Company Loyalty Doesn’t Exist
If you want loyalty, hire dogs. Humans can come and go as they please
“I’ve been loyal for the last two decades. How could they let me go?”
I worked in a dinosaur institution for years, where I met the man. Some joked it was a mental asylum. I didn’t mind it, but it did eventually drive me mad and cause me to rage quit.
He’d worked for the company for most of his life. His job was to travel to the rural parts of the country most people couldn’t be assed going to.
A job, a faded black suit and a wife and kids (used to his late-night returns) are all he had. The unique style of his normalcy was something I admired. Not much flustered him. When the senior leaders would screw with our KPIs, like neurosurgeons screw with people’s brains in the operating theatre, it didn’t faze him.
“Ohhhh well,” he used to say, “life goes on.”
Whenever there was a team meeting, most of us got on a train for a couple of stops to attend. He had to drive his old, crusty, off-white Toyota for hours to get to the big smoke.
Half the time he didn’t charge the gas for his car to the company because he hated confrontation. He’d even stay in a hotel for the night and not claim it on expenses either.
Not me. I claimed $1.50 parking without blinking an eye.
The way he went about things was like an old golden retriever that would never leave your side. A dog that would kill for you if it meant they had to give up their dinner or food so you could be safe.
We became good friends. I bumped into him the other day at the shopping centre. The conversation started out as happy. Then he told me he got let go by the bosses.
No reference, no goodbye gift, no farewell lunch, no handshake.
They even took their Toyota back rather than give him the option to buy it. Now he has to go and buy a new one with record prices, thanks to supply shortages. They’ll probably return the Toyota to the leasing company and mark it as a loss on one of their 5000 line-item expense spreadsheets.
“I thought they cared about me. I thought I would always have a job there. Now what am I going…
