Loyalty Anyone?

I was at the bank last week and at the end of my transaction the teller said to me,"You have been a customer here for 25 years. Thanks for your loyalty." I thought that was funny because I have had the same acct number for the last 25 years but I haven't had the same bank for 25 years. The bank I think has changed names at least 3 times. Which in this day an age is probably not a lot. Then I started thinking about other things that I have done the same for a long time. I mean the cell phone company we use can't believe we have been customers for 18 years. But again, we have had the same acct but the company has changed 3 times. All of this seems ordinary for me to have been doing things the same way for a long time but I guess to others it isn't the norm.

Even talking to a Financial Adviser about refinancing my house I only assumed that I would refinance with the same company that our home has been financed with for the last 13 years. He recommended shopping around. I understand I could possibly get a better price but the thing is I am used to the level of service I get now. That might change and I don't want to change just to save a few percentage points, do I? Then I thought would this person recommend me shopping around for a new adviser? Probably not.

My first full time job I worked for the same company for over 20 years. I worked many different jobs within the company and would still be there if it wasn't for a buy out and the corporate office moving out of state. I have joked that no one ever told me I was supposed to quit my first job. So I waited for them to quit me. I am sure the company I work for now like every other one I have ever worked for I will not leave til they quit me which should make many happy. And I am sure the company I work for wouldn't recommend you shopping around for a new cable provider. I am sure my insurance agent of God knows how many years who worked with my mom and grandmother wouldn't want me to change either.

Yet for some reason now a days people change cell phone carriers every other year and jobs just as often. One thing I learned when I was about 20 years old from one of my best friends who was quit by his first job and had to start over with another company was that the grass is not greener on the other side. It is merely the angle which you are looking at the grass I believe that makes it appear greener. So why do people change things so often?

I have had the same best friend more than half of my life and I am not looking for best friend 2.0 or husband 2.0 as Brian likes to joke. I am happy with the same friend and same husband I have always had.

So I looked up the definition of Loyalty: faithfulness to commitment or obligation, the quality or state or instance of being loyal.

Well this is definitely me. I am committed to my obligations and faithful to a fault. Til death do us part is not just words I said in front of a bunch of people to Brian almost 20 years ago. I mean them as much today as I did then. But I would also say that even if you are a friend of mine and we never stood in front of our friends and family and pledged allegiance to each other I extend the same to you. I will not quit you until you have quit me.

I don't know if everyone in the world is as lucky as I to have worked for the same company for so long but in those 20 years I worked for the same company I made lots of friends that also worked for that company for a long time. There was a group we called the "Lunch Bunch" that ate lunch together every day for maybe 10 years and even now 12 years since the last time we worked together we still try to get together a few times a year and have a meal and talk about what is new.

I am not sure if it was nature or nurture that caused me to be so loyal. But for people that have lots of new things and new friends don't you sometimes want someone that shared the old times with to talk to. Someone that knows your story that knows the ups and the downs of your life and you know theirs to share time with. To laugh and cry about the things that were done years ago but to go and have new adventures with. So while you are in some new place doing some new thing you remind each other of some time years ago that you did something similar but yet the experience is different today. It is different because you had that experience years ago. You knew what to now expect. Isn't that what I said in the beginning about why I was loyal. I know what to expect.

Hmm. I am happy with the friends I have and the family God gave me and the job I have. I may cry about all of them and whine about some of them but I know what to expect and the same goes for the companies I have done business with for years. You know me and I know you and well until you change I am not going to change either.