I beleive in give and take, flexibility in hours, etc.
Some days I gave more, but on others, a little less.
I agree that there isn't the comraderie, and sharing of talent between us that there used to be.
Here is a funny little note from my past, when helping a very senior adjustor at Otis- He used to have me spend more time for free, so he could mentor me. (NO, it wasn't Sandusky!) I asked my supervisior in service at the time- "How much time should I allow for this?", (which was my backhanded way of letting the supervisor know that I was being asked and expected to work over for free) The very next day, that adjustor got rid of me! The nerve of me asking such a question! How dare I even mention it.
Although that adjustor had many years of wrote memorization, he was rather plodding, and to me, seemed to possess no real talent. From his perspective, he probably thought his experience would be an immeasurable asset to my career, and I was supposed to be oh-so-grateful that he would bestow such honor upon me, as to spend his evening hours showing me how to paint-by-numbers, in his pedestrian way of wading through his work. He was well-known for thinking too highly of himself, and not really for any good reason. I mean, if you hang around any organization long enough, you can rise to your highest level of incompetence, if for no other reason, than sheer attrition! Learning from such a "master" is not really worth my time, or so I thought when I was in my cocky 20s. Yes, I learned from him. But no, I didn't think his skills were so valuable that I would donate my personal time. I'm a little easier now, that I'm in my early 50s, but back then, I was pretty tense, and didn't like to put up with bullsht in the least.
So you see, I wasn't always a "company man"!
But since I started this business, almost 17 years ago, I have worked harder than I EVER did, than when I worked for other companies. Looking back, I didn't really know what hard work was. I really had things very easy, when I was at Otis. Maybe we judge our working conditions with a skewed value system sometimes, and think we got things so bad. If not true for everybody, at least I think that was true for me. Young and dumb...
