I appreciate Packard’s sentiment, but believing your boss or management, at any level, is thinking about you *at all* as a worker is just an invitation to be exploited. No matter how positive your relationship with them is, do not lose that adversarial tension. https://twitter.com/EylerWerve/status/1199425670721474561

That tension was considered normal/necessary/healthy in my union household as a child. The sky is blue & mgmt is trying to f- you. Now I’ve spent my entire adult life in the corporate world, if I talk like this out loud in the workplace I promise you there would be audible gasps.

I have heard these responses from EMPLOYEES, “that’s not ok, we’re a family here”, “so you’re just in it for the money?”, “we’re treated so well,” “that’s kind of insulting to your boss isn’t it?” It’s brainwashing.

Respect your boss, appreciate your boss, but they’re your boss. You have to remember, deep down, that you are not on the same team, you simply have mutual and aligned interests _for now_. At any given moment you are, at best, in a state of delicate detente.

It is not unhealthy, unproductive, or wrong to believe your relationship with mgmt is adversarial. You don’t have to be loud about it or acknowledge it publicly, just don’t *lose* it. Corporations _will_ try to brainwash you out of it, because it’s in their best interest to do so