Loyalty is for Dogs

"Loyalty is for Dogs."  Its a quote that I will never forget the head of HR at BookSpan saying in one of his Town Hall speeches. I remember being shocked by this part of his speech...thinking "who says that to employees???",  but I think the point he was trying to make at that time was that people don't stay with one company the way they used to. 

That was definitely true at the time of his speech. With the internet boom in the late 90s, you could increase your salary very easily job jumping.  And that's what lots of people were doing. 

But I was as loyal as you get.  I had been with the company for 10 years and counting.  My salary was increased dramatically year over year...but my starting point was $25K, so I never was making what I could have gotten elsewhere.  But I was respected and I loved the company.  It was a my family.   When I did leave, I cried.  It was the toughest decision I ever made.  But I felt that I had to go elsewhere to grow as a marketer.  It was the right choice, but a tough one, just the same.

I really liked my second company, Columbia House almost as much as BookSpan, I could have done a 10 year stint there too, but we were destroyed by a bomb called BMG and were all sent packing a year and a half after I got there.

Today I'm on my 4th job in 5 years. This one isn't even a permanent gig.  I seriously wonder if I will ever make it in one company for that long again.  This is a hard realization for a loyal person like me.

Part of the challenge will be to find a company that will stick around that long. These days, either big established companies are either trounced by the competition, destroyed by the economy, or sold off to make the owners rich, while the loyal employees are left trying to hang on.  

The other challenge is finding a company that doesn't look at the employees as expendable assets...A company that realizes the importance of organizational intelligence, and tries to keep people around, rather than fostering the revolving door.

Loyalty is for dogs... Boy do I miss the good old days.