In one of my ‘mid-life crisis’ moods, I Googled the phrase “Do I need to be passionate about my company?” It was almost as if (God-like) Google read my mind, because the following link appeared at the top of the list of search results:
The article really hit the nail on the head. Across the five (5) companies that I have worked for in the past 13½ years, I have never once been passionate about the products and services they sell – be it light-emitting diodes, mobile phone cameras, cigarettes, conveyors, robots, petroleum or soft drinks. I don’t get all hyped-up about brands (unlike some of my colleagues, whom I personally deem to be neurotics). I just happened to enjoy doing the stuff I did at work, and I did my job well because I liked it – plain and simple. And once I stopped enjoying it, or when assholes at the workplace made the job no longer enjoyable, I just moved on. So, does that make me a bad employee?
Thankfully, a number of my friends agree with my viewpoint. It’s nice to know that I am not alone on this. Honestly, for a while, I thought I was the only disloyal bastard who – time and again – was “not with the team”, just because I happen not to go all ga-ga about the companies I work(ed) for, and their products and services. I work for a company because I enjoy the job that it offers, and not because I get a hard-on over its brands.
Quite frankly, I find those people who chime those sickening “Ooh, I love my brand so much” theatrics so fuggin’ fake – and especially so when the product in question is about as exciting as toilet paper (no offence intended towards toilet paper manufacturers). Let’s see them continue to wax lyrical when they switch companies or, better still, if they jump ship over to a competitor. I would be the first to ask them, “So, I take it you decided to file for divorce so that you can sleep with the enemy, huh?”
To my current and prospective employers: When you decide to hire me, please do so because you deem me as someone capable of doing a good job within your company, and not because you think I am someone who is madly in love with your company’s brand and products/services. The latter is not a prerequisite for the former. And between the two, I think you know which of the two is the more important trait you would want in an employee.
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