I was wondering , if you will be ready to work fof an organisation that you oppose ideologically , for instance you are against big oil but you get a job interview in exxonmobil with good pay , would you consider it ?
*Edit : Recently a friend of mine got a marketing job for a company that had shady business practices , selling their product to gullible parents. Since it was a marketing job , the pay was good but my friend left it within a week , saying it does not suit his ideology.
No, but i am lucky to have the choice not too.
They cannot be corrupt and amoral in the same time. Please choose :)
I have worked for the last 6.5 years at a faith based credit union ($400MM in size) despite being an atheist. All of our meetings start with a prayer. They have been good up until recently where we’ve done more and more investment real estate lending and that doesn’t sit well with me with our housing crisis in the US. Have a 3rd interview with a regional bank ($14Bn in size) to move to more C&I and CRE loans instead of single family homes. I know they are still involved in it but I’m not going to be the one writing loans on investment properties. They also do a lot of affordable housing lending and community reinvestment in distressed areas.
Any chance the friend’s job was Vector Marketing or “Cutco” knives?
Ya fuck cutco knives. When I was a lot younger I applied to their ad. The idea of selling knives wasn’t a big deal to me. But then they wanted me to write down a list of every person I knew, and then go sell to them.
I said fuck that immediately and bailed. No way I’m intruding on my friends and family to make some other cunt money.
I worked for them for a couple of months in college before I knew better, very shady shit.
I work as a consultant so I’m always dealing with different customers. We had one client who operates payday loans. I refused to do any work for them and thankfully my company didn’t argue when I said I couldn’t morally work with them.
That said, I have a child with autism and I’m spending tens of thousands of dollars a year on getting him the help he needs. My companies insurance sucks and I saw a job posting at Raytheon I was a perfect fit for. I’m still conflicted on if I should apply just to get better insurance and help my family.
Imo do it. RTX does fine work. They don’t exist to scam people. The primary problem with them is how governments use their tech. Even so, without them we would in fact be worse off. In this case your family comes first.
In this case your family comes first
This is a great point. I’ve already decided to get out of Texas because of my family. For the longest time I refused to move because I felt like that was giving up. Especially since my district was pretty well split 50/50. However, the things that have happened over the last year have made me loss all hope. And there is no way in hell am I raising my daughter in a state that would put a bounty on her reproductive rights. What type of parent would I be if I didn’t do what was best for them?
Sincerely, thanks. I think I just needed to hear someone else say what you said.
Yeah, God, that’s a difficult position to be put in.
Sorry man - you shouldn’t have to make choices like that… if you do have to take it, I’d try to ease my concious by redirecting their money. Like, I did that when I had to work for a for-profit contract company staffing Australias social services. KPIs for welfare phone lines staffed by undertrained whoevers. They’d penalise us for taking the time to help vulnerable people. Disgusting company - left the second I could afford to. I put something aside for local mutual aids and environmental groups.
God man - I’m sorry, that just sucks.
Good luck. Hope you can avoid Raytheon.
I’m sorry you had to work for a place like that, but glad to hear you got out of it. I seriously cannot believe people who own/run companies can sleep at night.
Unless you’re supportive of the concept that you’re a non-capitalist drone working to make a capitalist rich… You already do
I think it’s more a question of where the line is. You virtually always have to compromise in at least some small ways.
Would you work for a company where the CEO is an outspoken bigot? What about a company that constructs weapons for the military that you know will be used to kill thousands? Or one of those scam call centers, where your entire job would be scamming the elderly? Or taking to even more extremes, what about a criminal gang where you may have to directly kill people? For that matter, what about indirectly killing people, like if your employer is a massive polluter?
Some of these I’m not even certain of my answer for. In my current situation, I’m well off and don’t need to worry much about pay and finding work is easy. But what if I was in a desperate situation, where I was struggling to find work that paid enough to sanely live on? I know I’d definitely have a lower threshold then, but where exactly it lies is hard to say when I’m not in such a situation.
It’s the same with boycotts. If you’re in poverty and the only close store is a Walmart, good luck boycotting them. You do the best you can within the means you have.
Nope! Already turned that real down decades ago.
Absolutely not. I have had recruiters contact me about “defense” (read: murder and imperialism) companies and flat out refused to even consider the jobs.
I hold the position that if I knowingly helped design a system that delivered a bomb which, for example, blew up someone’s wedding party, I would have to pay the murdered people’s families reparations out of what money I do have, and kill myself to atone for abetting that atrocity. Defense contractors are disgusting, I don’t know how they can delude themselves into doing their evil jobs and keep living with thr shame.
Earlier in my career I probably would have. These days I’m an executive… I have a lot more of a choice about where I work, and a big part of my job is representing the corporation and motivating a lot of folks to work hard together to get its mission accomplished.
I don’t think I could do that for a company that I thought was harmful or immoral, and I know I wouldn’t want to.
I try to avoid to it but no job will be perfect. You could life style creep and that nice salary turns into handcuffs and you might have issues going back to making less at a more ethical company
I was part of a group of people who got laid off from a small startup a few months ago. Many of us formed a discord group and have been supporting each other through the job hunt.
One guy who’s been at his job for about a week recently said this:
Many people have told me you shouldn’t take a job doing something that you love… That’s the main lesson I learned from getting laid off
You end up pouring all your energy into it. I wanna do something that I hate, and I’ll use that hate and anger to fuel something else 😈
It feels kinda good to look evil right in the face and put on a fake smile and say “yes I will take money from you to do bullshit work”
Yes, but I wouldn’t be very good. Just good enough to keep the job.
All Googlers say yes.
I say no personally and have been turning down jobs where I despise the company.
Should watch The Devil’s Advocate. Or The Firm.
depends if the offer lets me do some good in the company. if im just a worker who has no say in anything, then no
