Letters to the Editor
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Loyalty to company
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.
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You're probably not alone
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.
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Why should you have loyalty?
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.
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Out of the frying pan into the fire
I agree with what's been said in the letters (including that Cary's point nearly got lost in his philosophizing). The company won't pay her bills if it tanks, and no one is irreplaceable--not if they're paying you what you're worth, and honestly not even then. (I'd be hard to replace, but if I got hit by a bus then my company would figure out something.) New companies often do the "we're family" thing to instill loyalty in their employees and make them feel like you're all in this together, but it's just not true. At the end of the day, if the company does well, the owners are the ones who will really benefit. If the company does not do well, the owners will ask you to wait on your paychecks. Try telling your electric company it needs to wait on its bill.
Something that struck me, though, was that the LW is being courted by a friend with a startup with "great potential". That's three strikes right there, if what she wants is job stability. The friend part will put her right back into the situation she's in now, most start-ups have a short shelf life, and all startups have great potential according to their entrepreneurs, since the job of said entrepreneur is to sell the idea of the company long enough to see if it will fly or drop. What they say may or may not have anything to do with reality. (I was self-employed for many years and I'm doing business development now; I know how you have to talk.)
It sounds like it may be time to look elsewhere, but if the LW wants to explore this new opportunity I hope she's doing due diligence into the prospects of the company and not just listening to her friend. I also hope she's angling for part ownership so, if it does fly, she can benefit.
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Loyalty vs Self-Care
Interesting dilemma, one that touches me as I have left an organization that I was part of for twenty years, a partner for sixteen. I left for what appeared to be a decent offer,and turns out to have been a fantastic one.
My former firm was fantastic to work for twenty years ago, great up until about eight or nine years ago, when the CEO lost his edge, and began to dabble in interests well outside the pruview of the primary focus of the firm. The economic debt that has been embraced is staggering, although like the proverbial elephant in the living room, has not been overtly discussed. In fact, the firm claims to be healthy and vibrant, despite defaulting on consultant payments, having company cars repossessed for non-paymejnt and running as long as six to eight weeks to pay employee expense statements. As a partner, I felt I could be part of a "change managemetn" but that works only when the organiation wants to change. Finally, I succumbed to the blandishments of a clever headhunter, and began a six-month courting dance that culminated in my leaving my old firm. For me, the balance was between a sense of loyalty and a sense of self-care. Ultimately, self-care, in the form of a stable financial organiztion, in the form of a vibrant workplace, in the form of intelligent colleagues who really want critical and compelling dialogue about our work product.......
So, LW might do well to pose some compelling questions (I found these useful in leaving my old organization):
Can LW influence the future of the current organiation in a way that will create fiscal stability? The place can be a laughing riot, but if the end destination is bankruptcy, padlocks on the door, etc, that part will be less than amusing.
Can LW sort out, define and isolate the reasons why the firm is doing poorly? And, if LW can, can those issues be dealt with, or are they endemic/structural flaws? (Small organizations are frequently driven by personalty, and this may mean taking a look at the personality of the CEO, and understanding what drives him, and what is flawed about his approach. This is not IBM or GE, this is a very small skiff in troubled waters, and if the captain can't sail, then........)My guess is that LW can define three or four critical "structural flaws" that are driving the non-success of the organization. Once isolated, LW needs to determine whether they can be fixed, and even if the CEO wants to fix them.
Can LW place LW's own loyalty in the balance with the implicit contract of loyalty on the part of her employer, that the employer will render a fiscally sound environment on an ongoing basis? (Sounds like this question is already answered.....)
I suspect, given the givens, that answering the above questions will only be a form of "due diligence' for LW, in which LW can begin to more specifically quantify the challenges of the current organization. Once LW has the answers, then a direction can be formed, and a departure can be crafted.
I note that my departure came as a massive shock, and a radical display of disloyalty. The CEO was enraged, my immediate reporting boss was embarassed and ashamed, and the final conduct of my departure is now in the hands of an attorney. A number of colleagues were devastated by my departure, and as happens in this situation, a number are following suit, prepping resumes, contacting headhunters, and preparing to leave. My departure is estimated by one of my former colleagues as costing the firm between $1M and $2M in net revenues per year. Ultimately, I concluded that my loyalty to the organization had not been matched by the organization's loyalty to me, in no small part due measured by the fiscal incompetence that seems to have taken over as a management style.
In my departure, the CEO now thinks I'm a turncoat, my former boss would prefer to think of me as dead, and my friendships with colleagues that I care about are even stronger.
LW needs to be responsible, not to to the organization first, but to LW's own need (hardly unique) for a fiscally stable professional setting that can truly magnify and exploit (in the most positive sense of the word) LW's true skillsets.
Time to analyze, process and pack up.