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Geek Culture / company loyalty

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Phaelax
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Posted: 15th Oct 2007 16:04
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does anyone believe in such a thing anymore? If a company offered you an extra $10k more a year (salary-based), would you take the offer or stick with your current company who gave you a decent job when you had little work-related experience in the field? This is sort of the issue I'm having that I may have to decide on this week. I also have to look at the fact I have one more trimester before I graduate with a BS and my current employer offers tuition reimbursement, the other does not.


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Jess T
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Posted: 15th Oct 2007 16:08 Edited at: 15th Oct 2007 16:09
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I only look upon loyalty in terms of Personal. Unless I knew them, then loyalty has nothing to do with it.

What I would do is to way up the benefits and pit-falls for each.

Whichever comes out on top (which can be hard as 'opportunity' is a big one to take into consideration), that's the one to go for.
If you kit a dead-lock again, then you should be asking on a forum

[EDIT]
Infact, you're asking a bunch of strangers for business advice which could effect your career
[/EDIT]

Nintendo DS & Dominos :: DS Dominos
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Kentaree
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Posted: 15th Oct 2007 16:11 Edited at: 15th Oct 2007 16:12
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I do believe in company loyalty, but it works in both ways, if you're good to a company, they should be good to you. The tuition reimbursement sounds good though, and I'd be careful of switching jobs before you finish your course, especially as when you're finished it, you might be worth a lot more to a company anyway.
In the end you have to ask yourself these questions, are you happy in your current job, if so, will more money make you happier or is the other job a nicer job, and will not having tuition reimbursement put you under a lot of financial pressure?

@Jess: Sometimes a forum of strangers can be a good place to ask as you'll get fairly unbiased opinions

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Van B
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Posted: 15th Oct 2007 16:30
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The thing is that companies can change very rapidly - even just something like a new personnel manager can wreck the supposed relationships between employer and employee.

You should know yourself if you want to leave your current job, if you like the people you work with and like your job then sometimes that's worth much more than $X extra a year, I mean you'll just spend more money on crap you don't need . For example, I liked my last job more than my current one, yet I earn twice as much as I did then - I couldn't go back because going on to less money is not easy, but I was much happier there, and ironically if I'd stuck it out I'd be in a much better position than I am here. Loyalty tends to be rewarded, it just takes a very long time for most people.

We're going down... in a spiral to the ground...
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Ron Erickson
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Posted: 15th Oct 2007 16:42 Edited at: 15th Oct 2007 16:44
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Phaelax,

In the first few years of my career, I moved around a LOT. The longest that I ever worked somewhere before moving was 2 years. Most of the time it was more like 18 months (I've been at my current job for a record 6.5 years!). A couple of decisions to move were really difficult to make. I liked where I was at (every time) but other companies offered me more. So, each time I ended up deciding to make the move. I never once regreted it. All it did was allow me to quickly increase my pay. If I would have stayed with my original job (which moving from was probably the hardest), I probably would only be making half of what I am now. Moving companies early in your career will allow you a broad range of experience. If you don't like it, you can always move again.

Companies have no loyalty to you. If things get slow enough they WILL get rid of you. It is the way business works. At the same rate, if you find something that suits you better, you SHOULD take it.

If your current company is offering tuition reimbursement, then I doubt 10k per year is enough for you to make the move though. You have to figure out what you owe in your student loans. Figure out what your payment is going to be and how long it will take to pay it off. The loan companies usually spread your loan out over 15-20 years. That keeps your payment low, but the amount of interest that you end up paying is robbery. If this is all going to be "taken care of" by your current company, then that is most likely worth a lot more than 10k per year. By the time you take taxes out, that is probably less than $600 per month. It would be well worth holding out for your loans to be taken care of before making the move


a.k.a WOLF!
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Jess T
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Posted: 15th Oct 2007 16:56
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Quote: "@Jess: Sometimes a forum of strangers can be a good place to ask as you'll get fairly unbiased opinions "


There's a great Demotivational Poster about Anonymity on the internet, but I can't find it


Quote: "The loan companies"


The government in Australia loans us the money tax-free. They then take a percentage of your pay (something tiny!) when you start earning above a threshold.
It's great

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Dazzag
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Posted: 15th Oct 2007 17:29
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Quote: "does anyone believe in such a thing anymore?"
Not in my experience (everything I say in the post is). Although I'm mainly looking at it the other way around.

If I have any advice it is this : Keep moving from one company to another every year or two. It's enough time to make new employers think you are pretty good, and small enough to keep getting decent pay rises that will almost definitely outstrip anything you can get from a single company. Case in point is a friend of mine who left our company after about a decade and went to about another 3 jobs in 2 years. After that time our MD asked another friend of mine (who was the same level as the other guy and had been there slightly longer even) if he could ask the bloke (when he next saw him down the pub) to come back for like a 20% pay increase. What about that guy's increase? WTF??? Last guy was so loyal he even did it, and that old guy came back with the increase and is now the other guys boss. Not nice.

Plus when you have a department with hundreds of years (averaged about 8+ years) of experience, just with our company, get completely obliterated (about 70 people to 4 people in 6 years) by bi-annual redundancies (even with record profits), then you have to question the companies loyalty to you, not the other way around. Screw them. Heh, worked for 12 years in the same company, had only 2 days sick. Am I proud of being loyal (esp after MD sold us out a few years ago)? ****ing no chance mate. Feel slightly better that I'm now contracted out and can see the sea from my window and it's still 25-30C in October, but still...

Cheers

I am 99% probably lying in bed right now... so don't blame me for crappy typing
Current fave quote : "She was like a candle in the wind.... unreliable...."
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Dazzag
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Posted: 15th Oct 2007 17:37 Edited at: 15th Oct 2007 17:40
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Quote: "Companies have no loyalty to you. If things get slow enough they WILL get rid of you"
Ah, didn't read your post, sorry, was all like grrrr. Heh. Absolutely though. Spot on. We just lost 2 people with about 8 years each, and a friend of mine in the US just got their entire branch shut down with no notice and he started the same day I did (1995). Love it.

Used to be better when we were smaller. They would use you for other things when it got slow. Even whole new projects (that no customer actually paid for). Now with the larger company it's all about money and the stock market. Plus, really annoyingly, they get rid of extra people during a slow period and expect you to pick up slack when it gets more busy. They only live for the moment and don't consider the future basically (apart from new massive projects). Not so good when legacy systems cannot be coded by pretty much anyone without experience in the actual systems (honest). Just too large with languages no-one has heard of or used in decades. So essentially you end up with a massive amount of skill being laid off and spaghetti systems raising up from scratch with hardly any proper design, standards, or documentation, by kids with acne just out of Uni that are probably on a quarter of the salary you are on. Until you are booted out...

And thus is the circle of IT life.... and don't forget studies indicate that once you get to 40 in IT, then unless you have a secure higher end job (eg. director) or your own business then you are ****ed. In some countries it's more like 35. Crap, only 6 months to go then it's janitor jobs for me...

Cheers

Ps. Oh, and then if you can cut it at extreme stress and work for the long run (you know, like 30 years or so or working 6-7 days a week without any holidays 15+ hours a day), then you will probably have a breakdown, stroke, or miscarriage (like some of my friends which was all proved to be work related). Company then asked 2 of them if they could work from hospital bed (not breakdown because she could sue apparently). Another time they asked someone to cancel their wedding because we were busy. 2 weeks before the event. Comprimise was to take a laptop on honeymoon. I would have chucked it into the sea...

I am 99% probably lying in bed right now... so don't blame me for crappy typing
Current fave quote : "She was like a candle in the wind.... unreliable...."
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GatorHex
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Posted: 15th Oct 2007 18:39 Edited at: 15th Oct 2007 18:40
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All I've seen in the UK is 2 year contracts to avoid paying redundancy fees and other benefits staff are due. Where in the company loyaltiy in that?

Make sure you get a cast iron contract if you jump ship. I made that mistake once and promises soon evaporated into thin air and I was worse off on holdays, lunch break, hours per week etc.

DinoHunter (still no nVidia compo voucher!), CPU/GPU Benchmark, DarkFish Encryption DLL, War MMOG (WIP), 3D Model Viewer
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Ron Erickson
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Posted: 15th Oct 2007 18:51
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Quote: "Another time they asked someone to cancel their wedding because we were busy. 2 weeks before the event. Comprimise was to take a laptop on honeymoon. I would have chucked it into the sea..."


That would put a marriage off to a lovely start. You definately have to draw some very strict boundries with your employer. I'd have to tell them that if I am THAT important, then I am grossly underpaid.


a.k.a WOLF!
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Dazzag
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Posted: 15th Oct 2007 18:54
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Quote: "Where in the company loyaltiy in that?"
Nowhere. It doesn't really exist. You are basically only good if you can make (a lot of) money for them at what you do. The minute you don't then you are out. You get some re-training and moving to other departments, but a very small amount. With us they kept shaking (eg. freeze pay rises, bonuses etc etc) hoping we would leave of our own accord. When we didn't (tonnes of loyalty and in most cases a total lack of doing any other job for many years or even decades) they just slashed away. One time a bloke with 10 years with the company was booted out. But they kept the assistant 18 year old bird with no qualifications or experience and she had to fill his boots. And she offered to quit instead of him. Nope. Got to feel sorry for her (we try to help as much as we can), but he is totally stuffed. Is about 42 now and has been unemployed for 2 years. Doesn't help he has the confidence and social skills of a clothes peg (he essentially lived for the job he did), but it's not right.

Self employed is where it's at if you can do it. We charge about £2000 a day ($4000) for what we do. Not surprising you see quite a lot of £60k+ cars for the directors. A friend of mine at one of our customers used to work as a contracter for them. At the time he earned about 3 times what I did (and I was on a pretty good wage) and every 2 months or so would write VB MIS tools for the company for about £25k a pop. I designed it (after a query from MD), quoted, wrote, and trained for 2 of our MIS systems (much better than his stuff) and we probably earnt about £50k per customer (about 20 customers bought it). Still, I got about £20k of Cognos training for free (if I don't leave company within 5 years or somesuch). Sigh...

Cheers

I am 99% probably lying in bed right now... so don't blame me for crappy typing
Current fave quote : "She was like a candle in the wind.... unreliable...."
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Dazzag
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Posted: 15th Oct 2007 18:56
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Quote: "That would put a marriage off to a lovely start. You definately have to draw some very strict boundries with your employer"
She brought the roof down on them and refused to do any work, or take a laptop, on her honeymoon.

She was booted out the door in the 2nd round of redundancies after that (just after a year later). Interestingly her marriage failed too, so she could have got a bit of extra work in!

Cheers

I am 99% probably lying in bed right now... so don't blame me for crappy typing
Current fave quote : "She was like a candle in the wind.... unreliable...."
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Phaelax
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Posted: 16th Oct 2007 04:02 Edited at: 16th Oct 2007 04:02
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I had my friend hand in my resume to his VP, just waiting to hear back if he still wants to meet me.

Here's the break down:

Current employer:
- Started in 1866, and we just had our largest merger in history, my job is not likely to disappear anytime soon.
- IT call center, with much room for advancement into other positions such as a programming job. Most employees from the call center often have experience with all the company software, and so can often pick the department they wish to move to.
- Tuition reimbursement, up to $5200/year (but I only have 1 term left)


Other opportunity:
- Started in 1902, continues to have steady and stable growth
- Programming position using Java (what I've been wanting to do)
- $10k extra, salary based.
- No tuition reimbursement.


If they ask me in for an interview, I think I may go in for it.


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DrewG
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Posted: 16th Oct 2007 04:19
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Go with what's in your best interest. Remember, they need you, but you don't need them, because there's two of them.

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Keo C
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Posted: 16th Oct 2007 04:30
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Take the 10K.

Uhhhhhhh.... I forgot

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DrewG
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Posted: 16th Oct 2007 04:39
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My point exactly.

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Jess T
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Posted: 16th Oct 2007 04:39
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Quote: "If they ask me in for an interview, I think I may go in for it."


You can go for the interview and still knock 'em back. As long as you don't sign any contracts on the spot, then you've always got the upper hand.

I'd say go for the new offer now - With only a term (2/3months?) left, you can afford the tuition, and the extra money as well as the field of your preference are both great aspects.

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Dazzag
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Posted: 16th Oct 2007 09:18
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Quote: "we just had our largest merger in history, my job is not likely to disappear anytime soon"
You sure? From what I've seen mergers and takeovers lead to a lot of redundancies when they try and reduce down multiple people with the same jobs. We lost managers and directors with decades of experience for example. Not because they were crap (some even formed the original company), but because there were other people who did their jobs already. Plus company politics is mad. The head technical director guy (main bloke in charge of entire division) got rid of our old technical director after a while. In a review he gave him a technical rating of 1 out of 5 then sacked him. The bloke was the old technical director! (Plus one of the best programmers I have ever seen).

Quote: "$10k extra"
Depends what you are on now. Also depends on a lot of other points, such as expense to get to work (my old place used to pay about $800 a month for car allowance for example). If you are fairly inexperienced (under 5 years I would say), then is the new job a better opportunity to further your career? Also how crucial are you where you are? And also how well do you fit in. My old place felt like my family after a few years for instance. At the time you could float another $30k in front of me and I would have turned it down.

Cheers

I am 99% probably lying in bed right now... so don't blame me for crappy typing
Current fave quote : "She was like a candle in the wind.... unreliable...."
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Hobgoblin Lord
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Posted: 16th Oct 2007 10:02
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One of the biggies in switching is what is the difference in medical coverage/co pay/ and premium. When I was still at AT&T I got offered a job by Cyberlore (they did Majesty, Playboy the mansion, Heroes of MM II POL, and a few others). The pay was 12k more a year, but at AT&T I payed $0 for medical/dental/vision for the whole family, where at Cyberlore it was around $150 a week and the co pay diffrences for prescriptions and visits were drastic from $0 for generic/$3 for name brand with AT&T to $12 generic/%50 off name brand at cyberlore and a $5 copay doctors and ER to $10 doctors and $40 ER. There were a few other factors involved including what sorts of medical were covered and how much, having to move 80 miles from current location or commute and Tuition.

As for loyalty, I think it still exists my current boss is a great guy who cannot pay a huge salary at the moment, but I know he would if he could, I get extra in my check all the time if he can afford it and I am sure long term I will make out better than a job I was just offered by a rather large/famous company (even if they do only have 1 title with like 20 expansions )

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Dazzag
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Posted: 16th Oct 2007 10:11 Edited at: 16th Oct 2007 10:14
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Quote: "I think it still exists"
Yes it does, but in the vast majority it is going down the tubes. People don't really look at careers so much anymore, but what area they can move into next. I have so many IT friends looking into being builders, care workers, alternative medicine, clock makers etc. And I'm not talking about low level here. Some are managers, project managers, team leaders, even directors etc. IT is not what it once was.

Project management is a great idea as it's easy as hell (compared to programming) and you do most of their job anyways. Added advantage is you will get another job a hell of a lot easier these days, plus companies seem to love project managers and even generally pay them better (grade for grade) than programmers. Gotta love it. Only downside is you need more personality than the standard IT geek. If you can do both then they love you Oh, and if you get stressed normally then it could kill you.

Cheers

I am 99% probably lying in bed right now... so don't blame me for crappy typing
Current fave quote : "She was like a candle in the wind.... unreliable...."
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