Hey, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of Call Me Donovan. It's been a while, but
something happened this week, recently. Matter of fact, yesterday, as I'm recording this
on March 11th, that has really got me thinking about things. And one thing in particular,
and that is, I don't know what I was going to say is, I'm not saying, I'm talking about
the type of loyalty to the point where it's dangerous, like, well, the dumb fucks that are
loyal to Donald Trump, but more to the point of loyalty to a friend's significant others,
business associates, that type of thing. And I don't know why I keep getting caught in this,
I guess, paradoxical mindset that I believe that everyone is, I don't know, believes in a certain
level of loyalty like I do. The old adage, no good deed goes unpunished. And I keep feeling like
I am living that over and over and over, almost like my own personal groundhog day
hell. I don't know. Maybe I just like to be too optimistic. Maybe I'm just too fucking gullible.
Maybe that's what it is. Let me see if I can talk about this a little bit without giving it away.
So in essence, I had a business relationship with a particular company, client, whatever you
want to call it, for about 10 years, a decade. And I have done, in my own personal view,
I have done everything I possibly can, bent over backwards to ensure that I provide or provided the
very best service to this business that I possibly could. Sometimes doing some things even outside the
scope of what really should have been part of the services that I offered. And no, not
that, get your mind out of the gut or nothing like that. And so for a decade's worth of my loyalty
to them, I find out yesterday that my loyalty is being thanked, is being rewarded by losing them
as a client. It's the stereotypical, it's not you, it's us. And don't get me wrong. I'm not mad at
these people. I still believe that they are good people. But where's the loyalty? And what I mean
by that is give me an opportunity to address whatever it is that is making you make a decision to cut me
out of this business relationship of a decade. Give me that opportunity. Explain to me what it is
that I might can potentially address. But no, I was not, I was not provided that courtesy. And, you know,
I can, I can kind of see that they, and I believe when they said that they, they didn't make this
decision lightly, but it, that doesn't make it sting any less, you know, because I have devoted a
decade to ensuring that they could continue to do their business, that their technology would continue
to work as best as I could possibly make it work. And during the entire thing, I learned a great deal
about a particular sect of business, a particular vertical, if you will, than I ever knew before.
Will I be able to parlay that into something else? I have no idea. And I truly believe they felt bad
telling me this information. But at the same time, I'm still a little irked that apparently loyalty
does not matter. It's not personal. It's just business. I hate that line. That is such a bullshit line
because you can't separate those two things. In my mind, either I did something or haven't done
something for them that I have not been made aware of that facilitated them to start looking at the
business relationship and making a change. Therefore, it is personal. Now, it may not be personal in the
sense of, well, they don't like the way I look. They don't like the way I speak. They don't like my
politics, et cetera, et cetera, which, you know, I make it a rule to try my best never to discuss religion
and politics with customers. Because the services that I offer don't necessarily have anything to do
with any of that, my politics or religion. But when you make a statement that it's purely a business
decision, that's not entirely true, at least in my opinion. We all make choices based on certain
factors. And if you decide to take your business away from one company and go to another company,
then what is it about the first company that you personally didn't like? Was it the cost? Well,
if that's the case, then let's have a conversation and let's see if we can come to a mutually beneficial
arrangement. But that's not what happened. And again, don't get me wrong. I still think they're
great people. I just personally think that they're shitty when it comes to loyalty. I'm finding in my life
that there are very, very few people that will maintain loyalty to the degree that it might start
impacting them negatively. And I get that. You know, I have my own family and bills and things like
that that I need that that I'm responsible for that I need to take care of. It's not anybody else's
problem. So for someone to be loyal to the level that they jeopardize their job, I don't expect that.
When I was terminated back in 2012 from a job that I had been in for 13 years and I had envisioned myself
actually retiring with this company and then to find that nobody would stand up and speak for me.
Well, that was very eye opening. Granted, I didn't want them to, you know, throw down the gauntlet and
say, well, if you if you don't keep him on, reverse this firing, then we're all leaving. No, I didn't
expect that. But I did kind of expect a little bit of pushback saying, you know, hey, how about not
firing him? But I don't know, probation or can you have a conversation? Can he apologize for whatever
it is that you feel like that he's done that that you have a grievance against, et cetera, et cetera.
But no, none of that happened. Just walk in one morning and within an hour, I'm out from a job that
I had loved. It was my dream job. I suppose at the end of the day, none of us are guaranteed anything.
We make the lives that we want for us and those that depend on us and those that we love
to the best of our ability. And we just trudge forward. But I got to be honest, I am starting to
and this is not to say that I was ever a very, very, very trusting person, but I am starting to become
that person that trusts nothing and no one. Because if you're not given the opportunity
to right a wrong that you weren't even aware. And again, I'm not saying that's what this was.
I don't know. But that that level of loyalty that I thought was there was proven to me yesterday
that it's not, which has unfortunately made me start to reevaluate all of my business relationships,
not so much my friendships, but my business relationships. Because I like to become friends
with the people that I do business with, the clients that I have, that I provide services to.
And I'm starting to find out that that's probably not the best thing to do. Because once this
transitional period is over with, as this particular client moves from me to this new company,
I will probably never, ever see these people again. And that's not something that I thought
would happen. I thought we would be together until I retired, but I guess not. So that's enough
bitching and whining, I suppose. I just needed to get that off my chest. Again, like I say,
I'm not naming this company. I still think they're great people. I just don't like the situation.
and I don't like the fact that I wasn't given an opportunity to address whatever instigated the
need to shut down a business relationship of a decade, even though I was told we couldn't have
asked for a better person to handle our technology needs. Okay. But yet, apparently you've found somebody
better. I don't know how, I don't think there's any other way that I can take that, you know?
Anyway, that's going to wrap that up. Let me know if you've ever run into this type of situation.
And what do you think about loyalty? Am I, am I just completely off base and I expected too much?
Am I just whining like a little bitch and I need to get over it? That's probably it, but let me know.
Email me, don at callmedonovan.com. Again, that's don at callmedonovan.com. I hope you and
yours are doing well. Take care of yourselves and we'll talk soon.
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