Disloyalty Rewarded

Something has gotten on my nerves at work over the past few months. To provide you a little background, I work in a job that requires quite a bit of travel. Most folks who take the job are right out of college and they love it, for about 2 years. After that they begin to realize what an incredible drain being on the road all the time can be on ones life. It's tough to maintain friendships when you're never home. Try keeping a significant other happy when you only see them a 3rd of the year. That being said, I have been doing this job for almost 11 years. I love it, it's hard, but I love it. You can ask my friends, The Hubby, or my family…they've never seen me happier than when I'm enjoying my job. Of course you can also ask them how much they hate me being gone so much.

You miss out on things. I didn't see my newborn niece till after she was a year old. I missed being home for my 40th birthday. That's something my mother will never let me forget. Apparently they had all planned something rather large for it. Tod will probably never let me live down that it was my jobs fault we couldn't all go on a cruise for he and Scott's 50th Birthday. But you do what you gotta do when you love your job. It's far too easy to hate your job and I know a lot of people who do.

Anyway that isn't exactly what this post is about. Our department is pretty strapped in terms of staffing at work. Many times we wind up traveling with people who usually don't travel and it's a pain because they don't know how the "onsite" world works.

So, when someone decides they have had enough and decide to leave their job it's very easy to understand why they would want to look for other employment. What has me ticked off about it is invariably lots of these folks wind up coming back. They get out into the "Real" world of 9 to 5 employment and find it isn't all it's cracked up to be. Of course, they are welcomed back with open arms and sometimes a pay increase to help them stay put.

In other cases, one came up just this week, a fellow employee tenders their resignation and then suddenly are offered more money to stay. He hasn't accepted the offer yet, but I'm pretty sure he will. Taking the other job would increase his commute by about an hour.

I understand from a business perspective that it's a good idea for management to work to keep the experienced people they have. What gets me is that they are rewarding the wrong people. They are greasing the palms of the rats that are ready to jump ship. With the economy the way it's been few people at work have seen raises in over 2 years. For management to throw money at someone ready to leave rather then to the loyal folks who have spent years serving the company leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Makes me wonder if I should walk into my managers office, drop off my letter of resignation and see what happens. I know it's certainly going to be a topic I bring up during my performance review.