How much do you agree with this title?
I was saddened to learn something that made me think about this. CEOs talk about youth jumping between companies to gain their interests. But do they ever discuss company practices that make everyone easily replaceable with no job security?
And if this is true, how do you manage life outside of work? I spend most time at work, and out of work, I am back to my computer working on something that is again either related to work or, some side project that never finishes.
Top comments (3)
It's a bit of a cliché how tiny companies and startups think of themselves as a family, and then as they get bigger, they drop that until it comes full circle and giant companies pay it what seems like lipservice, but is mandated by HR and "culture fit" recruitment.
If a company asks you to work outside of regular hours, it better be for extra pay, at your discretion, or fall within the small, typical, "reasonable requests" part of your contract. And it better not happen too regularly.
I guess If you're starting a plumbing company with your brother Luigi, then you can call it your family.
I agree with the title 100%. The relationship between employers an employees is entirely transactional. I am selling 40 hours of honest work per week in exchange for my salary and benefits and some training opportunities. There are also a few standard parts of the social contract around employment, so for example if they don't seriously wrong me in any way I will be sure to give them the standard two-weeks' notice when I leave, and if I don't seriously wrong them in any way, I will expect they'll provide me references if that happens. That's really about it--that's the whole relationship.
I think that's great. I think it's better than having a nebulous relationship built around the idea of loyalty. Under this system, everyone pretty much knows what the expectations are. It also frees employees from having to have fundamentally human relationships with entities that aren't humans. I have real relationships with my supervisors and coworkers, but only a transactional relationship with my organization. It's just the buyer for my labor.
Life outside of work is important, and I think there's this misconception that work/life balance is something you have to achieve for yourself, as though you have to figure out how to invent more hours in the day. Really, your work/life balance is mostly something your employer decides for you, so the most important thing you can do for your work/life balance is just to find an employer who respects it.
I do work on a lot of software development projects on my own time, but that time is generally spent working on the stuff I'm interested in that I don't get to spend time learning at work. I wouldn't work somewhere that required me to work a lot more hours than I'm paid for. Don't let anyone convince you that spending a lot of time on work-related stuff outside of work is normal or expected.
If you're struggling to find a respectful buyer of your labor, I recommend looking into public service. Those jobs usually don't pay quite as well as working for Netflix or Amazon, but as a software developer in the US I've never had a problem making ends meet. I have worked in government and presently work in a large nonprofit, and it's great.
I like this take. I think the transactional relationship is great. I probably never thought of it that way.