Is it normal to not care about the company that you work for?

16 comments

1. Your self talk tends to sink down deeper over time and will grow into attitudes.

   It is better for your happiness to have a positive attitude about your job.

   Otherwise I think it is normal to care about doing a good job, like you do, but not otherwise being emotionally attached to a company

2. Just my take, I think it’s weird to care about the company you work for.

   I’ll do what they’re paying me for, to the best of my ability. But no, I don’t actually care about the company. Someday I’ll have a different job, and this one will only exist in some irrelevant, barely-remembered corner of my memory.

3. Not toxic. This is a pretty classic situation. If you’ve never watched the movie “Office Space”, I would suggest it.

   If your pay structure doesn’t align what gets you paid with “what’s good for the company”, then that’s their fault. Compensation drives behavior.

4. It depends. Does success of the company translate to your own benefit? For example, is any of your compensation in stock? If so, then its in your self-interest to care. There are other possible reasons you may care. Like maybe the company provides some good to society? If nothing like that is true and you simply get paid to do a thing, then it is rational not to care.

5. Totally normal.

   Why would you care? We live in a capitalist society, not an altruistic Utopia. Workers are treated as disposable, interchangeable units of labor. We don’t work for the good of society, we work for a paycheck. That’s simply how the system is set up.

   If you’re working for a non-profit or a charity, fine. There’s a higher cause. But let’s be realistic. In the corporate sector, it’s all about the bottom line. People forget that this should be as true for the workers as it is for the shareholders. It’s certainly about business for them. It should be about business for you, too.

   Anyone who tries you to convince you otherwise is either trying to squeeze you for more than you’re being paid, *or* they are squeezing themselves in order to climb the ladder and they want to feel better about it by pushing that expectation off on others.

6. I think it’s normal, but it’s not ideal. I’ve worked at jobs where I didn’t care about the company….those weren’t the best jobs I’ve had.

   I’ve also had jobs where I believed in their mission, thought they were doing good work, and I also had stock options that gave me a stake in the outcome. Those jobs were among the better I’ve had.

7. Most employees don’t give a crap, you’re fine

8. Not toxic.

   1. It’s a thing you say at work. Your boss is there to lead a team. Spreading around cynicism, justified or not, isn’t the best way to motivate.

   2. You spend a significant portion of your waking hours at work with your coworkers. To the extent the success of the company is the result of, and benefits, people you like, that’s a normal attitude.

   3. You don’t say what your company does. It might legitimately be cool.

   4. Whatever your view towards the working world in general, you kind of have to root for your company because if it fails, you’re out of a job.

   5. Some people just have a positive attitude.

   You could say I care about the company I work for. The benefits are good, upper management seems like they know what they’re doing, the expectations for me are reasonable and clear, I like my coworkers. So yeah, I want the company to do well so I can keep those things.

9. There are a lot of ways to look at it.

   When I was running a team, I thought that doing what’s best for my team was the same thing as doing what’s best for the company. If those two things ever diverged, then I would start looking for a new job.

   But, on an individual level, it really depends on the company. I have worked for organizations I really believed in, and had bosses who made me want to make sacrifices for them b/c they were so fucking awesome and really looked out for us.

   It’s so dependent on the company itself, its mission, its leadership, etc.

   But is it normal to not care? Yeah, it’s probably more common.

10. I own the company I work for and I barely give a shit about it.

11. If it’s an employee owned company then I’d care. Other than that, it’s just a job and there isn’t loyalty on either side.

12. Your boss is trained for Interpersonal Communication, and the management style he’s following is motivational and “group think”. It’s a trained method that involves “unity” and what he’s attempting to convey is power through unity.
    The reason why it’s not working for you, is because you are disengaged and when you don’t verbiage this back to him through speaking or communication or just engagement in general — it becomes obvious to management that you are not engaged or interested.
    It’s WHY ass kissing useless people are promoted so quickly and efficiently, because they repeat exactly what the environment is calling for.

13. I’ve barely survived round after round of layoffs. I learned long ago that the company doesn’t care about me. Why should I care about the company?

14. Why would anyone care about the company the work for, unless they’re also part owners?

    I do actually care a bit about my immediate coworkers but the company as a whole means nothing to me.

15. If you do a good job nobody gives a shit including your boss. I had a boss tell me one time “It’s a god-given right to bitch about your boss. If people do their job, I don’t give a shit.”

16. Yes. Your *team* may matter, but the company at large can mean nothing at all. No shame in admitting that degrees of separation create distance, and given enough distance, any company is much the same as another.