alt Hacker NewsI think that's an important thing to note here, where the loyalty lies. Viewing from the lens of Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy it's clear you're loyal to the goals of the company more than the organization of company. Which in that case yes, I agree those are the best employees
You just made me do a deep dive on “Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy”.
I had to think about this. The three companies I’ve actually cared about were those that I had already “won” the organizational rat race within my definition of winning. The first I was leading their largest project only because near the end, they had laid everyone else off. “Winning” was staying employed until the market picked back up after 2009. The company went out of business late 2011. I stayed until the bitter end and then did a contract with the customer that I had been working with.
The second I was already the de facto cloud architect and I “threatened” my CTO that I would quit if they ever made me a team lead. I only got that because I volunteered for the initiatives and I stuck to it until I figured out what I was doing and did a lot of research. The company only had 60 people at its height including project managers, managers, QA, analysts, sales and developers.
The current company, I’m already at the top IC level and have the highest bill rate as a US based consultant. I was bought in at that level. I’ve repeatedly asked my manager what my goals should be a s he said basically - keep making the customers happy and bringing in money through being billable.
The others I was a cog in the wheel and would have had to play the politics game to get ahead. I’ve always sucked at that.