What kept me at Nike all these years, among other things, was that I had a sense of stability in my job. Since last year however, I no longer have that sense of stability. I talked to my colleagues about it and I was surprised that there are still some who believe they are safe. Honestly, how safe do you think your job is here?
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In a capitalistic society, working for any profit-driven company, there is no "safe" unless you are the owner or the CEO. Seriously, what does "safe" mean anyway? Indefinitely safe from being managed out? Safe from an inevitable bad reorg that ends up having you report to a new terrible manager who makes you want to quit? Safe from a year of sharp revenue declines that will require major headcount cutbacks?
The people who behave and work like they are "safe" are often (but not always) the ones who are complacent and coasting along blissfully unaware that they are actually high on the list to be managed out.
There is no clear criteria for being "safe". Recent hire? Sure you're less expensive but you also have the least amount of embedded value. Long timer? Your vast experience might be helpful to the company but you're also the most expensive cost to the headcount budget. Protected by an influential VP? Only as long as you can maintain their favor or until they're taken out by mercurial leadership whim.
I treat every month like it could be my last and have to re-prove my worth to the company by delivering more value in new ways all the time. Do I like having to work crazy long hours and playing the endless politics and mindless hours of PPT presentations? Absolutely not, but after 14 years I can't say I've screwed things up so far. I still will have limited surprise if I'm laid off for some totally random reason that will not have anything to do with my performance. For all I know a VP could wake up with bad gas and decide to eliminate my team and that will just be the hard knocks of life. I have sold a piece of my soul to Nike for a salary for as long as I'm employed. I'll live with that bargain and I've grown numb to the worry about how tenuous any of our career paths may be.
Safe is just a convenient fiction to mask the fear of reality. I prefer to embrace the cynicism and accept that we are imminently replaceable, undeniably unimportant in the big picture and little more than an entry in an HR database as far as Nike is concerned. Spin in the hamster wheel as long as possible and just hope for best but be prepared for the worst.
Eh, in the private sector your job is never safe anywhere.
Everyone here used to have a pretty good idea how safe their job was. You more or less knew how valuable you were and how much your work was needed. That has now all changed and we saw it in the last layoff when high performers who performed critical work were let go for no obvious reason. In my group we even ended up having to hire new people to replace some who never should have been let go to begin with. It made no sense whatsoever. Whatever criteria Nike uses to get rid of people it seems to be a closely guarded secret, to be indiscriminate, and to often make no sense. This is why NO ONE should ever think “They wouldn’t get rid of me.” Sure they would. If it does happen don’t try to make any sense of it. There’s a good chance you’ll never know why you were randomly selected.