It wasn’t that long ago when it was perfectly normal to be with the same company for one’s entire working life. But there seems to be this notion now, wrong-headed in my view, that anyone who stays put for more than 2 or 3 years must be failing in some way.

“Where’s the man’s ambition?”

“Why has she been stuck at the same place for that long?”

How foolish. Imagine poor T.S. Eliot in about 1930:

“You’ve been at Fabers for how long?? You’ll never amount to much if you stay there any longer. Move on, my boy, move on!”

But it doesn’t seem to have done him any harm.

I will concede though that we live in a different age now. Many would give an arm and a leg to be able to hold onto a job for that long. For them it’s not down to choice - it’s a circumstance forced upon them by the current economic climate, or by a decision made by senior management ‘in the best interests of the company’.

It’s great when you hear of compassionate companies who fight for all they’re worth to keep their staff, because they understand that these are real people simply trying to pay their way in life, without whom the company would be nothing.

But to those who just do the bean counting and see staff not as people but as costs eating into profit margins, or to those who always put shareholders first, well, a plague on both your houses!