> A fellowship is "a group of people that join together for a common purpose or interest".
You're very explicitly not describing a job or a company here, as most of them exist today. For all the comparisons to the LoTR trilogy, almost none of us here are working on anything that impactful, or anything that important, and neither are our employers. Most of us are going to show up to work tomorrow and work on another endpoint in a CRUD app, not combat an existential threat.
> If you put other things above your fellows and mission, you're a mercenary, not a fellow.
Yeah, man - I am a mercenary. I joined my currently employer because they are paying me money in exchange for the services I provide them.
I can’t comprehend why someone would submit themselves so hard to the American corporate rhetoric.
A workplace is neither a family, nor a fellowship. It should not be the center of your life, and certainly not something to fully submit yourself to.
In that sense, I like the mercenary analogy very much.
Lifestyle business is where you want to be to have band of brothers or fellowship ideology and rhetoric. DHH has always been a proponent of lifestyle business.
In the corporate world fellowship is rarely discussed and for good reason. I don’t believe most people are blinded by corporate rhetoric; some genuinely want to participate in missions and want to find others who think similarly.
Certainly, but in the vast majority of cases where the company tells you you've joined a fellowship, that fellowship is very one-sided, and the company wants your loyalty while giving you none in return.
That's what the GP is cautioning against, and that's overwhelmingly the rule today. If you do find a company that treats its employees like a family and cares about them enough to keep them employed during (the employee's) hardship, that's a valuable thing indeed.
I think my point is that some lifestyle companies (basecamp’s one of the originals) want to be a fellowship because they see the ideological joining together in shared mission and culture as a valuable thing. I think it is valuable to people who want to experience more band of brothers in their work.
Most companies are mercenaries and most companies are okay with that. Also most individuals are mercenaries and are fine with it as well.
Upon more reflection I do think the ability for fellowship to suppress infighting via mission driven self sacrifice is more of a fantasy rather than a practical application in real world companies. That’s the function of pay and org structure in most other orgs.
You're very explicitly not describing a job or a company here, as most of them exist today. For all the comparisons to the LoTR trilogy, almost none of us here are working on anything that impactful, or anything that important, and neither are our employers. Most of us are going to show up to work tomorrow and work on another endpoint in a CRUD app, not combat an existential threat.
> If you put other things above your fellows and mission, you're a mercenary, not a fellow.
Yeah, man - I am a mercenary. I joined my currently employer because they are paying me money in exchange for the services I provide them.