A Lifetime at Work

We have a board at work that we use to display employees' work anniversaries. It's right as you come in to the door of our building so I look at it every day. Sometimes, I think to myself, "how did that person stick around here so long?" I know, not so rah rah team of me.

Once in a while, I see a notable (to me) anniversary. There are some people who have been there for a decade and doing pretty much the same job as when they started. I couldn't be that person. There are others that have been there for a short time but made a big impact and have moved up the corporate ladder.

Then, there are the long timers.

This week, the display showed 27 years for one woman. 27 years! It's not her first job by far but certainly the one with the longest tenure.

My first thought at seeing that number was, "That's an entire lifetime!" Then, I started wondering how many of our employees haven't even been alive that long. Since we have a lot of warehouse and call center jobs where people generally get their start in the workforce, it's quite a few.

Another thought was that I am old. (I think that a lot these days.) If I'd stayed at my first job out of college, I'd be coming up on 25 years. As it is, I'll be hitting 13 years in this job come September. Clearly, I'm not a job hopper.

What keeps people in the same place that long? Is it a hold over from the days when you were expected to have lifetime employment? Is it inertia or risk aversion? Is it that they change positions or technology changes their jobs so the job doesn't get stale? Is it just good fortune that they didn't get hit in the economic downturn?

Maybe it's truly a love for what they do. If so, those people are very, very fortunate.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

TV At Its Finest

I was talking to someone today who didn’t know who Bob Newhart was. I cut him some slack because he’s a youngster and didn’t grow up in the U.S. I told him about The Bob Newhart show and how it became a college drinking game and about Newhart, "Hi, I'm Larry; this is my brother Darryl, and this is my other brother Darryl." He was going to go to Wikipedia and do some research. The conversation got me thinking. Back in the day (like when dinosaurs were alive and I was young and there were only four channels on TV), we caught a lot of reruns of what are now considered classic TV. Especially, if you were a latchkey kid like I was, there wasn’t a lot going on in the afternoon/early evening so it was either soap operas or reruns unless you were allowed to be outside and play. And, of course, during summer vacation you had even more time to watch the boob tube. Here’s what I remember watching during those years: Gilligan’s Island, Big Valley (I’m still looking for my very own N
Read more

This Is How Fat Thinks

I was in Vegas over the weekend and Thursday night found me sitting at the bar in Margaritaville with some friends. We were having some drinks, talking to strangers and watching both the baseball and football games. All was well with the world. Out of nowhere, a young (20s?) guy came up behind me and snapped a selfie with me in it. He moved away before I could even get out "What was that about?" Less than 30 seconds later, another young guy came up and did the same. He also bounded away before I could stop him. My very first thought was that they were doing a photo scavenger hunt and one of the items was a picture with the fattest woman they found. Hell, could even have been the fattest person they saw if I let my mind take it further. Now, assuming a scavenger hunt, there are other reasons they could have wanted a picture of me. Maybe they needed a ginger, maybe it was someone with their hair in braids, maybe it was someone in the brightest colored shirt they could fin
Read more