There’s the issue of building virtue and good character, which I suspect are ancient and long obsoleted concepts.

This pragmatism is understandable, but I don’t think it’s a nice way to live. Of course to each its own.

You can build virtue and good character and still manage your career in a way that puts yourself and your family first. I'm not buying that the only way to build character is to work for below market rate so someone else can make money and then forget you when it's not convenient any longer.

Asymmetric loyalty is a dead end. Deriving your virtue and character from your job is also a fools errand and a myth that is perpetuated by anti-labor capitalists to line their pockets before they absolve themselves of equal social responsibility.

Build character and exercise virtue by making your community and family richer.

I’m afraid dumping your partners whenever is most convenient for you and your family, while understandable because they will do the same to you, is not what I understand to be virtuous.

You may be spiteful, and perhaps rightfully so, against the powers that be, but it is ultimately futile. Who is in power is not up to us, but our response to it is.

Not preaching to you, you may be the most virtuous being in existence. Just mumbling in the wind here.

An employer is not a partner.

If you are a partner in a business, then walking away is not so easy and probably a lot less desirable (and still, "junior partner" is sometimes a trap).

Most people who work for businesses are "human resources", so let's treat employers as "income providers" and nothing more.

You're of course right, it's not the proper word. In a broad sense you are both actively working on, let's hope, a shared vision and you need eachother. I'm not interested in the power symmetry of the relation in this case although it's of course part of the situation.

> let's treat employers as "income providers" and nothing more.

It's fine that you and many of you consider this to be an agreeable way to live. I'm just saying that it's not the only way and in my opinion not a particular desireable one.

Minority opinion here, but I am entertaining the vague and quite dangerous notion that with a bit of compromise from both sides we can have our cake and eat it too. The dangerous part might consist in accepting we are not all born for great works and some humility and acceptance might not actually be such a bad thing. Of course, in moderation as with all things, but I don't think modern people are in any danger of being too humble anytime soon.

I wouldn't be too hasty to dismiss such notions as "loyalty", because "trust" is quite close and it might just be a fundamental driver of human civilization.

But the power imbalance is the whole problem. Unfortunately it seems to be human nature that those who seek and gain power are compelled to exercise it to benefit themselves, to the detriment of others.

What sort of compromise are you thinking of? I get the impression that workers have done a lot of compromising (involuntarily) in the past decade or two and bosses have not.

The idea of a co-operative has always been appealing to me, but having encountered and worked with a lot of real live humans my idealism regarding that is pretty much shattered and in practice I suspect it would be very frustrating and fairly short-lived.

Personally I ended up as a business myself, I have clients rather than employers. It's far from perfect, but it feels more honest and 'real' somehow.

I understand and I too have clients. This feels completely different indeed, but that is exactly why I came to think of these things: the power structure is not fundamentally different. If anything, it’s more volatile and I need to watch what I am doing all the time. I can be dumped at a moment’s notice and to be honest, I like it that way because that works both ways. (My wife thinks differently about these matters.)

Thing is, without sounding too negative, because my team mates are all good people, but I have seen some negativity in them along these lines that in my opinion is uncalled for. Without proper care it is easy to fall into a black and white, purely transactional relationship with your employer. To be completely honest, I myself have fallen for it quite some time and it made me deeply unhappy.

I speak to the “bosses” perhaps on a different level now and it’s not like they are living to grind their staff into dust. There is a complexity to their job as well and it would perhaps be enlightening to keep that in mind even as an “employee”.

Perhaps my idea of compromise is that you, as an employee, need to come to terms that you might not be perfect and that there is a lot you do not understand, but that is OK. Try to do a good job and don’t point fingers (“they started!”). Try to imagine how your “boss” feels. We are all humans trying to do an adequate job, barring some pathological types. Not to make your boss happy, but yourself.

But I am rambling too long now. I of course need to add here that exercising wisdom is crucial: don’t let yourself be abused. Everything depends on the circumstances and they are always complex.

Edit: btw I work with small businesses and those are a completely different game than, say, Adobe. I still think the general point about trying to do good without falling into pure transactionalism is helpful.

You can be dropped at a moment's notice as a salaried employee too, it just takes a bit more prep on the part of the employer. It tends to be more of a shock for people who take "permanent" literally, whereas for us we know we need a year or two of spare cash in the bank.

> Perhaps my idea of compromise is that you, as an employee, need

> to come to terms that you might not be perfect and that there is

> a lot you do not understand, but that is OK. Try to do a good

> job and don’t point fingers (“they started!”).

I think this describes most people already. I mean, I've encountered some prima donnas but that problem solves itself eventually (they flounce off). I'm not sure what you're suggesting ordinary employees should be doing that they aren't already, and what it would cause their employers to do differently?

It's a good point about small businesses, I much prefer dealing with them to bigger firms. If my point of contact is one of the directors then everything flows so much more smoothly. (Smallest direct client had 7 employees, biggest I think about 200K - very different experiences.)

When I refer to "the bosses" I really mean the set of people at the upper layers of larger companies who, week to week, have no contact with staff who are doing actual productive work - their subordinates are managers, and the subordinates of their subordinates are also managers. They're insulated from, and often unaware of, the effects of their decisions - they probably don't consciously intend to grind their staff to dust, but everyone they talk to is happy and the numbers look good so surely everything is fine.

Further down the chain you've got a bunch of middle-managers with no investment in the overall good of the company and no power to really improve the conditions of the workers beyond passing messages up the chain, and the truth in those messages is filtered and transformed with every extra layer of people. Nobody wants to tell their boss stuff he/she doesn't want to hear.