On Loyalty to Objects and Jobs

A reader asks me to explain what I mean when I say I’m “loyal” to something. She points out I have used the term in reference to purses [The Commitment, 8/17/10] and jobs [If I Just Worked Harder, 9/6/10]. I think about this. It’s true that I usually connect loyalty to humans somehow. Have I endowed objects with personhood status? The stuffed animals that hang out in my bedroom because I don’t want to hurt their feelings by packing them away would answer unequivocally “yes.” You’re invited to laugh aloud at that revelation. But the animals and what they represent are perhaps a different issue to be addressed in another post.

Maybe being loyal to something like a purse is more about not getting sick of things easily. “Fickle” would never be an adjective applied to me. I find a purse I like and I still like it even when it’s falling apart and I’m forced by pride or my daughter to replace it. My daughter and probably many people would argue that wanting more than one of some items doesn’t mean they stopped liking others in their collection. They just want more than one for variety. For me, a variety of purses represents pressure to change them to match whatever I’m wearing. I never save time enough to think about things like that nor is it something that’s important to me so a last minute change inevitably means I don’t have something I need because it’s in the “other” purse.

There are other items that (for me) fall in the “don’t need more than one or two” or “don’t need new until the old falls apart” categories. Things like shoes.... coats…. linens….nightgowns….. I don’t replace electronics until the old stops working and the parts are no longer made (well, maybe that’s a slight exaggeration but not much). I’m the first to admit these distinctions do not necessarily make logical sense. You perhaps have your own list.

With respect to loyalty and jobs, I’ve never started a job thinking of it as a stepping stone to somewhere else. I settle in, want to learn the ropes, and want to contribute to and be part of the team. Then I get attached to the people and in most instances, to the work itself. I don’t start out loyal, but I become loyal. In at least a few instances, I’ve stayed past the start of boredom – afraid of change, feeling stuck, not wanting to let my colleagues down by interrupting the status quo. Perhaps in some cases, I have deluded myself into believing that my presence is required. That’s yet another issue. Nonetheless, in two seven-year stints, I stayed at jobs until, due to mergers, I had to leave. And at that point, I found myself in positions of desperate fear that I wouldn’t find another job, and when I did, I acquiesced without question to the less than desirable terms that someone else had determined. The ‘one step forward, two backwards’ phenomenon that kept me struggling financially for so many years contributed to my need to acquire once I was able to do so. I was going to acquire under my terms and nobody (least of all me) was going to say “no.”

Next up… more about working hard and self-worth.