I have been working for the same company for nearly 10 years. I came in this morning to find that someone who has put over 18 years at this company is leaving to follow his passion to become a professor and to get out of this city. Keep in mind that this company pretty much hires people for life. In my 10 years here, I’ve seen people work here for 30 years and die before they even hit retirement. One of my co-workers calls this place the “Hotel California”, you check in but you do not check out. So undoubtedly, this individual who is making the move to leave after such a long tenure was brave.
With the state of the economy, the constant trend for companies is to lay off people to cut costs until recently the tide has turned much to the surprise of companies. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of voluntary resignations has surpassed the number of layoffs in February of 2010 for the first time since October 2008. One such cause is that with the cost cutting that companies do, they are no filling in where people have left or cut thereby stressing those that are staying in the job. Companies have been taking advantage at increasing the load on their workforce because people were too afraid to let go of what they already have. Personally, I have a great paying job, with great benefits. The greatness of the job has degraded since one of the people on our 4 person team left, and they did not refill the position. They did not promote me into his position and I am left to do all the work he was paid to do.
Another big reason why people are leaving their jobs is also attributed to career advancement. With the job shortage, people were too gun shy to leave their jobs and it has created a backlog of workers looking to aggressively promote themselves into new positions in other companies. The days of devoting yourself to one company and rising through the ranks through hard work is in the rear view mirror. The companies that you can actually do that at are far and few between. Even the company I am employed with has a trend to hire outside this office.
We have been staring that these same cube walls for years. We spend most of our days watching our kids grow up through pictures on our cube walls at the expense of making someone else rich. Through that time, we have been a slave to our debtors, buying things we cannot afford and now chained to a desk working off our illusions of fancy lifestyles and conspicuous consumption to live the American dream. This is a voluntary life release program, you can go home every day to live your life, but you better be back.
About the photo
I took this photo in Mount Dora on a photo walk one morning. Those vultures were all hanging out on the chimney, and my buddy said “Look it’s the board of directors”. Vultures are a sign of death and bad luck. Working for someone else, you are sacrificing your life so they can squeeze all the good qualities out of you for their gain.
Nikon D90, Nikkor 18-200mm VR2
Normally, when you live somewhere you take for granted the surrounding cities or attractions around you. Driving through the orange groves in the middle of the night to catch sunrise, I drive into the city of Mount Dora. This morning we had planned to go out to an entirely new place to capture inspiration for some new photos and this city delivered.
