Over the past decade I've worked at a lot of different companies. Some similar to each other, others completely different. But there's one commonality amongst them all that sticks out to me and never fails to stick out like a sore thumb: the older employees who've been there over 10+ years who believe they'll retire from that company with a pension. I like to call them “loyal lifers.”
Some of them were fantastic folks who have their heads screwed on straight. These people were always up-to-date with the latest news and technology, and were always learning new things. These people were lovely, no issues whatsoever, and I wish them the very best.
Then you have the negative loyal lifers who make their whole world revolve around the company. They believe that because they've been super loyal and would never “betray” (i.e. work at another company) their employer that their jobs are forever safe and they can get away with anything they want. What's more, whenever the company suffers a minor inconvenience, they take it personally.
I remember this one older lady I used to work with who was a negative loyal lifer. For this story, we'll call her “Kay” (not her real name, of course).
Kay was a generic office manager who had been with her employer for over 20 years and was admittedly very good at her job. She did not like new employees and would always use VERY outdated technology (like Windows 98!!!!!) to get her job done. She would outright refuse to learn anything new, giving the excuse “this is how it's always been done” and was very strict to make sure we did everything her way with her outdated software, down to the T.
The owners and other VPs were also her age and have been lifers as well, but they were the positive kind of livers I described earlier (using new tech, always learning new things, etc.), but they wouldn't fire her because she was “like family” to them. cue gag reflex**
One day there was a company wide meeting and the higher-ups were describing how the last two quarters were a bit low on their sales goals, but the company was otherwise perfectly fine. This was purely an issue with their sales team, and had nothing to do with Kay, myself, or anyone who was not in sales or C-level. Despite this, Kay took the inconvenience personally and started acting like the whole world was ending. She would have a snide, childish attitude with other employees for days, acting as if the low company sales were personally affecting her paycheck.
She was on salary and had nothing to do with sales in any way, so all I could do was ask… why? Why would anyone let their jobs dominate their life and their emotions? It's both funny and sad to see people like this.
Has anyone else worked with a lifer like Kay?