On True Believers and Mercenaries

hydrick.net

2 points·warrenm··4 comments

Very funny to see "wanting to be paid for, and do work both parties agreed to" as "mercenary", as opposed to "making personal sacrifices for the company" being labeled "true believers", when there's little compensation difference for being in one group or the other, so detached from the "owner" against "worker" reality.

I find the "true believers" tend to be the only ones (if any) who are promoted from within ...and it's almost always because of the little flourishes they attach to their work

I'd also say the work ethic of both types of workers is often identically-sampled (ie there are "hard workers" among both camps): the "mercenaries" just happen to cut their day off when they're "supposed" to far more often than the "true believers" will

Yes, it's a type of organization problem, not a work-ethics problem, those with no incentive to work hard may not, a salaried position, with no stock, no voice in the thing you're building, no career track with actual monetary gains, no (edit: paid) overtime, no vacations, all of these can cause people not to do more than they are required, but most of what I can see being tried is "ping pong table for the team", "free pizza day", "don't ~quiet quit~, you mercenary".

Another definition of a "true believer": a person who doesn't value his time, is eager to give it away for free for his boss, and who doesn't know of or have anything better. But typically (and hopefully) after 10 years of such pointless sacrifice, and/or getting a family, such person gets to his senses, i.e., becomes a "mercenary", instead of turning into grumpy and cynical old fart.

The corporate bullshitters meanwhile do everything to provide a reason ("family", "mission"), so they could squeeze all the juice of the young and naive.

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