It’s been a tough week in the day job but finally this week is over and I can throw it on the memory slag heap and relax over the weekend with the kids. For the first weekend in a long time, I feel pretty content. That will speak volumes to those of you who know me personally.
I read an interesting monologue about company loyalty being very similar to Stockholm syndrome and I’m tending to agree. Back when I worked for Nortel, I ate, drank and slept Nortel blue. I bought the “global citizen” line and I pushed the “right hand turn” initiative when it came. I worked late. I didn’t mind when I was up for an award and, at the last moment due to a contractual mistake, I was suddenly rendered unable to accept it! Receiving an empty envelope on a stage in front of photographers and hundreds of my peers is certainly one of those defining moments!!!! I didn’t progress as fast as my peers in development (who would leap-frog from team to team, spend 6 months retraining and then make another leap) or even in the IT team (who would make even the biggest political suckup look like an independent consultant) but I have to say they really looked after me. In return I didn’t go to Canada or the US once to meet and greet with the team over there because, simply put, with modern communications technology (ie, the whole POINT of the company) there was no need. My on-site manager would encourage me to go on these jollies simply because he would go along too and be able to justify a jolly for himself. Well, he found he’d get his kicks elsewhere.
Was I being held hostage and didn’t know it? Or was I just working hard, doing work I loved, with people who inspired me?
I reckon it was the latter. Everyone else should be so lucky.
I’m not saying that the article above is wrong. People do suffer like that. I just don’t believe I did (which means I was obviously an extreme case).
As an employer, I obviously want to encourage this behaviour in my employees. I want them to put the company high on their priorities. I find that the guys who work for me believe that I would never compromise them for a quick buck. That I’d always do whatever it took to make them happy in their jobs (as the events of this week will attest). My team do not suffer from Stockholm Syndrome.
We’re a family.