When you were employed FT, did you feel like your employer cared for you?

JBR said:
You probably worked before you & your husband had the store, right? What about your experience then?
Click to expand...
Varied. But I hated working; bored stiff and wanted to be elsewhere. And I had 'good' jobs of responsibility, but yet........bored stiff. Same for high school. A truant. Didn't want to be there either. Great classes, great kids, smart, but......I didn't want to be there either. Must be me.
 

Pepper said:
Varied. But I hated working; bored stiff and wanted to be elsewhere. And I had 'good' jobs of responsibility, but yet........bored stiff. Same for high school. A truant. Didn't want to be there either. Great classes, great kids, smart, but......I didn't want to be there either. Must be me.
Click to expand...
I used to get bored too which is why I spent a lot of my working life moving around. I would get bored of the same people, same routine, same gossip, same desk and chair! I always loved the buzz of going somewhere new. Eventually I did have two long term jobs and, although I got bored sometimes, I did like the people and environment and, I guess, I had got over my job hopping days. :)
 
I had a couple of truly terrible bosses during my career and quit those jobs in short order.

All other jobs ranged from ok to good to great, with bosses and coworkers treating me reasonably well. We were there to do a job and get paid. Most bosses and coworkers tried to make the process smooth and pleasant for each another.
 

I am still working. I feel like for most of my career, I have had supervisors who care about me as a person.

At the highest levels of the workplace, people don't know the average working well enough to care about them as an individual. However, it is possible for them to express caring about the employees in a general way.

The results here are mixed. Many speeches and actions seem to express how important the people are. But there are some unpopular policy decisions as well.
 
there was a lot of favoritism in my last job and i wasn't the favorite. In the end it didn't matter that i rarely took a sick day, gave back a lot of vacation, worked holidays, came in early, worked late. i was called into the office once because a coworker claimed i rolled my eyes at her (i did). i rolled my eyes at my boss when she told me. they finally pushed me out the door after 15 years.
 
I was fortunate enough to start my career at an employer who genuinely cared about the employees. It's one of the largest nonprofits in the country, and it seems like the caring milieu has stayed the same. That makes me glad.
 
Yes. Then no. Like @Gary O' for most of my working life work was just a job to do and relationships hardly entered into it.

Then in my late 30's I went into teaching. Administration on the district level always seemed irrelevant and mostly missing. But for my first 13 years I had the world's best principal and we had a mutual admiration society, though not exclusively. A lot my colleagues respected and appreciated Neil as much as I did. After he went up to district level, their performance improved but at the school level it was bad. Whereas Neil would inspire by starting new things himself and inviting others to join, after him they just wanted volunteers to make it happen on their own. Most were lazy and ineffective - which I believe to be the norm.

After No Child Left Behind we got a high functioning autistic man as principal and he was worst. People skills matter and he was clueless. When I retired I was happy to just go away and though the school where I taught is only a mile from where I live I have never been back.
 
I worked for a couple Silicon Valley high tech start ups that during times with good profit and expansion, treated all permanent employees well and went out of their way to build content, enjoyable working experiences with special group events like ice cream celebrations, river rafting trips, unexpected company wide bonuses, expensive venue Christmas parties, and more. Generally SV start ups were some of the best places on the planet to work with great benefits beyond the few I listed.

Further, envious Wall Street bean counter types hated all that and as soon as they were able to gain control were quick to outsource, offshore, and technology transfer to the highest bidders across the rest of the planet. That is a prime reason those globalists destroyed our world dominant post WWII manufacturing base. So the worst weasels ended up profiting from little they were responsible for scr!@#$g the rest of us. Also when business profits turned down and layoffs began, investors installed HR hatchet persons.
 
Last edited:
Nope. Some were nicer to work for than others but they only worried about themselves not me. I also found out that some just lied straight to my face when I voiced concerns about being picked on. Another woman, faculty member, was picking on me and I spoke to my boss. My boss said not to be concerned that I was doing a good job and she would speak to the faculty member. I found out later (after I retired) that my boss and the same faculty member were best friends going out together and visiting each other's homes.
 
I liked the two seasons I worked at the cannery that was union. That helped. I was always grateful to have a job. I was never all that hirable.

Now with the job I've been doing for over 30 years, heck to the no! Money making corporations. I've had some good and some bad bosses. In fact, I've been through many, too many bosses.
 
They pretend. They want you to believe the fantasy of a "family". There are exceptions. There is at least one story out there. A guy that retired and gave company ownership to all the employees.
 
Strangely, I worked for every kind of government- city, county, state and federal. They aren't exactly warm and fuzzy. I did work for a McDonalds type burger place. The owner had a reputation. I was told that if someone shot up the place, he'd step over our dead bodies to make sure our time cards were punched "out'.
 
My longest term of employment was teaching in a girls' Catholic school run by nuns. I had never met a nun in my life before that and I was pleasantly surprised to find myself welcomed and appreciated. The pastoral care of the girls was amazing and the same care was extended to the staff. The nuns had certainly absorbed the command to "love one another as I have loved you". I stayed there for 25 years, until I retired.
 
When I found my "work home"....yes. I was a municipal employee first in a small office then half way through my 28 years there, switched to state. I had several supervisors. My first supervisor was very understanding when I had to take time off after being there only two weeks. I had an ear infection that was so painful that I couldn't work like that. He was among the three supervisors who encouraged me to upgrade my position from clerical to investigator. He became one of the head honchos in the communicable disease program, working out of the office in the state capital.

My next to last supervisor was very good to all of us. We were really like family; we had parties, we sometimes had squabbles too but we looked out for each other. He pushed me to take the Investigator position that became vacant (municipal position) and even helped me learn how to drive. Another co-worker friend also helped and I used a driving school as well.

I literally had the job before I had my license and car ( requirements for the position). After a couple of years, he pushed me to take the test for a state position, same office, same type of work. He always said I was working below my capacity having been very impressed by not only my performance at work, but me excelling in my college courses (I was in my late 30's at the time). Our supervisor also brought presents for us on our birthdays and at Christmas (I was still Christian and celebrated back then).

We were both into music and he bought me this on Valentines day. It's a 45 that actually plays. I was blown away because I had never seen a record like this.

51v9XaTtLTL.jpg

Another time he bought me another copy of Cal Tjader's Several Shades of Jade album when he went to a record convention. One day we were talking and I lamented that the one I had was scratched up. We bumped heads sometime but I knew he cared about me and all of us.
 
OneEyedDiva said:
Another time he bought me another copy of Cal Tjader's Several Shades of Jade album when he went to a record convention. One day we were talking and I lamented that the one I had was scratched up. We bumped heads sometime but I knew he cared about me and all of us.
Click to expand...
I very much like Cal Tjader's music. I just uploaded two track for you on the thread "What are you listening to in 2024"

Besides that, thanks for telling your story. It comes across that, all in all, your capabilities & qualities were recognized, appreciated... and your work life was generally happy.
 
Last edited:
Every job I had that I worked for a W-2 IRS form, I did not feel like the management was fair to the employees. It always favored their profit margins. Our wages and treatment depended on their profits, and were adjusted accordingly, which always favored management making way more money per hour than the employees. So eventually I was able to quit the whole thing. I joined an intentional community, and I never made over the poverty line because we all shared everything we made. It was/is so much more efficient and fair, plus I only worked about 1/2 a day and that was plenty. It takes a village. :)
 
JBR said:
I very much like Cal Tjader's music. I just uploaded two track for you on the thread "What are you listening to in 2024"

Besides that, thanks for telling your story. It comes across that, all in all, your capabilities & qualities were recognized, appreciated... and your work life was generally happy.
Click to expand...
You're welcome, of course. I was blessed to work where I did, with the people I did. We had an appreciation for each other. It was cool because except for the nurses, we were all about the same age.
 
Gary O' said:
Never cared if they cared

Worked hard

Got paid

Went home

......where care and love resided
Click to expand...
I fit into this category
I didnā€™t expect my employees to care for me but I must admit that when I moved out west to find a good paying job, they did allow me an extra 1/2 an hour to go to the gym due to my injured back. Instead of 1/2 an hour, I got a whole hour lunch break. They didnā€™t have to so I suppose they did show that they cared.
 
OneEyedDiva said:
When I found my "work home"....yes. I was a municipal employee first in a small office then half way through my 28 years there, switched to state. I had several supervisors. My first supervisor was very understanding when I had to take time off after being there only two weeks. I had an ear infection that was so painful that I couldn't work like that. He was among the three supervisors who encouraged me to upgrade my position from clerical to investigator. He became one of the head honchos in the communicable disease program, working out of the office in the state capital.

My next to last supervisor was very good to all of us. We were really like family; we had parties, we sometimes had squabbles too but we looked out for each other. He pushed me to take the Investigator position that became vacant (municipal position) and even helped me learn how to drive. Another co-worker friend also helped and I used a driving school as well.

I literally had the job before I had my license and car ( requirements for the position). After a couple of years, he pushed me to take the test for a state position, same office, same type of work. He always said I was working below my capacity having been very impressed by not only my performance at work, but me excelling in my college courses (I was in my late 30's at the time). Our supervisor also brought presents for us on our birthdays and at Christmas (I was still Christian and celebrated back then).

We were both into music and he bought me this on Valentines day. It's a 45 that actually plays. I was blown away because I had never seen a record like this.

View attachment 356150

Another time he bought me another copy of Cal Tjader's Several Shades of Jade album when he went to a record convention. One day we were talking and I lamented that the one I had was scratched up. We bumped heads sometime but I knew he cared about me and all of us.
Click to expand...
That heart record actually plays?
Thats amazing.
 
I made my employers care. I never lost sight of the employer/employee dynamic and worked my ass off to show I could make the business money, and expected to reap some of those profits myself.

My first two jobs out of highschool were union shops, they didn't work out for me very well because I thought their production quotas were silly, I over produced to earn incentive pay, the other workers and union stuarts didn't like that.lol

Then I spent the next 38 years working for two privately owned businesses, they treated me very well. Did they love me? Who cares? They respected me and rewarded me for my contributions.

Eventually I became a business owner, I will say without hesitation that running a business and dealing with employees is no fun. But people don't want to hear that side of it, it makes a better narrative to portray business owners as big bad tyrants always screwing the little guy.
 
C50, I think you make some good points.

It really is - or should be - a two way street.

I have known people before with a very "us versus management" attitude. It is no surprise the boss didn't like them very much. Most people don't like people who don't like them.
 
On average I'd say no, they didn't care about us, and for the most part they didn't really care about if the work was done or done well, just as long as their employees made them look like (to corporate) their team was on schedule, or sometimes it wasn't about the work at all, just about being on the correct side of inter-management warfare.

There were a few exceptions. One manager cared about us enough to tell us not to stress about the impossible workload and schedule that upper management gave us, and told us to start with the highest priority items and do what we could and when we got to the unrealistic date we'd say we're done.

The absolute star of caring was our CEO who made it a condition of his new employment with a big company (that wanted him badly enough to agree to the stipulation) to buy our little company and keep all of us as employees. Unfortunately eventually during the Great Recession they let him go (with multi-million severance package), and it turned out that released them from having to keep us, but we got tiny severance packages (I got 4 months, I was thrilled).
 
Warrigal said:
My longest term of employment was teaching in a girls' Catholic school run by nuns. I had never met a nun in my life before that and I was pleasantly surprised to find myself welcomed and appreciated. The pastoral care of the girls was amazing and the same care was extended to the staff. The nuns had certainly absorbed the command to "love one another as I have loved you". I stayed there for 25 years, until I retired.
Click to expand...
Good grief you must have found the only teaching Nuns who aren't cruel beeches...
 
When you're being interviewed for a job, always make sure you as a job candidate you are interviewing and listening for answers as well. One potential boss said that his wife said that he's a hard person to work for. I decided to believe her. He was being honest so that was a plus. I never got a job offer there so maybe I looked hard to work with too. :ROFLMAO:

At another interview the potential boss smoked a smelly cigar all during the conversation as I sat at his desk. I wasn't worried because I was sure that I would not get offered the job. He called that day when I got back home and said I got the job. I was shocked and accepted the offer but then called back the next day and said I accepted another job offer (not true). so turned
that one down.
 

You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top