Just wait until you're a little older and get laid off a few times. Then you'll learn what sort of "loyalty" business owners have toward their employees.

I had one job, we were all being pushed to work overtime and get the product out by the end of the year. One co-worker joked, "And then we'll all be laid off." No surprise when on Jan 3 60% of us were, in fact, laid off.

There is no loyalty in the business world. That's just the way it is.

I worked for a small business as a senior employee a while back. When I started for that business, things were going well. However, after several years, the business turned downward and they began overworking people to try to catch up. I was burned out and didn't see any prospect for improvement in the workload or in future opportunities at that emploer. So, I found a new job and gave my two week notice.

Interestingly, two days after I gave notice, another person at my level gave notice - obviously, he had been looking as well. Then the week after I left, two more people gave notice; they had probably started their searches before I gave notice as well. On one hand, I felt a little bad - it was a family owned business and the owners were decent people. However, I was relieved that I wasn't the only person who concluded that opportunities at that company had run out.

While I wouldn't discuss your offer with your current co-workers, you might want to see how they feel about the future of your current employer.

Ship jumper, do not delude yourself with the idea that your company will fail if you leave. It's simply not true. If it were the case that your departure=company's demise, than the place is doomed anyway. GET OUT, and be grateful that you have the option to do so.

...then there's probably not much else it can survive. My first real job out of college was for a failing company. For shit pay.

I worked there for a few months and started noticing things like the receptionist receiving a summons from an officer (for my bosses' non-payment of office rent, it turned out).

Then we had the famous meeting where we were all told that we "wouldn't be receiving paycheck for awhile."

I started looking for a new job the next day. When I found one and gave notice, they screamed at me and told me the company would fail if I left.

Sound familiar? Don't buy it. I know they survived despite my exit. How do I know? because four months later I got a call. At home. On Sunday. At 9:30PM. From one of my old bosses. With a stupid question about how I'd set up a database. The wanted to know if I could come in on Monday to help them. Uh, no. I have a new job now.

Run away. Run away.

Let us imagine that the LW's boss is approached by a business that will guarantee to buy his widgets by the millions making the boss very rich. But part of the deal is that the LW has to be replaced.

What does the boss do? Keep the LW and hope that things will turn out, or fire her and be assured of complete, immediate success. If he is nice he might agonize about it for a day or two, but is there any doubt about what his final decision would be?

Even the best employers don't hire employees to give them a job, they are hired because a job needs to be done for the company. Even the best employee shouldn't stay because of loyalty if their own self interest has to be sacrificed in the process.

That said, there is no reason for either side to be ruthless carrying out the ultimate mercenary basis of their relationship. But employees shouldn't be blinded by the fact that employers asking for their employees' loyalty is for the benefit of the employer not the employee.

Doesn't "human resources" include employee development, or is it just a euphemism? (I remember when it was called Personnel.) And that would include personal development and pursuing good opportunities with the company's blessing.

I had a lot of people I worked with move on ~ being low clout, I'd be assigned new people, then when those in charge realized how good they were, they'd reassign them to themselves or their cronies.

Our time together was always too short. But I was happy for them, and I thought that was the way things were supposed to work.

A former boss always used to say, no one's indespensible, you could be hit by a bus tomorrow. (From his invitation to the office Christmas party: "The holidays are a time for cheer. They are also a time for coverage. When attending the party, forward your phone...")

He was right, too ~ two people I worked with were hit by buses (and a third by a car)! Thankfully, all recovered.

Anyway, we're each unique, but there's more than one way of doing a job.

In the last year (after decades on the job) I was yelled at, sworn at, and finally canned, complete with an unnecessary raking over the coals (mostly by someone who was hit by a bus, which does not always improve the mind). Sorry to other letter writers who've been through similar, but thanks for sharing ~ it's nice have company.

I share Cary's despair at the state of the workplace. I don't necessarily want it to be a family. (It's good to have a place to go with tasks and structure and decorum, to get away from personal misery. And it's good to have a family to come home to to get away from work.) In this time of "increased worker productivity" people are being pulverized and stressed to the max.

and I might feel paralyzed by fear and loyalty, but I think you HAVE to go.

I am loyal to a fault, but if a complete stranger at a tiny backwater website tells me to jump ship, I will.

I am incredibly important to my current employer's ability to stay solvent (his own words) and if I jump the entire company will probably go under...all those other people without work, needing to feed their families. But this new job pays more money to me.

I am a paragon of virtue and a great friend, but say the word, Mr. Tennis, whom I've never met before, and I'll use whatever BS you've sticked together as an excuse to change careers and then if it goes badly I'll blame you, because I am loyal to a fault. "Fault" being someone else's, that is.