Yesterday, I was laid off from my job after 2 1/2 years of loyalty. It was the first job I secured after moving to a new city and I loved it. I couldn’t imagine leaving them; I had great base pay with commissions, bonuses and spiffs, a set schedule that allowed flexibility to go to appointments or call out sick, PTO, full benefits, and creative freedom. I was finally able to build my savings a little. I felt stable for the first time in years. My husband and I just bought a new car and took on substantially more debt as a result and were finally looking into buying a house. Now, it’s all fucked.
I put in overtime every week, I met every deadline, I exceeded every goal set, I wrote amazing articles for our website, and I even set out on a self improvement journey to be better at my job so I could make more money. I took this job seriously, I loved my coworkers, and I always stepped up for them when they needed me to cover for them. What the fuck did that get me? Nothing. The loyalty I showed them was never going to be reciprocated. The second the company gets into financial hot water (due to a security breach, among other things), they decide to make up the loss by laying people off.
Forget the fact that I heard the owner was looking at buying a new building and owns several other businesses around town. They have a warehouse filled with town cars and luxury SUVs after they toyed around with the idea of starting a car rental business but never went through with it. The owners are millionaires but couldn’t be fucked to take a cut to their salaries, so they decided to fuck their employees’ livelihoods instead.
Every time I had the inclination to look at what other jobs might be out there, I felt guilty. I didn’t want to leave them high and dry (I was a one-person department so there was nobody else to step into my position), and I thought that I couldn’t possibly find better people to work for. Now I find out that I was expendable all along, and I was never valued. They had been planning this for weeks and I was never given any kind of a warning so I could prepare.
The moral of the story is, loyalty gets you fucking nothing. You’re loyal to people who will throw you out on your ass the second things get tough. The loyalty is never reciprocated and if you feel it is, it’s likely a false sense of security. You can and will be let go if your mere presence interferes with their bottom line. The employer/employee relationship is like being involved with a narcissist; they’ll smile and act cordial to your face but at the end of the day, you’re just serving a purpose for them while they do the bare minimum for you. You’re not part of the family, you’re not valued, and you’re not necessary. You’re expendable.