Loyalty works at the person level. That engineer you got along with great? They are your best source of future employment. When they move to a new great opportunity, they call who they know and trust. It better be you.
Exactly. If there's any loyalty, it's in these personal relationships within a company. Regardless of how loyal you are to each other, if the company bottom line says you're gone, then you're gone, and the notice will probably come from a person to whom you are loyal.
No one is arguing that everyone should learn to code to become a professional programmer, in the same way that no one is arguing everyone should become a mathematicians due to mandatory geometry class.
yeah I knkow - you might need to spend up to four weeks and go through, I shit you not, dozens of unpaid interviews - robbing you of 2 hours each, and not just once but often two or three times - before you get your next $80K-$140K job offer. The tech space is absolutely brutal. Nobody other than 90% of people would think this is a tenable lifestyle.
It all depends, tech/developer vs BD/Marketing - Have experienced the up/down too of the Bay Area, and sometimes it takes months to get back in the saddle. Everyone wants the perfect employee, ready to go, nothing to train, Knows all stacks, all systems, liked by all 6-8 people who interview him/her, asks for 10% less than market rate.
Some companies want you to be an unicorn yourself, I've gone through stuff like:
'So you have years of mobile ad marketing and also years of online security service experience, years doing app marketing, already know our reporting and tracking systems, but you DONT have experience specific marketing on an online security app? Thanks for coming'
This is a pretty straight call on things. Nobody likes getting laid off, even if they had the day before been wishing they would get laid off. It feels wrong, it feels personal, and it feels bad.
That said, it forces you to look at new opportunities and that can be a good thing. There was a person I knew at Sun who was layed off and that forced them to find a new job and they landed at a company that then went public and they made several million dollars. It really struck me how what seemed like something horrible for them really was the key to their future success.
The key for me was realizing that different people, in different situations, respond very differently to the folks around them. I've seen it work both ways where a "star" from Company A was recruited to work at the company I was working at and they flamed out miserably, and I've seen people that were very unproductive get layed off an blossom in a new environment into superstars.
I wish sometimes someone would do a long duration study of folks in the bay area to quantify the expected value of staying or leaving. My instinct tells me that the smart ones leave, the "loyal" ones pay a price for their loyalty that they don't expect.
> My instinct tells me that the smart ones leave, the "loyal" ones pay a price for their loyalty that they don't expect.
The opportunities that come up for a "smart" person is many-fold for the ones who're not acknowledged as smart - the difference in productivity might be minimal, but the label can be sticky purely due to narcissism.
Don't get me wrong. Self belief is an important part of signing up for a challenge that is bigger than anything you've done before - instead of being given a new badge & the same job elsewhere.
Then, there's the trouble with the signaling of "loyalty".
Not looking for another job is too easy to qualify as loyalty. But that's what mostly gets put up as being loyal, which is fairly low-bar for anyone.
Now, the trouble is removing the "just not looking" confounding factor from a proper study - relying on self-reporting for that is going to produce bias.
Loyalty as a word has come to mean a pseudo-virtue which is papered over the actual rational decision to stick with what you've got, considering all the risks. And people who can't see opportunity over the horizon rarely get to better places.
The fact that people blossom when they get laid off takes away that illusion - there is no status quo bias or loss aversion to overcome. Immediately people are less risk averse to new roles, knock on more doors & grow.
Loyalty as practiced would mean acting in mutual benefit always - not sacrifice.
>This is a pretty straight call on things. Nobody likes getting laid off, even if they had the day before been wishing they would get laid off. It feels wrong, it feels personal, and it feels bad.
I can't subscribe to this generalization. The context and manner are both extremely important.
You need to be prepared at all times. You never know when (not if) they are going to come for you. I lasted 25 years and 11 months at one company before they came for me. (In hindsight, I should have quit long before the company got into such dire straits, but it was an easy commute, and the co-workers were great people to work with)
Layoffs in the tech industry will happen. An emergency fund or F.U. money is required to deal with it. Once you are over 50 like me, you need to be in a position financially to live several years without a paycheck because it could take years for the job market dynamics to change and become more favourable for the employee.
During the time you are out of work for a long stretch take some time to learn some new skills, contributing to open source software is an excellent way to do this.
You must always place your interests ahead of the company you are currently working for, the company is not going to
place your interests ahead of it's own. You are just a pawn to them. If the companies interests start to conflict with yours, then you must be prepared to leave (either voluntarily or they'll do it for you at their time and place of choosing).
> You need to be in a position financially to live several years without a paycheck because it could take years for the job market dynamics to change and become more favourable for the employee.
How insane is that?
Add to the fact that cost of living is so high now in the Bay Area, and safe returns are so low, that building up any sort of true emergency savings is difficult... Insane.
Save 20% of your income for 25 years and you'll have 5 years living expenses saved up. That's assuming zero returns on capital, beyond inflation. It just means assuming that your $125K/year salary is actually $100K, or your $100K/year salary is actually $80K. There are people - even in the Bay Area - who live on less than half of that.
Do you mean 20% excluding retirement programs ?
Remember to do that after maximizing contributions to your 401k, ira, etc... At layoff time you might be able to extract some money without penalty and with minimal taxes.
I have to admit I'm not in the Bay Area, but San Diego, CA.
It would be much harder to do in the Bay Area, but not impossible. In San Diego, the tech job market goes through cycles which crater deeper than the Bay Area during bad times. We really had bad times back in the early 90's when General Dynamics left. We are now facing the same thing with Qualcomm layoffs due to happen next month.
> In hindsight, I should have quit long before the company got into such dire straits, but it was an easy commute, and the co-workers were great people to work with
Not as experienced as you but as a younger guy I would like to share my experience - I lasted 4 years and few months before I was asked to go. Even though I never considered myself irreplaceable in a firm of 6K+ coders, it was a revelation how "business strategies" may "require you to be let go" which would be of course "better for your career". Finding another job was super easy for me (I believe that was because of my young developer age). But I was really bitter about the "let go" process and the way things were handled. It was only after few months that I realised that it was actually very good for my career and yes when I look back I see I should have left the place at least 3 years ago when things had started to change and I still didn't act. It was just a good salary, a very tightly knit team, and a relaxed work environment. I had gotten into the comfort zone. When I was out I took that long cherished 3 months cross country solo backpacking trip.
As for the emergency fund - yes, even for a younger person like me with no responsibilities or liabilities a medical insurance (I had been paying for one since I had joined - here in my country medical insurance in general means whatever your firm offers me and usually no one buys any medical insurance on their own) was something I had along with regular transfers from salary account to few deposit accounts and into some equity funds.
> Once you are over 50 like me, you need to be in a position financially to live several years without a paycheck
This! I have been planning for this as a retirement strategy now. Actually as an "involuntary retirement" strategy. It might sound naive and may actually be naive but when I am planning for my MS now, this is one of the use-cases I have in mind. With an MS I will have another career option (or rather call it freelancing) - teaching in colleges and universities as adjunct/visiting faculty. One of my lecturers (actually one of the better ones) did not have a PhD. He told us he was laid off from his job and he didn't want to find another job in the industry and he was considering a PhD (he was 53 at the time). He taught in some other colleges too.
And yes, a company may ask you to go at the first sign of trouble and hence I find it incredibly surprising when employees leaving a company at the first sign of trouble are frowned upon and are often called "disloyal" by some people.
As a sometime adjunct, and husband and brother of adjuncts, let me warn you: adjunct teaching may eventually be a nice supplement to regular income, but the first time or two through the class, you will be making roughly minimum wage. And I don't think that it is really a career option. Have a look at all the stuff on the internet about the adjunct life.
Loyalty shouldn't be thought of as synonymous with ongoing employment. Loyalty is staying true to the deal you made when you were hired. And for most people, that's at-will. Going above and beyond the call of duty as an employee is great, but that should be out of symbiosis, not sacrifice.
You can be loyal to a company and to your colleagues while moving on to a new job. If you're advancing on the world, you may well find ways to send opportunities to the people and businesses you've worked with in the past. Likewise, good employers (companies and bosses) are loyal by putting people first, even when the employment relationship is ending.
Absolutely. I have seen people coming in to work in the morning and their badges didn't work anymore. They had to negotiate with security to be allowed to get their personal stuff from their desk.
Meh, if they get severance equal to whatever other countries get, I much prefer the US system. Give people 4-6 weeks of pay but don't require (or allow) them in the office. It seems like it makes sense from the company's perspective to remove their access immediately, right? Of course, no one should find out by their badge not working...
Edit: it will of course be correctly noted by some that US requires no such severance and many employees get none. But then again, many do get some.
Most of the time, yes. There is a law that protects certain types of workers (primarily factory workers, iirc) and mandates that they be given 6 weeks of notice. This notice period can be converted into 6 weeks of pay (that is, you have to pay them for six weeks, but you don't have to keep them in the building), an option companies almost always take.
However, when you hear these things about America, you should understand that just because the law doesn't require notice, doesn't mean it never happens. First, no one gives notice unless they're a complete amateur; it's always laid off immediately with severance. But in many cases, severance packages are given to the employee in exchange for a separation agreement that waives all potential claims against the company, and these are sometimes quite generous (I know one guy who received over a year of severance).
When you hear "America has no sick days", or "Americans can fire anyone they want at any time", or things like that, it just means that it's not mandatory for your employer to offer these. The majority, by far, do offer good benefits and PTO, and if the company is of a reasonable size, they usually offer some type of severance, because most good employees will not go near you if you don't have good benefit and PTO policies, and they won't go near you if they know that you never give employees a break when layoffs come around (as they inevitably do).
35 comments
[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 53.9 ms ] threadIt's just bidness.
Some companies want you to be an unicorn yourself, I've gone through stuff like:
'So you have years of mobile ad marketing and also years of online security service experience, years doing app marketing, already know our reporting and tracking systems, but you DONT have experience specific marketing on an online security app? Thanks for coming'
That said, it forces you to look at new opportunities and that can be a good thing. There was a person I knew at Sun who was layed off and that forced them to find a new job and they landed at a company that then went public and they made several million dollars. It really struck me how what seemed like something horrible for them really was the key to their future success.
The key for me was realizing that different people, in different situations, respond very differently to the folks around them. I've seen it work both ways where a "star" from Company A was recruited to work at the company I was working at and they flamed out miserably, and I've seen people that were very unproductive get layed off an blossom in a new environment into superstars.
I wish sometimes someone would do a long duration study of folks in the bay area to quantify the expected value of staying or leaving. My instinct tells me that the smart ones leave, the "loyal" ones pay a price for their loyalty that they don't expect.
The opportunities that come up for a "smart" person is many-fold for the ones who're not acknowledged as smart - the difference in productivity might be minimal, but the label can be sticky purely due to narcissism.
Don't get me wrong. Self belief is an important part of signing up for a challenge that is bigger than anything you've done before - instead of being given a new badge & the same job elsewhere.
Then, there's the trouble with the signaling of "loyalty".
Not looking for another job is too easy to qualify as loyalty. But that's what mostly gets put up as being loyal, which is fairly low-bar for anyone.
Now, the trouble is removing the "just not looking" confounding factor from a proper study - relying on self-reporting for that is going to produce bias.
Loyalty as a word has come to mean a pseudo-virtue which is papered over the actual rational decision to stick with what you've got, considering all the risks. And people who can't see opportunity over the horizon rarely get to better places.
The fact that people blossom when they get laid off takes away that illusion - there is no status quo bias or loss aversion to overcome. Immediately people are less risk averse to new roles, knock on more doors & grow.
Loyalty as practiced would mean acting in mutual benefit always - not sacrifice.
I can't subscribe to this generalization. The context and manner are both extremely important.
Layoffs in the tech industry will happen. An emergency fund or F.U. money is required to deal with it. Once you are over 50 like me, you need to be in a position financially to live several years without a paycheck because it could take years for the job market dynamics to change and become more favourable for the employee.
During the time you are out of work for a long stretch take some time to learn some new skills, contributing to open source software is an excellent way to do this.
You must always place your interests ahead of the company you are currently working for, the company is not going to place your interests ahead of it's own. You are just a pawn to them. If the companies interests start to conflict with yours, then you must be prepared to leave (either voluntarily or they'll do it for you at their time and place of choosing).
> You need to be in a position financially to live several years without a paycheck because it could take years for the job market dynamics to change and become more favourable for the employee.
How insane is that?
Add to the fact that cost of living is so high now in the Bay Area, and safe returns are so low, that building up any sort of true emergency savings is difficult... Insane.
Not as experienced as you but as a younger guy I would like to share my experience - I lasted 4 years and few months before I was asked to go. Even though I never considered myself irreplaceable in a firm of 6K+ coders, it was a revelation how "business strategies" may "require you to be let go" which would be of course "better for your career". Finding another job was super easy for me (I believe that was because of my young developer age). But I was really bitter about the "let go" process and the way things were handled. It was only after few months that I realised that it was actually very good for my career and yes when I look back I see I should have left the place at least 3 years ago when things had started to change and I still didn't act. It was just a good salary, a very tightly knit team, and a relaxed work environment. I had gotten into the comfort zone. When I was out I took that long cherished 3 months cross country solo backpacking trip.
As for the emergency fund - yes, even for a younger person like me with no responsibilities or liabilities a medical insurance (I had been paying for one since I had joined - here in my country medical insurance in general means whatever your firm offers me and usually no one buys any medical insurance on their own) was something I had along with regular transfers from salary account to few deposit accounts and into some equity funds.
> Once you are over 50 like me, you need to be in a position financially to live several years without a paycheck
This! I have been planning for this as a retirement strategy now. Actually as an "involuntary retirement" strategy. It might sound naive and may actually be naive but when I am planning for my MS now, this is one of the use-cases I have in mind. With an MS I will have another career option (or rather call it freelancing) - teaching in colleges and universities as adjunct/visiting faculty. One of my lecturers (actually one of the better ones) did not have a PhD. He told us he was laid off from his job and he didn't want to find another job in the industry and he was considering a PhD (he was 53 at the time). He taught in some other colleges too.
And yes, a company may ask you to go at the first sign of trouble and hence I find it incredibly surprising when employees leaving a company at the first sign of trouble are frowned upon and are often called "disloyal" by some people.
You can be loyal to a company and to your colleagues while moving on to a new job. If you're advancing on the world, you may well find ways to send opportunities to the people and businesses you've worked with in the past. Likewise, good employers (companies and bosses) are loyal by putting people first, even when the employment relationship is ending.
In Germany, you have iirc minimum 4 weeks delay.
That means you can quit your job at any time, for any reason, effective immediately.
It also means you can be fired at any time, for any reason (Except illegal reasons). effective immediately.
This is a description of the law in Texas: http://www.davidcholmeslaw.com/blog/what-is-the-at-will-empl...
In practice this means you can usually be fired for illegal reasons as well, as long as the company can maintain plausible deniability.
Yes, all of them.
Edit: it will of course be correctly noted by some that US requires no such severance and many employees get none. But then again, many do get some.
However, when you hear these things about America, you should understand that just because the law doesn't require notice, doesn't mean it never happens. First, no one gives notice unless they're a complete amateur; it's always laid off immediately with severance. But in many cases, severance packages are given to the employee in exchange for a separation agreement that waives all potential claims against the company, and these are sometimes quite generous (I know one guy who received over a year of severance).
When you hear "America has no sick days", or "Americans can fire anyone they want at any time", or things like that, it just means that it's not mandatory for your employer to offer these. The majority, by far, do offer good benefits and PTO, and if the company is of a reasonable size, they usually offer some type of severance, because most good employees will not go near you if you don't have good benefit and PTO policies, and they won't go near you if they know that you never give employees a break when layoffs come around (as they inevitably do).