When did you realise you are just an employee and loyalty accounts for nothing?

[GorraSoreKnee]

Just here to see at what age did you realise that although work is an important part of your life- you are an employee and blood / swear/ tears/ loyal service accounts for nothing?

I am in my early 50’s and been in my current role for 25 + years- it has been hard/ stressful at times, have gone over and above, been loyal, helped progress careers, felt that I have contributed to others, made a difference to people in need (work in healthcare and NHS).
I always knew this moment would
come as I have some very dear older friends / now retired colleagues who would always try to help you get things in perspective and one would always say ‘ remember , we are all replaceable’. I did see one retire and she was replaced with ease and work continued to go around.

This month a managerial decision was made which will have a very very negative impact on myself and role but benefit others. It was clear what the outcome would be, but there was a wider management decision to be had, so clearly we are all employees in a machine.

i am very upset by this but mainly because I now realise in this moment loyalty accounts for nothing.
I am very sad and feel like it is a loss ( sounds irrational but that is how I feel as it has changed my perspective on work).
To top it off my line manager was more concerned about how my response was picked up in the team, rather than acknowledge I am human and it is hard at times to conceal emotional response.
Think this is now the time to explore that other things there are out there without fear of leaving what I know. I will get my CV up to date and will also do some financial review to see what options we have.

I am now having other life stresses as many others do in thier 50’s ( aging parents/ ill health/ children leaving home/ menopause/ seeing friends needing
cancer treatment/ husband dealing with work stress etc) so could do without
work shit/ pressures and too much responsibility which has just been thrown my way.
Another close friend of mine ( same age, same organisation) had this moment also last year, took a different outside job with a pay cut and it has worked out well.
I do think this is what happens to many
with jobs/ careers/ roles.
I am just reflecting that maybe I should
have realised this sooner and not done all the unpaid overtime over the years as it has accounted for nothing.

Has this happened to other women in their 50’s and how did you move forward?

Not really here for a discussion- would just like to hear other stories to help
me realise, amoungst my tears, I am not the only one and maybe hear some positive outcomes.

Well if you leave a position of your own volition for other employment they are going to fill your role are they Not? That's how business works. Employees move on, new ones start

I think it's been a gradual realisation for me - from working hard in a not great workplace and wondering why my team wasn't being supported by management, to now working in a great place and wondering about the possible impact of AI in the future.

I don't think this realisation is necessarily negative though, it can also be positive - it currently suits the company to pay me for work, and it suits me to work for them for pay. This might change in the future if anything changes for me or the company. In the meantime, I'll work hard, and I'll do some paid over-time if I choose to.

8 years in my last role, no one organised a card or any sort of farewell. Boss was super awkward about having a v short chat, head of HR practically prized laptop from hands as if I were a criminal, no exit interview (which they are meant to do). Resigned due to change in circumstances following mat leave, definitely not a bad leaver. I was quite hurt but my new job is way better!

When I was a kid and saw my dad doing masses of unpaid overtime, stressed out and never around for stuff like nativity plays, sports days etc.

I’m a millennial so entered the workplace post-2007 recession with constant news and stories about redundancies etc, so never felt like any job was potentially going to last ~40 years like my parents generation did.

I work in HR now and it’s only confirmed this. When it comes to redundancies, I can see that while my more colleagues try and keep the employees in mind, their primary focus is protecting the business and its interests. There is no handwringing about loyal staff who have done countless hours of unpaid overtime, not taken their annual leave, worked over their lunch etc etc.

Every HR Manager I’ve had is very careful about working only their contracted hours, making sure they take all TOIL/ annual leave and not answering emails etc outside of their working hours. I think that’s very telling.

I’ve always been one of the annoying militant ones unfortunately…so from a young age worked hard(er) but rarely went over my hours/pay grade and if I did I was a bit of a martyr about it. Then, when I had DS8 my commitment bar doing my basic job and working well enough with colleagues was well, just that - enough. This is office work in a big corporation. You get to see the patterns and trends, new initiatives, systems - same shit. I have totally become the sort of worker that sees the keenos. BUT a happy unstressed home life is number 1 for me.

Never thought there was loyalty in any employment ever. That's not how my brain works. It's a transactional arrangement. Doesn't stop me performing to the best of my ability though

When I was made redundant in my first job after university aged 22, actually it was more being let go after an unsuccessful probation period... then being made redundant from the next two jobs in my 20s. The first time wasnt that bad as I'd literally been made redundant one day and then offered another role in a position with a company on the opposite side of the same office.

Then after i came back from maternity leave, the company had moved to London and i was part time, working in a different role they'd created for me so that they could still employ me and not be accused of letting an employee go unfairly after maternity leave.

Literally a year to the day after, I was made redundant again.

Then I started a freelance job with a copywriting company and they let me go about 6 months after I had my head injury and post concussion syndrome, then I found out that the ex-editor I had worked with was doing my job (bastard!)

Life is too short to worry about jobs. I'm so sorry you are going through this, but it is eye opening just how fickle it all is.

I could have written your OP, @GorraSoreKnee. I have taken time out (possibly permanently) to address what's going on within my own family (ageing parent needing care/young ones with difficulties of their own etc) It's a tough lesson, isn't it? 💐

It's rubbish when this happens but you're taking this REALLY personally when realistically, in an org like the NHS, the patient is the core focus of our operation and services need to be structured to deliver for them. A service restructure doesn't necessarily reflect on you AT ALL and would be done regardless of who was in the job. Your managers job is to manage the team, and stabilising the team after change is part of that. Try to focus on all the nice things said in your appraisals, your working and personal relationships you've developed etc. Possibly if you relieve yourself of the personal insult and see it as operational necessity, you'll realise working in the NHS for the rest of your career comes with so many supports and benefits as you approach retirement. Good luck!

I was late 40's, worked for John Lewis and all the years I was there I was told that we were all Partners and to go above and beyond etc etc etc and I did. In the end they could have saved my job but chose not to. All very poorly handled for a lot of us being let go through redundancy.

However, I now work somewhere much more caring, doing an interesting job with great people and earn far more money. I won't forget the lesson I learned either, you are always replaceable.

The NHS is terrible for this mindset. There's so much emotional attachment to the job. My DH was made redundant from his company of 10 years who managed to weasel out of a payment. We were just over savings amount for benefits because we had sold our flat and were waiting to purchase a house. So we had nothing to live off. Now we go in and do our jobs well but if a better opportunity comes up we take it. If it doesn't suit us to do overtime or the overtime is unpaid then sadly we are unavailable.

I work in an acute area of the NHS but unless there is someone experiencing an acute medical emergency then I handover and I'm out the door at the end of my shift. There's always a reason to stay because the need exceeds the resources. But the more you do that the more it allows resources to be reduced.

When did I realise that ultimately my employer doesn't give a toss about me? I think when I was around 20.

When I was forced to print and laminate the treatment protocol for my condition and stick it on the wall at the side of my desk, thus making my hidden disability public. The person who insisted I do this was a 'Dignity at Work' advisor.

There's a lot more

UK university

@FirstFallopians there were lots of redundancies in your parents generation. Maybe they were not in a sector affected, but whole swathes of manufacturing firms closed down.

I had a job I loved, with quite a complicated management structure. I reported to the head of my product area, but there was also a head of my function who worked across all products. My boss’s boss HATED me and found a way to effectively demote me by creating a senior position to mine. Head of function supported her on this.

A few weeks before my replacement new manager arrived, someone from another product area had emailed a group list asking if anyone had capacity to help train a new starter. I said someone in my team might, but that I couldn’t guarantee it, as I was off on holiday for a fortnight, so she’d be covering some of my work. Head of function immediately replied to me, “So who is going to train [replacement]?”

I already felt devastated by them trying to push me out. But to then expect me to train someone to do the job they’d decided I wasn’t good enough to do? It was so obvious that they thought nothing of me didn’t give a shit about what they were doing to me.

The fact that my replacement was useless was partly heartbreaking (it was such a waste), but the one consolation was that she was so useless, she thought everyone took as long to complete the most basic tasks as she did. For the remainder of my time there, I stretched out the tiniest bits of work all day and watched TV, played online games etc. and got paid for it. She panicked when both I and my direct report left in quick succession, as she hadn’t got a clue what to do on her own.

I now earn more than double what I got there. She works for her mother.

I knew loyalty counts for nothing even before I started work!

I saw both my mother and father being made redundant in the early 70s, both from senior long term positions, and how the organisations just continued "business as normal" without them, just by reorganisations etc.

Also saw it in my first couple of proper jobs. People who were really "big" in the firm, thought they were irreplaceable, but tried their hand for bigger pay etc and had their bluff called. Firms carried on without them and it was obvious they weren't irreplaceable after all.

I've always moved on according to my terms, never stayed anywhere due to a sense of loyalty as literally no one else cares! They'll always find someone else.

I think for people who work in areas such as health and social care they put a lot more or themselves into their roles - sure you may have the 'head' awareness that you are just a number but in your heart you want to carry on giving your best (and over) for your service users .

I can't imagine having that level of personal investment if I worked in a bank.

OP - I have had similar happen to me a couple of years back - late 50s. I struggled on under a lot of stress for a year but am lucky that I've since been able to take early retirement .

Before I started work. Saying that I don't know anyone under 30 who has the same loyalty to a role that anyone over 30 does.

I think the new generation has the right idea tbh. Both my parents have been in the same job 30 years and I don't get it at all.

There is a difference, I think, between shabby treatment by an individual line manager who is either just looking out for herself or struggles with the challenges of the in between role, and shabby treatment due to a whole higher management ethos which puts money saving above all else .

Shocking!
I went to some in-house training about mental health, spotting it in colleagues etc, how to help. Stress buckets overflowing and all that, what might cause someone's bucket to overflow. Talked about how caring responsibilities, financial difficulties, health, children, strained relationships, feeling silenced at work etc all covered.
Two weeks later my bucket did indeed overflow. I asked for some time off to deal with it and had my employment terminated instead. I didn't cover myself in glory at the 'chat' we had, but a mental breakdown will do that. Nothing like calling in your clearly unwell staff to discuss 'scheduling' instead of giving them some time off to get better first. And then wondering why they have a meltdown in the office.

My mother poured her life into her job and gave them 25 years.
She even put her own job on the line when she reported to corporate headquarters that her own boss was embezzling money.
She got cancer and asked headquarters if she could reduce her hours. They didn't agree to it but made her take a leave-of-absence where she didn't earn a penny.
When she died, the corporation offered my father $1000 from the life insurance they provided for her. However, when she started her job twenty-five years before, the employer took out a life insurance on her and they profited from her and other employees deaths and the payout was far higher than the $1000 we received. It was a huge scandal here in the US.

You could say that I have been untrusting of employers since the age of 10.

First two proper jobs - put first down to bad luck - being being a woman meant less pay and training - and found better one and while they were fair about money mostly they forgot so often the huge amount of unpaid overtime and did and fucked me over with holiday pay having agreed to paid it to me upon leaving wanting me around to end of project but instead suggesting I work for free last two weeks.

Mind you I'd seen my Dad nearly 40 years get fucked over by his employer and made redundant in his 50s plus week after he finally qualified for company pension scheme collapse they'd been allowed to take huge amounts out in earlier decades. Mum got sick - needing an operation and had to wait and in meantime her long term employer HR department started calling her to meetings basically berating her for her ill health - she'd just lost one parent and Dad had just got out of hospital - regional manger tried to step in as she was known to be a good worker but HR were vile and did bully her out in end.

In my early 30s. I have worked in the charity sector and was quite idealistic in the beginning only to realise that many charities treat their staff and volunteers appallingly.

I have seen too many instance of bullying, the wrong people being promoted, money being wasted, good people being pushed out by shitty managers and general incompetence to have any illusion left about the workplace.

I feel no loyalty whatsoever to employers because I know most of them also have no loyalty to their employees these days. You are just an expendable.

I had a serious, life threatening health issue this year and was off for almost two months. On my very first day back at work my manager put pressure me on me to ignore the recommendations made by my GP on my fit note and the reasonable adjustments she listed to help support my return to work. My employer is a charity that looks after vulnerable people...

In my early 20s, working in a call centre. There was a round of 'redundancies' which was a front for a mass firing of a group of people who spoke out against a change in working hours that was detrimental to all of us but benefited the managers.

Twenty plus years and many jobs later, I've still always got one eye on Indeed and an exit plan. No loyalty whatsoever beyond what I'm paid to do.

Elizabeth Wurtzel talked about lack of job security and care for employees etc in her book "Prozac Nation" which came out in 1994.

I think maybe it's not generational but to do with your nature and how you perceive the treatment, if you are not affected by it. Companies often work very hard to disguise the exit of employees who are unhappy.

I have always hidden my mental health problems. I've seen people be treated badly after disclosing it. I'm convinced the drive for openness is about finding out who has what.