Friendship vs Employer

I got into a Facebook argument tonight: can one be a friend to one’s employer. The consensus was no. I disagreed. I’m friends with my current boss and yet consider him a friend. I’ve been friends with past managers and am friends with them to this day. I can respect my leader, do what I’m told, and still be his friend.

Why?

Because I can be both. As can he. We can talk to each other, confide in one another, and rely on one another. He tells me what I have to do. I do it. I love him as my friend, yet respect his authority. I make him money, he pays me well, and what I post on Facebook I never have to worry that he’ll see it. The argumentor (if that’s a proper word) of this discussion said that his employee called in sick, needed a day off despite his boss’s dire needs – and posted his party habits on Facebook. Call in sick, party till the cows come home, and wonder why he’s been fired.

Duh.

In my years at this career, not just this job, I’ve called in sick twice. In almost thirteen years of working this job, I called in sick that much. I went to work after a root canal when my boss (my friend) called and said he really needed me. I’m ok, I replied. I went to work that afternoon. I called in sick on a day I couldn’t work anyhow – it rained puppies and kittens. Can’t work in that pouring rain, anyway. I called in sick a few years ago when I ran a fever so high I shook under a blanket and three cats. How chilled does a body have to be when a blanket and three cats can’t warm you? That was the last time I called in sick, by the by.

I’ve left work early due to migraines, allergy illness, or just feeling unwell. But I did get most of my work done before I left. What I didn’t do I finished up the next day. Ask my employer if he wishes he hadn’t hired me – sight unseen, based on someone else’s recommendation. Go ahead. Ask him. You can find him easily at SODA.com. He knows I’ll always be straight with him, as I know he’ll always be straight with me. But why do I have to discuss this? Why should such a subject be needed at all?

Because some folks have no honor. No code. No loyalty. They lie, call in sick, and party like the world ends tomorrow. Are they stupid? Do they think their employers are? Come on, people! Let’s get real. You aren’t hiding anything. People know. People talk. Word spreads like a wildfire in a pine-beetle killed forest. Your boss knows exactly what you’re doing whether you post it on Facebook or not. Someone out there in the land called reality knows what you’re doing. As does that man that pays you.

This might apply in my own Katie-world. No, I hide nothing from my liege lord. But someone out there is keeping tabs on those who do wrong. Those who spread rumors from spite and insecurity. Eyes watch. Notes kept. Answers demanded. Maybe not now. Perhaps not even tomorrow. But one day that account with be called. And who will answer?

Those that don’t fear the call.