You should be reliable, you should help everyone in your "family". If you leave your "family" abruptly it is a kind of betrayal.
Also funny is brainwashing employees to think that HR is their fried, that HR can help with issues at work.
It is a business. Do minimum amount of work you've been hired for, get your paycheck and focus on your private life!
Your line of thinking seems to be common in the IT industry and I wonder if it’s a good industry for me to be in long term. I only was at one company so far where we had a really close-knit team.
I don't think of it as depressing to act as if a fictional entity like a corporation isn't part of your family. By all means, be friends with your coworkers, show up and work hard, but don't get emotionally invested in a relationship with an LLC or a C Corp that can't love you back.
Also, you are incorrect about corporations not being fictional entities. Try googling the phrase.
Ditto!
A business is made of employees, but the employees are not the business. Sometimes that means decisions have to be made in favor (sometimes arguably) of the business over you.
Understanding the ephemerality of the situation can help you appreciate when it's going well and the people you work with, while helping you be prepared if and when something happens. Hopefully you will have gained a lot more experience, a bigger network of good friends, and have a decent nest egg to take you to the next job.
It's important to differentiate between colleagues and the business. The people you work with can become friends, but ultimately the business will do whatever sociopathic thing makes the number go up the faster/helps to deal with the crippling emotional turmoil of the execs.
You can be friends with the people you work with/for, but if there comes a time when the business and the people's interests diverge, the business will normally win. As long as you are aware of this, you can be OK throughout it (sortof, getting laid off really, really sucks).
It is extremely important (to me) to form some kind of relationship with the people I work with to stay motivated. It doesn’t have to be everyone and super close friendship - but that certainly helps if it comes naturally.
And yea businesses are like a form of “slow AI”. They will do what is necessary to survive even at the expense of the people who built them. And it is important to be mindful of that. But I can’t work with a Damocles sword hanging over me constantly. At some point I have to lie to myself and assume the business will also act in my interest if I do good work - even if it’s a naive and arguably stupid belief which has bitten me a couple times already. It wasn’t anyone’s “fault” or anyone acting with evil intent.
In the end I live after Juicy J’s eternal philosophy: “Everything is business Ain’t shit personal.”
I've got bad news for you about pretty much every other industry. They'll throw you away at the first opportunity to make the CEO a few more bucks too. It's the Jack Welchification of the American economy
At first place of work I had really nice team of young engineers, we've been students without kids, with lots of energy. Job was quite boring, but days were full of jokes and friendship.
And yes, I would like to exit this industry but am not ready to switch to x0.2 salary. Golden handcuffs!
There are people who recognize the game being played, and people who get their souls crushed because they failed to properly recognize how the pieces in the game move.
While this is a respectable way to see employer / employee relationships, it does not apply to every company / employee out there.
In particular, I think this is very true for BigCo, where most people are seen as fungible cogs.
The smaller the company, the better.
In fairness, anyone can leave at any time. Your employer, regardless of size, has to be prepared for the possibilty that you'll quit for a better job, or for some other reason. It would be inadvisable to get emotionally attached to employees.
The reason you're less likely to get laid off at a small company is that small companies don't have the capital to hire indiscriminately, so they're less likely to have large inefficiencies. The number of employees is already as low as they can get away with, given their current revenue, so only a significant downturn in revenue would justify layoffs.
I disagree. There is a lot of variance in small companies. There is a lot of variance in large companies as well (the famous "it will really depend on which team you belong to").
I really think there is little correlation between company size and your experience at such company. The predictive variables (if they ever exist) are elsewhere.
If those people are assholes, the size of the company doesn't matter, your employment in that company will suck.
I stand by my original point: no obvious correlation between company size and quality of life inside it.
In my network we keep joining the same (relative small) companies because we roughly know the culture we can shape and create an environment
To everyone their poison so, I guess. I learned that I am a large company guy, by a nature and nurture. Other people I know are the complete oppossite. One thing I learned so, no employee ever is safe. Not even lifetime employed state / public servants.
I think the posters who remind people that the employer/employee relationship is a business one have it right. We as engineers should strive as best as possible what our specific value is to a company. We should not delude ourselves into thinking we are more to the company than that. When we cease to have that value, or they cease to desire going down that path, they might end the relationship.
I work at a company of roughly over 200 employees that is part of a much bigger org. Layoffs never happen where I am working. And one factor may be that HR has a different, in some cases personal relationship with their employees. That is certainly not the case in the parent org where large-scale layoffs happen every few years.
Edit: And I would not even attest that my company is one of those with a "heart", as you say.
There's a high chance you're just a "sweet summer child" who wasn't there the last time things were REALLY bad.
Might be survivorship bias though because the people that could have been laid off in the first few years cannot be there to tell the tale, of course.
Many people fall for this and as long as you are an employee, no job is ever secure.
> I've been doing startups and freelance work ever since. Which means I'm my own boss now and I've learned a lot in the decade since that happened.
This gives some hope that there are those that have learned from the illusion and are now realizing that these companies do not care about you.
So in my experience, don't get too attached to company (or coworker either), and go out if things start to go south or if there's better opportunity out there.
Spoken like a man who never needed healthcare, who never had dependents, who never lived under the cage of a visa.
US is just simply has a system that's very cons for employees, especially with visa and right to work law.
And it applies to everyone up to the CEO.
At my company a new CEO came in to much fanfare. A year later they were unceremoniously turfed out because the board decided they weren’t up to the “new direction” the company needed to go.
And not to mention the people under the CEO who road her coattails. They were all turfed in quick succession (or smartly saw the writing on the wall and bailed first).
It’s a business relationship. That’s all. Treat it as such. Get as much money as you can. Don’t kill yourself in the hope your sacrifice will be repaid, it probably won’t.
Basically take the emotion out of it. When management talks of “our big family” they are just saying that because people like to hear it. It’s not true.
And once you’ve gotten enough years under your belt you start to see through the talk pretty easily. Trust your gut. If the company starts to look wobbly, be the first out the door, not the last. Or at least plan according and don’t assume your job will be there next year or even next month.
For individual contributors leaving isn’t always that easy as most interviews now require Leetcode prep. If you haven’t already been practicing, it can take a few months to get prepared for the grind. This is even worse for folks who work and have obligations outside of work such as children or sick family members.
It doesn't work both ways. They only get the benefits. You do not.
I didn't actually mind. It was completely anticipated, and we (me and my team) were pretty much ready. I think the company made the correct decision, but the reason they got there, was because they made a whole cascade of rotten choices, that painted them into a corner they couldn't get out of, easily.
I really wish that they would have involved me in some of the really dumb decisions they made, because I'm actually pretty good at strategic thinking, and could have easily advised them of alternatives.
But what is done, is done.
The really annoying part, was coming out of a 27-year "silo," into the current tech industry zeitgeist.
Nasty culture shock.
Backend of the backend.
The shock was encountering the value system of modern corporations and even individual ICs.
I’m not going to get more specific, but let’s just say that I have a value system that does not mesh well, with today’s tech culture.
The more you earn, the higher the risk that at some point somebody decides that they want to spend less / smarter. So, your risk increases with your salary. That's fine because it enables you to mitigate such a scenario by having savings.
I've been part of a big layoff round once. It wasn't personal. That was just my employer rounding up a large group of people to cut some meaningful chunk out of their salary expenses. It wasn't the last round either. The company, Nokia, ultimately got out of the phone and map business (I was in the maps unit). The final head count reduction was in the tens of thousands. A lot of those have since had successful careers and the Nokia implosion spawned quite a few successful companies.
But getting layed off is a bit of a rough ride. You feel bitter, angry, insulted, etc. But on reflection I actually got a fair deal and honestly I needed the wake up call that job security is a big illusion. I was just coasting in my career and a bit too comfortable. The moment was perfect as I was still in my thirties. This stuff gets harder as you get older, less flexible, and more dependent on job security. I've been doing startups and freelance work ever since. Which means I'm my own boss now and I've learned a lot in the decade since that happened.