Dollars & Sense

Loyalty vs. longevity. There was a time when these two words were synonymous. Not any more. Longevity in the workplace is pretty much history. That is, if you ever want to make more money and stay ahead of the inflation curve. Wherever I'm at, I'm loyal. My boss puts food on my table, keeps a roof over my head, and the lights on. I stay until there's a reason to no longer be loyal. It also tends to conflict with longevity.

If you want to advance and/or make more money, you have to move on, or up. Moving up shows loyalty. Moving on shows just the opposite. So it really depends if you're loyal or not. Then again, if you like your position as I do, and don't want to move up or on, what do you do? Add more to your plate. Someone leaves, take one of their responsibilities. Expand your position into other areas. Now that's loyalty, and hopefully, will turn into longevity. Actually, it’s a give & take. If you’re loyal to your company, they’ll reward you with longevity. Moving up doesn't necessarily mean loyalty either. That is usually just being upwardly-mobile. They usually move on anyway, for the same reason.

My first job in corporate America was as a runner for the Pacific Stock Exchange, 1980. I started at $700.00 a month. After one year, I received a raise to $790.00. A month later, another runner started at $775.00. The starting rate for that position's salary had been adjusted for inflation that year. But I don't get a piece of it, as I'm already there. I worked a year to make $15.00 more than this guy. See what I mean.

So it comes down to loyalty till something better comes along. Or until you’re cut to appease the company’s bottom line. Funny, how the first ones cut are on the administrative level, also known as overhead. For every two or three admins cut, you could have cut a sales staff not supporting base revenue with sales. Makes no sense. And it’s the admin that are most loyal. Go figure.

Then there are the union shops. But that’s a can of worms, er, whole paper unto itself. We’ll save that for later. I’ve got work to do.