Member-only story
Is Company Loyalty Not Looking For Another Job?
It’s never selfish to have your own best interests in mind.
Many companies operating in the Grand Game of Software Engineering trumpet the loyalty of their employees as something that they’re immensely proud of — how their employees are happy to go “above and beyond” and how many people regularly get “exceeds expectations” on their notional¹ performance reviews.
However, us progressives who also operate in the Grand Game know this dreadful and tired subterfuge for what it really is.
“Exceeds expectations,” for example, is usually unpaid overtime, working after hours, and answering the company phone on the weekends — making it impossible to achieve by merely doing your job² and therefore being deprived of actual pay rises.
An Exercise in Fealty
Loyalty, from a company’s perspective, is usually an exercise is how below market rates employees will let their salaries be eroded from continual below inflation pay rises, how much unpaid overtime spent commuting they’ll put up with before they crack under the strain, or simply how much bullshit they can personally stand from management before they’re forced to leave for sanity, or just to get the internet bills paid.
