A company is not your friend, or your enemy. It's a machine. See it as such, use it as such.
A particular person above you in the management chain may actually be your friend. It does not mean that that person would be able to protect you from a layoff; that could be a conflict of interest. That person might give you an earlier warning so that you could start looking around ahead of time. That person could give you a glowing review and references for prospective employers. That person might introduce you to someone who might be interested in hiring you. But that person operates the machine, and plays by the rules of the machine, to which you have agreed when you have signed your offer.
Build good relationships with coworkers; this can be helpful, and is just more pleasant. But don't try to build a relationship with a company; you can't.
> It isn't your friend, in the sense that even if your boss may personally be your friend - the company has an interest that's contradictory to yours:
This depends on who your employer is: if your boss is your employer, and not just a higher ranked employee of the employer’s, your employer can be exactly as much of a friend as your boss is.
It's definitely not about being friends - it's about being able to rely on each other.
You relationship with your manager is like your relationship with the company at large - it's a symbiosis, a contract, something that benefits both parties... until one day when it inevitably doesn't.
One day you will either leave the company or the company will leave you. Once the arrangement isn't mutually beneficial any more, the relationship is finished. There's nothing personal about that. In the meantime, you expect your manager to support and help you, set clear expectations, resolve disputes, etc and they expect you to meet the expectations of your role.
No because it's not a friendship between two people; it's a working relationship between two entities.
Be thankful you reached an agreement to get paid for work from the company that provides you a living; however, there is no loyalty beyond the work that you promised to do once the contract is signed.
At the end of the day, you are two entities mutually benefiting from a working relationship. Beyond the work, there is no loyalty nor should there be any expectation of one from either side.
The company's purpose is to make money for its stakeholders. If you are a hinderance to that purpose, then you'll be cut. The company won't proactively look for another position for you no matter how many years of experience you have with them or how you stuck up for them to disgruntled workers. They don't hear or care about that. If you can't bring them profit, then you are gone.
Of course, there will be individuals who stick up for you or find a position for you at the company, but that is a human being and not an abstract entity (aka the company).
I think this stance tends to be too harsh. The company isn't your friend, but people can be. I've done personal favors for employers that have helped my career in major ways.
"Your job is not safe" does not mean you should do everything possible to keep your job -- allowing yourself to be unfairly exploited and abused.
It means that you need to be responsible for yourself, and not allow thoughts like "I'm a valuable employee", or "I have too much seniority", or "my manager and I get along great" to convince you management won't lay you off or fire you or that they owe you anything.
As others have said, the employer-employee relationship is first and foremost a business relationship, i.e. transactional: you work and they pay you. When that relationship doesn't work any more for one side or the other, it ends.
It does often happen, of course, that professional friendships or even personal friendships develop. You are, after all, spending a lot of time with your co-workers. But don't think your good relationships or friendships will help if the business decides a layoff is necessary.
> It's not a matter of friendship, but of interests.
This is a good point, but missing one of the big things that affect dynamics: there is typically a huge imbalance of power between an employee and employer, so most often if your interests diverge, the employee will lose. The worst case scenario for this can be terrible, even for an employee who has done nothing wrong.
"I do NOT want my employer actively trying to become my friend."
Exactly, and a variation on that is on the front page here today (VCs Are Not Your Friends). You might be on friendly terms you your employer, but it's primarily a business relationship.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2174722
I agree with this. However, I will say unless there is something major wrong with you or major at the company, you are now going to be fired very quickly. The company also doesn’t want that reputation.
I work in finance and certain hedge funds have a reputation for cutting people quickly they don’t like. It attracts people that are ok with that and most stay away.
That all said - you got to look out for you and your family and friends, so you got to do it sometimes. Just wanted to say that, most of the times, the feeling of a commitment to each other goes both ways during the honeymoon period between company and person.
It's extremely important that you learn as early as possible in your career that your employer is not your friend. You are only a cog in the wheel to them. All the way up to the top you are replaceable.
Once you make this shift in thinking, it opens the doors to you increasing your status in the company, doing more interesting work and making way more money.
Stop doing any favours to your employer and start putting yourself first. The result is mutually beneficial in the long run.
You can say all you want about “be yourself” and “honesty is the best policy” but that doesn’t mean the company across the table from you is going to be a good actor.
You’re placing a lot of faith on the company here, and in my experience people in companies will absolutely do things like what the author listed and thinking that they won’t is just naive.
I’ve personally experienced having a former boss who’s friends with your current boss and what that can do to your reputation.
spoiler alert: even in a situation where there wasn’t a lot of bad blood, it meant a perceptible negative change towards me.
what's truly been mind-boggling is how companies ARE made out of people... people who may well be your friends; and yet, what you said remains true, that the company wont be your friend.
I joined a friend's business as an employee and worked for him for years. I think for the most part that went ok but the fact that we're not friends any more probably tells you something. At some point I felt like I was being taken advantage of, left, and that sort of ruined the friendship. We weren't particularly close friends to start with and we were still on talking terms when our work relationship ended.
I also repeated my mistake (sort of) by investing in a friend's small business. When the business wasn't successful and we didn't see eye to eye on the path forward that totally killed our friendship.
There is a difference between your colleagues -- as people -- with whom you can have a close relationship, and the entity that is your employer, which you really have to assume would jettison you at a moment's notice, because almost all companies would if the need arose.
I don't think of it as depressing to act as if a fictional entity like a corporation isn't part of your family. By all means, be friends with your coworkers, show up and work hard, but don't get emotionally invested in a relationship with an LLC or a C Corp that can't love you back.
But also your fellow employees would not be wrong to leave their job (and hence you) if a better opportunity presented itself, and I don't think they should be disparaged for making that choice. Such is the peril of friendship via work.
The point made in here about how your company is not your family cannot be emphasized enough. Corporate culture, and especially tech startup culture, likes to make you believe that we're all family and best friends and love each other.
That attitude stays up right until the day they lay you off without warning.
It's great to work with great people that you enjoy being around, and we should treat each other all with human dignity and respect, and with a bit of fun. But your boss is not, and never will be, your friend.
What you write is true but one can never know for sure if you are in a nice company. Even if you are in a nice company today you don’t it will remain nice. You don’t know what economic factors will occur that may turn the company culture toxic. The company may be bought out tomorrow and new management might suck.
Since you can’t know that these possibilities won’t occur it’s best to keep the mindset that the company is not your friend. They do not have loyalty to you in perpetuity. It’s a business and not a person. It’s run by people but the more people it is being run by the easier it is for them emotionally to treat everything in business terms.
Do not have loyalty to a company. It’s just business and not personal.
Nobody. With the vast majority of corporations your relationship with them is not only entirely professional, it is mercenary. They have no allegiance to you, they will end your employment the nanosecond they believe that it makes financial sense to do so. And they will hurt you quite easily without even the slightest thought. Yes, you can still maintain a friendly relationship with your company, and not every corporation is the same, but if you don't start from a policy of distrust and wariness you can easily walk into a disaster. Don't put blind trust into your employer, let your trust be built on multiple specific examples of them being worthy of trust.
A particular person above you in the management chain may actually be your friend. It does not mean that that person would be able to protect you from a layoff; that could be a conflict of interest. That person might give you an earlier warning so that you could start looking around ahead of time. That person could give you a glowing review and references for prospective employers. That person might introduce you to someone who might be interested in hiring you. But that person operates the machine, and plays by the rules of the machine, to which you have agreed when you have signed your offer.
Build good relationships with coworkers; this can be helpful, and is just more pleasant. But don't try to build a relationship with a company; you can't.
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