Up until COVID-19 pandemic, I had a normal job going to an office. Since then, I’ve been working from home. My routine, back in the days, was to stop in a nearby bakery to have breakfast before heading to the office. Nothing special.
This year, we had an end of year celebration in the office. I decided to go back to this same bakery that I used to go 4 years ago. To my absolute surprise, I could recognize 5 out of the 6 employees that were there that morning. I was shocked.
- How can this bakery have such a low turnover?
- Am I getting crazy in expecting this bakery to have a higher turnover rate?
In the tech industry, we often talk about companies having competitive advantages, what to do to have an inspiring and motivating environment to retain some of the talent. I desperately want to go back to that bakery to talk to its owner and its employees about it.
I take that as a reminder to how ambitious can be different for some group of people. I have plenty of examples in my family of that too. I sometimes wish I didn’t have this bittersweet taste in my mouth of always looking for the “next step”, “next level” or whatever that might be. Can’t one be simply ok of where it is and, you know, mentally settle?