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• Monday, January 15, 2007 06:56 PM

  A cautionary tale

  I did this. I was working for a very small company - there were 8 of us. The company was really cool, everyone was nice to me, the product was fascinating, I was doing interesting work and I was well paid, blah blah blah. Everything was hunky-dory.

  Then, things started to go sour. The CEO, apologetically, announced to us that he would have to cut our salaries while he looked for other investors. First, the salaries were cut in half. Then, they were cut to minimum wage. A few people left at that point, but I hung on. Everyone was so nice to me, and I was a loyal person. I took on a side job to make ends meet - started a small business. Everyone patted me on the back for my loyalty, and told me how the business just couldn't function without me.

  Then, they stopped paying us altogether. The CEO came by my cube and asked me to sign a paper that would mean that I would be paid in stock rather than money. He asked so nicely; he was so charming and pleasant; he spoke in glowing terms about the company's future; he praised me to the skies; I signed. I took on more clients in my small business and was essentially working two jobs, which still didn't pay enough for me to survive on. My mortgage was no longer affordable; I decided to sell my condo, but couldn't sell it. I went through my savings and started getting into credit-card debt; I was one month's mortgage away from foreclosure by the time it finally sold.

  They laid me off while I was on vacation, visiting my parents. Called me at my parents' house and told me that I didn't need to come back to work. It was only later that I found out that all the time that I was accumulating credit-card debt, despairing, and living on rice and beans, the CEO was stealing from the company. I was told numerous stories about what was really going on, all of them fishy - one was that the CEO stole millions of dollars and fled to Thailand; the other was that they were all (except me) in cahoots and all stole the money. I no longer cared whether any of this was true. I was busy ramping up my burgeoning business and paying off my credit cards. I am still self-employed, and wouldn't work for anyone else for any kind of money.

  The reason people work is because they get paid. If you are not getting paid, or if you think that the company is likely to not pay you at some point, run for your life. I was lucky. Things could have been much worse.

  When you think about company loyalty, think about this: is the company going to have any loyalty to you?

  —565656565656 Read 565656565656's other letters
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