Making sacrifices for your company only for them to turn round and make you redundant - there is no loyalty on their part

[speedymama]

Recently heard from my friend who has been made redundant from her job in the city. It was a technical role in one of the city banks and well paid. She has worked long hours and even moved locations to accommodate their latest reorganisation.

Last year she started trying for a family (she is 38yo) and is having trouble conceiving. Now that she has been made redundant, she feels worried that she may have made things more difficult for herself by leaving it late to start a family. She also feels bitter that she was loyal and committed to the organisation but it has not been reciprocated. She wishes she had not delayed trying for a baby.

I personally don't think that she has left it too late because I managed to fall pregnant at 38yo within 3 weeks of trying. What I do know is that sacrificing your personal life for a company who will not think twice about getting rid of you is not worth it.

That is something the constant debate on MN about whether parents, especially women, should put as much energy into their careers as their family sometimes misses. Your family will always be there for you but your employer will quite happily discard of your services if it is economically prudent to do so.

That's why I work part-time.

The new generation of workers are waking up to the fact that there is more to life than work. If you can, read this months issue of Management Today because its main feature is about the modern struggle for work/life balance and how young, educated and confident workers are voting with their feet.

I think you should always think that you are working for yourself not the company. People do imagine that if they put the company first and make sacrifices and show loyalty that this will be repaid in kind, and they are absolutely wrong.
Always think of yourself as self-employed, always think 'what's in this for me?' and act accordingly. Because that is exactly how the head honchos at your company will think when push comes to shove.
ie never think 'ooh, it would be awkward for my boss if I got pregnant when we are busy so I'll put it off'. If putting it off means you get a big fat bonus, well that's a reasonable reason, but if you are doing it to help your company's shareholders make bigger profits, you are mad.
Because if they discover that ditching you with a small baby or while pregnant makes them bigger, fatter profits, they will do it without turning a hair.

Don't think it is smug speedy says that she works only part-time because her family will always be there for her but her employer will quite happily discard of her services if it is economically prudent to do so. And she acknowledges that she's lucky to have that choice. Any element of "and therefore I'm better than you, nyah nyah nyah" is entirely in the eye of the beholder inferred rather than implied.

I also don't think linking redundancy and work-life balance is disingenuous. I know a lot of people who have re-evaluated their work-life balance after redundancy for precisely the reasons given -- that before the redundancy they thought that working ridiculously hard and making sacrifices for the company would buy them security, indispensibility and loyalty, and it wasn't until they were made redundant that they truly appreciated that it hadn't and never would. That can lead to a rethink on where to expend your energy.

Absolutely right lemonaid. A redundancy after you have made considerable sacrifices for a company can be a total eye opener.
I once stepped up to fill in a much more senior job and did a brilliant job of it (so much so I got a letter of congratulations from the company's founder AND an email from the MD saying what a brilliant job I was doing - though he thought the work was done by someone else - ha!). I took on this extra responsibility with no extra pay because they were so nice to me. Then the minute the new person arrived and wanted her hand-picked staff around her, I was booted out.
As it turned out, I had gained experience and fought for an excellent redundancy package, but my god I felt hurt. I would never again be such an idiot as to not go for the money.

Agree with Aloha: most people do not work to benefit their company - people work to benefit themselves, to have an interesting and renumerative job and to advance their career. You are 'loyal' to your cmpamy because usually that is good for your own career. All that hard work has not been wasted: she would be in an excellent position to get another job if she wished.

Yes, committing to your family is important but so is earning enough to keep that family and (ideally) to have some financial independence.

DISCLAIMER: working p/t

It is true that despite the shock of redundancy your friend still has all her skills and experience.
But I still say, never make a decision that is detrimental to your own life out of 'loyalty' to a company. Always think, 'what's in this for ME'.

There was no smugness in the post. Reallism yes, smugness - no.

[Oblomov, I have just come across your name in a book about travelling through the Soviet Union - nice one!]

I don't think that anyone can blame their company for their decision not to start a family. If she has been working for 8 years, she should have a decent redundancy package and as long as she doesn't get PG for 15 weeks after starting a new job she will have full pregnancy entitlement. Think about it from the other side- sometimes it is not easy to run a company- I do. I took on someone who got PG 3 months after starting work for me. Her loss of contribution for her year's maternity (she had complications) cost me personally £25,000. (i obviously couldn't legally replace her) I earned £20000 that year doing 60 hour weeks when i would have earned £50,000 working 36 hours for someone else. We all have choices and have to have the courage to stand by them.

My friend will be OK because she has great IT skills and has spoken about using them to work from home if and when she has a family.

She is very upset still because she moved areas, worked long hours when they were getting rid of other employees and she honestly thought that the skills and experience that she had gained made her indispensible.

It would be easy to call her naive but I did the same prior to having children. I was so focussed and driven that when we (the senior managers) were told that we had to choose x members of our teams to make redundant, it was a complete shock. That was my wake up call, especially as I use to get in at 7.30am and work until 8, 9 or even 11pm sometimes. Complete madness and it put a strain on my relationship with DH (who was my BF then). I was focussed on becoming a director and I was oblivious to the cost and repercussion of my relentless pursuit.

clarkkent - how nice - what was it saying ? - you have interesting reading material - what are you doing with your nose in a Soviet Union book [grin}

Suey, you are right, you cannot blame a company for your life choices. However, many working people feel pressurised to do more for no extra benefits other than staying in employment. There is this unspoken pressure and expectation that quantity is more important than quality. How many people feel too self-concious at leaving work on time and will stay for an extra hour or so, even if they have nothing to do?

I suppose to give the other side of the coin, some of us work not because we have to but because redundancy happens to men as well as women and I'd rather not put the whole onerous responsibility of keeping this family afloat on my DH.

Both of us work City jobs, both of us could carry the family comfortably on one earning. But if we dropped a job and that person was made redundant, what then...

Life isn't always simple and not always a case of choose x or choose y. Sometimes life just happens and we all do our best to keep one step ahead of the game

And frankly, someone working in a City bank, who is surprised that redundancy has come knocking on their door, must have been living in cloud cukoo land for much of the last 5 years!

Oblomov (hijacking...), it is Journey into Russia by Laurens van der Post, 1964. Many Russians at that time were enthusiastic about the future and the coming nirvana, but some were wary of "a newly evolved Oblomivism - Oblomov would lie in bed so rapt in good intentions that his power for action was dissipated in the process, and, exhausted, he would postpone his departure for the field of reform until the next day". Sounds like a few mumsnetters I know.

van der Post also comes across words like Glookhoman and Zarnitsa to describe the landscape.

It's not so much an "other side of the coin" as a more general "be realistic and don't stick your head in the sand when making major life decisions". So, don't assume that you are indispensible and will never be made redundant, don't assume that your partner is indispensible and will never be made redundant, and certainly don't let too many other parts of your life become dependent upon those assumptions. That covers working, not working, working full-time, working part-time, having babies, not having babies, moving house, not moving house, downshifting, upshifting, remortgaging, and probably many more.

clerkkent - that is fascinating - now I know where Goncharov got his inspiration / stole it from - thank you ever so much = fascinating

I agree with lemonaid. This has nothing to do with where you work, p/t or f/t, and it has nothing to do with the life choices we make , re when to have children - it's just a case of being realistic and accepting that companies do not care. And that is not pessimistic, it is realistic. People need to stop being an ostrich and open their eyes.

I was never under any illusions my company would be loyal to me although they expected me to be to them.

They were a sh*t outfit - grrrrrrrr!

People - intelligent, sensible people - DO believe that their company will be loyal to them and repay their own loyalty. Companies rely upon this to drag the last drop of blood out of employees. I've even heard people say 'it was a busy time for the business so I couldn't book time off' etc etc. But I say never, ever consider yourself as working for anyone else, whether you work full time or part time, always put yourself and your own interests above those of your company. Because you can bet that the company will NEVER put your interests above their financial ones.

Amen to that!

I find it sad that so many of us can't imagine anything else.
I must also add, I do not think someone naive for believing that their loyalty would be rewarded and in fact, suspect that many employers give their staff the impression that there will be some pay-off for their hard work.
My employer certainly is full of half promises. She will string you along, pay you as little as possible for as much work as possible and suggest a "possibility" of further enhancement of one kind or another without ever fulfilling these empty promises.
Most people have wised up now and lots are jumping ship.
But I can't blame any of them for listening to her; this isn't naivety, it's a desire to do well, to please and to do a good job which will be recognised.
We all need praise; to suggest otherwise is, IMO, naive and unrealistic.

Sometimes your interests and the company's interest will coincide - I'm not suggesting people actively sabotage their company! - but treat yourself as self-employed. I honestly believe it is the only way.

Sorry I can't see what the big surprise is. Companies, and like Marina says, non-corporate orgs as well, will always put the needs of the business before the welfare of individual employees. That's their job and they wouldn't be doing it properly if they didn't. Individual employees who don't realise that are very naieve imo.

Although even if your realise it in theory (you've done all your Marxist reading and you know you're just a cog in the machine), we are human beings and we make human bonds and relationships with people and it is still a terrible sense of betrayal and hurt that people who one always knew weren't really friends, but with whom one has shared jokes and laughs and intimacy and bad news and good news, will still throw you on to the dole for the good of the company. In theory one knows they'd do it any time; in practice when they actually do, not to feel some human emotional reaction to it, would be odd imo.