Loyalty

I waited a while to write this. Still not sure if I should, but its been bugging me for months, so here goes.Friday I will talk about trust. Loyalty, its a strong thing. I may not give strong loyalty to you or a job right away, but if I know you for more then a few days, chances are you have earned it from me. It could simply be that I believe that if I am loyal to something, they will be loyal back to me. It seems logical in my mind. ....Just not in others.

If I have invested myself in something, I'm loyal to it. I don't like to quit things. I don't like to give up. This is why I stayed at my past job for so long. It wasn't because it was such an awesome place to work. It wasn't because they were always so nice to their employees. It was because I had built up a loyalty to them. At times, even a blind loyalty.

If something needed to be done that wasn't in the norm, I would do it. If something needed to be learned, I learned it. Generally off the clock. I wanted to be better at my job, not just for me, but so I could make the place better as a whole. I did my job. I wanted to do it well. I wanted to help the office as much as I could in many areas.

There were years when they were transition years, where everyone seemed to move away and we would have to build the staff back up from scratch. Those were the times I so wanted to leave. Couldn't see why I would stay....but the reason was, I was loyal. I didn't want to abandon the office like that. I didn't want to abandon those other few employees that were there. So I stayed. I refer to those times when I was like a rat too stupid to get off a sinking ship.

As in any job, there are opportunities to ruin things. Or do the bare minimum because it won't matter if you do. But I didn't. I didn't try and do things on the sly. I was open about everything we did. I worked hard, even if I couldn't get *everything* done everyday. In the early years I would take things I couldn't finish home to do. I thought this was the better way so I could help people at work and not do the behind the scenes stuff there. I did that until one day the manager said in a condescending/bitchy voice 'well no one asked you to do that.' That would also be why I stopped creating manuals, fliers, brochures, and ordering things when/if I was home sick. There was never appreciation or loyalty to what I did.

People would always say that because I did such a good job that I didn't have to worry about things. I always told them they were wrong. That our boss felt everyone was dispensable. My job was never 'safe'. I never felt that. Ever.

That's the funny thing about my time there too. They never felt that loyalty towards even half the employees. If we ever did really well, they would find something to bitch about. They didn't seem to care if we were there, unless it made something difficult for them.

The place I started working is going to take some getting used to. They have loyalty. I can see that already. If I put my time in here, they aren't going to still treat me like some urchin that came off the street that they have to deal with because they need workers. I have seen that in how they treat the students, the people that have been here for a few years, months and weeks. My loyalty is easy to gain and hard to lose, and I feel like this time it is justified. That's so weird.....and totally awesome.