Diversity. If you have any connection to a corporate job, you’ve heard the word Diversity. You’ve probably had it ingrained in you. You’ve been taught the need for it, encouraged to embrace it, and heard the exultation of the positive impacts it can have to your company or your job — unless you work for Starbucks; in that event you got a crash course after everyone else.
What is diversity?Merriam-Webster says, ” the condition of having or being composed of differing elements : variety OR an instance of being composed of differing elements or qualities : an instance of being diverse.
So, I got the boot. I think I walked out of that building (escorted of course) in a tunnel. I had a feeling it was coming. We’d been warned there was some corporate restructuring that would impact those in my position. Crazy thing is, they warned us a week before they told us; let us dangle at the end of the hook so to speak. Simple courtesy or even humane treatment would have been to tell us what was happening and then tell us who got the axe. One swift cut, but no, bro.
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Anyway, my point isn’t to debate the heartlessness of corporate decision making. I mean to set up the feeling of walking out of a building where I had invested over half my life with no clear understanding of where I was headed. Of course, I had bills, a wife, a kid in college, and I was still at least ten years away from retirement. I was going to need some income, but I had no desire to enter into something I would be wanting out of in six months.
In that week where I dangled, I researched. The number one thing I found was encouragement to stay calm. Don’t Panic. Keep a perspective. Don’t rush into the first job you stumble upon. Therefore, on the trip from the building to my car, with the lump in my throat growing with each step, I forced myself to take deep breaths. I opened the door and dropped my few personal items from my desk into the passenger seat, and I sat… taking deep breaths. I was empty. I was stunned. I was lost. I was questioning, but I wasn’t panicking.
Loyalty. It’s a deep word, or at least it can stir deep feelings. It often inspires images of someone you can count upon, or perhaps someone who counts upon you.
How about Loyalty in the workplace?
Most of us think of loyalty as a good quality. We often want to be considered loyal. We want our co-workers to feel we are loyal. We want our supervisors and our company to feel we are loyal. Loyalty is important to good relationships both in life and in work, but it isn’t always a two-way street. And that can sometimes, though not always, lead to blind loyalty.
What’s blind loyalty?
It’s being loyal to someone or something that can’t or won’t return it. It is being loyal even when loyalty is not deserved. It is being loyal even when the target of loyalty fails to earn the honor. Perhaps your committed loyalty is to a person or entity who has become involved in something from which you should have divorced yourself. Possibly we are being loyal to a company which has forgotten how to care for its employees or has become involved in unethical issues. Blind loyalty can even apply to ideals, philosophies, and causes which fail to deliver on their intended purpose. Staying loyal under those conditions would be examples of blind loyalty.
So how’d I get here? I began the corporate journey at the age of twenty-two. I hired on for what I thought would be a job to serve until I found something else. I was setting up a store for a growing retailer (no intention of giving free publicity to my former employer. “You gotta pay, Frank. You gotta pay” Cole Younger, The Long Riders). Promotions to hourly supervisor positions eventually transitioned to salaried management. A growing family, stock splits, and stories from managers who were retiring at the age of forty kept me connected. “If I can at least stick with it for seven years until I’m fully vested, then I can do something on my own,” I thought. Thirty-two years and nine months later, I was laid off from my career, with a retirement fund which was sorely lacking (largely due to years of tending to immediate needs rather than the future needs).
When the axe fell, I must admit I had hopes I would find some new vocation with which to support myself and my family. Thirty-three years of corporate grind, dealing with customer complaints, managing people issues, commuting, and following someone else’s direction left me wanting a different way of life. Yet, that need for stability which had kept me connected continued to pull at me. Though I’d always dreamed of going it on my own, I focused my efforts on finding another corporate position where I could use my management experience. Even while I was looking, there were these dreams of a little building where I could do my thing all day long, listen to music if I chose, dress casually, step back with a look of pride at my work, take a long lunch with my wife if I wanted, and basically be the master of my own destiny. But how would I pay the bills?
