Forcing people to work and not pay them is slavery!
Forcing people to work and not pay them is slavery!
But I don't think I was wrong. Work is fundamentally a business transaction; I sell my time and expertise and they give me money and benefits. Ultimately for any job I've had, even jobs that I really loved, if they stopped paying me I'd stop showing up [1]. It's nothing personal, that's just the transaction that I agreed to.
If I had some bloviating wannabe-demagogue telling me that I should keep working and to not expect backpay, I am quite confident that I would quit, or at least keep calling in sick. I am not going to blame anyone who would do the same. I have no fucking idea why half the country voted for this.
[1] This has actually been tested for one job.
It's like telling your girlfriend you're dating her because she's really hot. I'm sure that factored in, but she might get annoyed if that's the only reason you can come up with.
Again, to be clear, I said all this at the time.
I don't think the hot girlfriend analogy applies in this case; if I had a hot girlfriend and she stops being hot, if I liked her I probably wouldn't up and leave her. If a company stops paying, I will absolutely leave.
My point is that if you go around and tell everyone at work that you're doing it because of the money, you're... not coming off particularly well? A statement like that comes off a bit odd and socially tone-deaf? And yes, I understand that it's true that you would quit your job if they stopped paying you, but things can be true and still not a great idea to say out loud. It can be an objective fact that my manager is ugly; it's not a good idea to say this during a meeting.
It wasn’t like I just blurted it out when people were deciding which database to use, it was relevant to the discussion. I can’t remember the exact conversation but IIRC we were having trouble hiring someone for a role and the topic of compensation came up. I felt my comment was relevant, and I genuinely didn’t even consider that people would have issue with it because I thought it was borderline tautological.