages disgusts me.

Those non-compete clauses should be illegal. I hate that. It is so anti-competitive. Companies should have to compete for talent. Non-compete clauses should be an anti-trust issue.

---------- Post added 08-10-2011 at 06:57 AM ----------

Originally Posted by peppersasen To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

If I may add: I was born in the '80s and it takes a HIGH LEVEL of evil for me to lose my loyalty toward an employer (which is what happened to the organization I interned with/was my first office job). I know the stereotype is that Gen Y-ers have no sense of loyalty toward their employers, but I really wanted them to be my life and build a career on that. I really did. UNtil they showed me just now UNwanted I was there for not playing office politics. And then I lost all my respect for the authority figures there (selfish shits who have no idea what hardship is because it was so damn easy for them). I should also add that I come from a dysfunctional biological family, so finding a place to belong (in addition to something I could contribute to, make my "own") was a huge deal for me. I wanted a "sustainable LTR", if you will. First thing I did was draw familial analogies. I had really high expectations about being part of something like that, I was very, very disappointed. It was nothing like a family, you fend for yourself and everyone had to watch their own backs. You can get your back stabbed by anyone, at anytime, for the pettiest of reasons (even now I wonder whether they thought it was worth it, whether To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. ). You expect me to be loyal to those people? Over my dead body. It's not like they cared about their jobs either that they didn't want me around. They didn't care about what they did. The "gender specialist" was sexist, the "environment specialist" threw crumpled paper (only printed on one side) on my desk to intimidate the intern (me). How is that loyalty if you don't practice what you preach on the behalf of your organization? The hypocrisy. The Boomer who bullied me admitted she didn't care about the organization, she was just there for the pay. She didn't want me around because I held a new position which didn't exist before and my job was to track down everyone's progress (she didn't like how it exposed her low productivity). I don't think she's loyal. And she's a Boomer. The only reason why I think some stay up to 20 years is just because they're well compensated and their lives have been made easy and simple from beginning to end. Money and comfort get addictive. Fact.

Pepper, I was bullied on a temp job where I certainly did not want anyone to be my family, and I did not want it to be long term. (I like to get along with people I work with though, and I make an effort to do that. They saw that as weakness, I think. Also, I like to be liked, and that is a weakness they could exploit. And I was several thousand miles from home and didn't know anyone in that area. They took advantage of that.) When you are trapped in a small office with people, they have the time and opportunity to play with you, if they are in fact evil. It's the worst thing about working, because you can't control who your co-workers are. I quit the first opportunity I had, but I was still reeling over a year later. It's only recently that I am able to look back and laugh at what a bunch of losers they were trapped in a small office for a no-name company and playing cut-throat politics to keep a low-paying job that is over an hours drive from their home.

Anyway, don't beat yourself up. It is so easy to wonder what you've done to deserve such treatment. But, allow the answer to be nothing. Allow yourself to think it is all them. See them for what they are.

---------- Post added 08-10-2011 at 07:03 AM ----------

Toscin, Gary was nearly a company town. It was a steel mill town. China took a lot of jobs.

But, cities die. Look at the new new neighborhoods going up in the Southwest. If there is birth, there will also be death. It's a fact of life.

[Tocsin]

	Originally Posted by AnaK To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	If there is birth, there will also be death. It's a fact of life.

By that rubric, it should be okay for a mother to abandon her newborn infant to the elements, with no legal repurcussions. It's just nature taking its course.

[AnaK]

	Originally Posted by Tocsin To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	By that rubric, it should be okay for a mother to abandon her newborn infant to the elements, with no legal repurcussions. It's just nature taking its course.

Only if the corporation is the Mother and a city is an infant. I think it's more like a sick adult, who is dying, because no medical treatment can help. It's not great to see, but it happens.

[Warrior]

	Originally Posted by AnaK To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Those non-compete clauses should be illegal. I hate that. It is so anti-competitive. Companies should have to compete for talent. Non-compete clauses should be an anti-trust issue.

They are difficult to enforce. My company has hired a couple engineers over the years from competitors that had the engineers sign non-compete agreements. Our lawyers pretty much laughed at the competitor's lawyers. It all turned into a non-issue.

[judymrad]

	Originally Posted by Tocsin To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	The result of such a model of ethics is a world of the exploiting and the exploited. You're either a perpetrator or a victim of them. It is a world where selfishness, viciousness, ruthlessness are considered virtues, and social responsibility, and concern for "the common good" are considered weaknesses or liabilities.

Tocsin, I did not interpret your remarks as being anti-IBM at all - no worries.

This thread has taken on an interesting color given we see folks who accept the new order of things and thrive (job hoppers, contractors) and those who feel a return to the model where loyalty was perceived as being two-way would be healthier for society.

Two thoughts on this:

1) There are stats somewhere on this I'm sure, but from working as a consultant to public companies on their branding, I know companies are taking note of how they are being perceived on issues like the environment, helping their communities, etc. in every country they do business in. The Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) movement is big now - the driver? Younger investors who have money want to invest in companies they feel are more "ethical." So perhaps there is hope (and I say this on the night my husband shares his company is going through another round of layoffs and everyone has been given a quick interim review of performance, and how nice, since I am still unemployed since leaving my last job due to sexual harassment the CEO was aware of from others...)

2. I rather see the ones who long to return to the days of old are like the people in the movie The Matrix who don't want to be awakened from the body farm, just be in the blissful dream state. Companies of old are just the substitute for the feudal landowners really -- you think you have it good, but not really. There are companies that do exist for serving the common good - in the US, think Newman's Own, which gives after-tax profits to charities, but those are exceptions.

Personally, I have a track record of loyalty -- 15 years at one place, 8 at another, and two more of smaller duration. I was loyal to my teams though, not the company itself. I've also been in management for 15+ years, had to lay off people, and despite how cavalierly some think that companies wield the axe, it is always a painful process.

[Paji eh Wong]

	Originally Posted by Eisenhower To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	What caused the dichotomy between corporate loyalty, and the system now.

It was a false dicotomy.

I don't think employees are ever really loyal to employers. Lifelong employees live in fear of losing their jobs, so they stick with them. Loyalty requires love, compliance requires fear.

[peppersasen]

	Originally Posted by AnaK To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Anyway, don't beat yourself up. It is so easy to wonder what you've done to deserve such treatment. But, allow the answer to be nothing. Allow yourself to think it is all them. See them for what they are.

Thanks, AnaK. It's just been a bit hard to think straight since I learned
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. Anyway, sometimes it's just hard to develop loyalty toward some organizations. Like when
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while paying their existing employees a shload (who then bully the intern because they feel like their big paychecks are under threat). The
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. And then they post ads asking for experienced people so they can reap the benefits of another employer's training? Fuck that. It tells you right from the start what kind of organization the UN is. I couldn't develop loyalty to that. That's what I see them for what they are.

---------- Post added 08-11-2011 at 03:43 PM ----------

	Originally Posted by judymrad To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	This thread has taken on an interesting color given we see folks who accept the new order of things and thrive (job hoppers, contractors) and those who feel a return to the model where loyalty was perceived as being two-way would be healthier for society.

Please, don't differentiate us. Just because I accept the "
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" doesn't mean I'm incapable of having any loyalty/gratitude toward my employers.
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[Fishism]

Here's my perspective. I am the C.E.O and majority owner of a small incorporated entity.

I believe "size matters" in this issue. The bigger the organization, the more detached decision makers are from employees. It's easy to issue a command to fire 100 employees if you don't know anything about them aside from an employee number or a branch location. In a smaller corporation, where interaction between decision makers and employees occurs more frequently, then tangibility makes it not so easy to treat employees as disposable. With the decline of the "Mom and Pop" organization and the growth of all-consuming multi-national companies, it's easy to see what I'm explaining here. Loyalty will exist in smaller organizations where the employee is more humanized. Also in smaller organizations, training an employee takes on more meaning because of the lack of productivity occuring during the training process. It's important to retain the employee you've spent resources on training.

In my company, I constantly have to deal with the pendulum swinging between people and profit. Cutting staff and increasing the productivity per person during slow times IS the easiest way to protect profit. However, doing so is a short term fix and when things pick up again, you're missing that qualified staff. So often, I will choose the people over the profit.

On the other side, I know fairly quickly when an employee wants to be temporary, only using his/her position within my organization as a resume entry for use as a stepping stone for their next position. Generally, the individual is younger and playing by these "new rules". I accept this is a reality. However, in treating their position as personally disposable and temporary, they will market themselves out of positions I may have within the organization, especially the ones that require more training. I can't invest in a flight risk.

There isn't an "I" in team...but there is a "me". This goes for both employer and employee.

[peppersasen]

	Originally Posted by Fishism To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	In a smaller corporation, where interaction between decision makers and employees occurs more frequently, then tangibility makes it not so easy to treat employees as disposable.

And the office politics also tends to be worst. Which leads to resentment. And if not addressed, can also lead to disloyalty.
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	Originally Posted by Fishism To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	In my company, I constantly have to deal with the pendulum swinging between people and profit. Cutting staff and increasing the productivity per person during slow times IS the easiest way to protect profit. However, doing so is a short term fix and when things pick up again, you're missing that qualified staff. So often, I will choose the people over the profit.

I don't know what kind of business you run, but the best way to cut costs IMHO is letting some positions work from home (negotiate to cut their pay in exchange for being allowed to work from home so they won't have to get laid off ENTIRELY). Like the ones that don't absolutely require to be physically at the office. You can then rent smaller office space, less office supplies, less paper, less caffeine/sugar in the pantry, less office runners because there are less employees to handle. Also, when one of your employees get sick, you don't have to risk other employees catching their cold.

It kind of keeps everyone happy. They get longer sleep hours, they get to power nap, spend less on eating out for lunch (once I got transferred from a small project office to a building in the CBD and I paid twice on lunch), they spend less on transportation, you help them reduce their carbon footprint, less workplace drama. And everybody's happy.

---------- Post added 08-12-2011 at 11:23 AM ----------

The way I used to view job-hunting was like finding an adoptive family (you know, parents you actually WANT children, people who long for children and want to give an orphan a chance and educate/raise them).

After that internship, my views changed. I realized it was more like being "in the system". More like finding a foster home. You just hope you don't end up with a family that's just in the program to take advantage of you. I'm sure there are foster children out there who were lucky to find loving families, but some just get screwed.