You are an Employee ID, and you leave or die, you will be replaced with another Employee ID and the company will continue on.
Mom retired from her job she'd been at for 40 years and expected them to just fall apart without her. They hired a replacement and carried on just fine.
Her coworker, the Production Manager died at his desk in his 70s. Very sad for a moment, and then they replaced him.
Unless it's your company, it doesn't matter how "important" you are. We are all cogs in the machinery.
Mom retired from her job she'd been at for 40 years and expected them to just fall apart without her. They hired a replacement and carried on just fine.
Truth. My mom had a colleague "Jerry" who worked at the same school for 48 years. He was a teacher for 45 years and then, when that got to be too much, ran the school's a/v department for three years. Then, he decided to retire. Everyone said, "Oh, we won't be able live without you" and other similar sentiments. He'd just laugh and say, "Next year, people will say 'Jerry who?'" and while it didn't happen the following year, the year after that Jerry was, honestly, all but forgotten except by a couple of old timers at the school. Time marches on...
Chris Rock has a bit about this, how he tells his kids before they leave for school, "outside this house, nobody gives a fuck about you, no one thinks you're cute or funny ... even some people IN this house don't!"
I'm a local public figure I had a really rough time four years ago and ended up in the hospital then going to rehab. I was overly concerned about what people thought why I disappeared, and wondered how it was going to go interacting with everyone involved with my job upon my return to my "new normal" life.
No one gave a shit, no one acted like I was gone. I was so relieved everyone truly didn't give it a sefond thought and/or were respecting my privacy.
After about two years and reflecting on the return, I asked my wife, "What does work know? What do people know?"
This for sure hit me early forties. Trying to get my spouse to see it too. Sounds corny but if you take care of those around you, hopefully family is the most important thing
This exactly. Sure, family can ignore you too, but for the most part there is greater loyalty than with a random friend. I often see on Reddit older singles asking who will be there for them, and responses will say make new friends you can rely on to help you. Well, people are busy and have limited time/energy, and what they do have they give to their families first. You can't rely on that. As I've gotten older many of my friends have fallen away but my family remains loyal.
Good one. In my twenties I used to think a lot of positive business talk actually amounted to care and actively interested in the why and how you do stuff. It's all just gas.
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u/Altruistic-Ideal-277 9h ago
Nobody really cares about you outside immediate family and you are just a cog in the wheel.