The phrase “do not love your company” might seems disturbing at the first glance but this is very much right and good thing to follow if you want to be successful especially if you want to be a successful web developer or a good freelancer. Most of the people agree with “love what you do” because every great person who have done something in life loved what he did. And why not? Because this is the only way to do great things. But we have seen very less number of people who have actually done something great by doing a full time job or by loving the company. Because you do not know when your company stops loving you.
Honesty and loyalty when you do not love your company?
Being self loyal and being selfish are two different things. By this phrase i am not encouraging leg pulling and other politics culture in the companies. You should stay loyal to the person who employed you and pays you so that you get bread and butter for your home. As a loyal employee you should complete the tasks assigned to you as long as you are in contract with your company. Being selfish and trying to damage business of your boss is unethical and absent honor kind of act. A person who is not loyal to someone who helps him earn a respectable living is not considered as a good citizen or programmer anywhere. Love and loyalty are different things. If i rephrase it like this “Be loyal to your company but do not love your company” is it acceptable? Ok lets add some logic.
Love and loyalty:
When you love someone basically you put that person/thing ahead of everything. That thing is most important for you. And you can do your own loss by making that person thing get happiness. Lets have a look at this quote for a while
“Love can be foolish; you can think you’re in love and it can lead to the most horrible feeling in the world. Also you can wait so long for someone, loving them, and waiting for them to love you back, but they don’t return it. But when that person realizes that they love you back.”
Loyalty can be defined as a strong feeling of support or allegiance. Being loyal to someone means you will always try to do something that can help other person achieve what he love.
So you should always be loyal to your company. But you should not love your company….. Why?? Let me explain.
Why you should not love your company???
I read this phrase some years ago when i was yet a student “Do not love your company because you do not know when your company stops loving you” and that left a solid mark in my brain. I used to think about that phrase and other things that were being taught in the college. Everyone asks to find a Multi national company where you can work, Find a good company, Find a high paying company etc etc. And i was kind of in love with the company i worked with. But there are some bitter realities in life that you should understand before starting your profession.
Love yourself more than anything else. If you are not loyal to yourself you cannot be loyal to anyone else. If you start loving your company you would stick to your fixed salary and other perks. But you would not be able to do anything for yourself. We are programmers and programming is a hectic job. Some day after years of job in a company you will realize that you are no more important there. Because someone else is better than you. Technical issues will happen and those issues can make you stay awake for many nights and days. On that day we realize that companies are meant to make profits and they love those who give high profits to them.
Programmers do many hectic tasks for companies. But only few companies actually appreciate your work and that appreciation can be a small party or some extra bucks. But believe me the felling of appreciation from your direct client is way better and amusing than than. When some amazing software or product is attached to your name that feeling makes you think that you have done something in life. Coding for years with a company and releasing a product with their name after hard work is not as amusing is it?
Glory, honor and money are things that are coded inside a programmers brain. When you start professional development you will realize that you expect honor for your work. Which can never be fully felt when doing a job.
Companies do not love you. They love the profits, Web development is a vast field and new technologies are coming up in the market with every changing day. But you company would not want you to be full stack developer or an all rounder. They want you to complete the projects that are getting profits for the company. In Short, your skill set would be limited and you would continue to work with only that thing you know of. In future if you want to switch your company you will realize your skill is not in demand anymore and skills that are required in other company are not in your bucket. So your would have to start over again.
Managers are hired by companies to manage the expenses and profits. No one would like to pay you high to reduce the profits because this is job of manager. He gets paid for that. So why would he like to increase your salary by putting his job purpose at stake? You will start hearing excuses and reasons for not getting an increment.
The main reason why you should not love your company is that companies want you to stay loyal. And when you start getting them high profits they do not want you to switch your job. So they would want to make you love them with traps and fake appreciations. Actually they wait for a time when you will no longer try to switch your job because no one else would accept you at the same salary because your skills are limited and only this company uses those skills.
So what should you do??
Stay loyal to your company and continue to learn the skills while doing job. The first thing when you join a company should be to think about your personal growth. If at a point you think that you are not learning new things anymore this is the time to switch the company and join a place where you can learn new and innovative things. The ultimate goal of every person should be to start his own business. In our case we are freelance web developers community. So we should see if we have enough skills to start freelancing? Normally a freelancer should be all-rounder or full stack developer.Here we have discussed when to quit your job.
If you have any question or want to discuss something about your career with me you can inform me in comments.