It’s no secret that I detest coming into the office and being part of the “working-professional” crowd. Although I do make more money from “white collar” activities than blue-collar ones, there’s a lot of baggage that comes along with it.
If I really was part of the ruling party’s internet brigade and making the billions that people assume I am making, I would never set foot in the office unless seduced by one of the sexy things that I see on the streets of Shenton Way.
However, I’ve reached the age at which I know what fantasies are just that, and I do my best to stay away from things that will cause me unnecessary stress without criminal compensation.
An office is a cesspit for the worst type of human interaction. Very little actual work gets done inside an office, and you end up breathing plenty of hot air on things like loyalty, values, and culture by the people who have placed you under a bus.
However, I live in a city obsessed with corporate success. I seem to be in the minority. Given that the largest landlord in Singapore is the government, you cannot escape being bombarded with messages about how essential the office is to your daily life.
One of the most interesting messages has come from an article in the TODAY newspaper by Emma Jacobs who writes for the Financial Times:
While I believe Ms Jacobs made an interesting point, I’ve reached a stage in life where I tend to wince when people talk about “loyalty”. The reason is simple – the word “loyalty” has been misused to the point of becoming meaningless.
A few days before TODAY published Ms Jacobs’s article, we had Mike Pence, former US Vice-President, saying that his ex-boss was “wrong” when it came to his constitutional role in the 2020 election. This was a stunning act of “disloyalty” from a man who had previously been regarded as someone who was “loyal to a fault.”
What happened? How did such a “loyal” man turn “disloyal”? Well, it turned out that the man he spent four years of his life being exceedingly loyal to, had thrown him under the bus at a crucial moment when he had to be loyal to something more important than his boss – the law. The result of trying to be law-abiding was to have his former boss send a mob after him, who set up a noose and proudly declared they intended to hang him.
His former boss believed that it was common sense to send a mob after him, and one has to question why Mr Pence took so long to disagree openly with his boss after being on the receiving end of a murder attempt:
Sadly, Mr Pence’s experience is merely the most visible and dramatic example of how an “underling’s” loyalty is often abused. Underlings are constantly reminded to be loyal to those above them.
Think of how many times one is told that you have to be loyal to your employer because your livelihood depends on it. In small corporatist societies like Singapore, we are told that we need to be “loyal” citizens to the government that brought us all the good things we apparently enjoy.
The narrative on loyalty is a one-way street and while Ms Jacobs clearly has a loyalty to her social life around the office, one has to ask if she’s enforcing the message that we plebs at the bottom of the heap should be grateful for the scraps that get thrown to us.
Let’s face it, corporations will happily trade a worker for a cheaper version or a machine that does not require lunch breaks, overtime pay or chatter about work-life balance.
However much a corporation talks about caring for employees, the ultimate duty of the leadership is to the bottom line and what they can pay shareholders. Everybody in a job needs to understand that the job is a business transaction.
You are being paid to do a certain set of tasks. The message: “Be loyal to me and I will look after you and your loved ones” never actually existed. A job is an employment contract, not a marriage.
What is true of corporations is also true of governments. The only difference is the currency. Businesses are primarily about making money. Governments are interested in power. In a totalitarian system, the government will expect you to support it with your sweat and labour. In a democracy, they want your vote.
Take Chinese history, for example. Confucius, who lived in ancient China, talked about an ancient era where loyal citizens were looked after by benevolent kings. Think about it, the era where this took place was ancient man’s ancient times.
We have been so conditioned to think of loyalty as a bottom-up affair. However, has anyone ever questioned this? Shouldn’t it be a top-down affair, when people at the top had loyalty to the people at the bottom?
Contrary to what the late John F Kennedy said, you should be asking what your country has ever done for you. Instead of worrying about hybrid work models weakening corporate loyalty, Ms Jacobs should actually be encouraging governments and corporations to remember that loyalty is a two-way street.
A version of this article first appeared at beautifullyincoherent.blogspot.com