Dear Bob, I've enjoyed reading your articles in InfoWorld for years. But lately as I've been reading your Advice Line email newsletter, I've been seeing a trend in your responses to people's situations. You give excellent advice for dealing with their situations in the short term, but for the long term, almost every response has you telling them to go look for another job. (To be fair, you also give alternative Dear Bob,I’ve enjoyed reading your articles in InfoWorld for years. But lately as I’ve been reading your Advice Line email newsletter, I’ve been seeing a trend in your responses to people’s situations.You give excellent advice for dealing with their situations in the short term, but for the long term, almost every response has you telling them to go look for another job. (To be fair, you also give alternative routes if that’s not possible.) Whether or not they do this, or take any of your advice, for that matter, is up to them. But I can’t help wondering when in fact such concepts as “company loyalty” and “climbing the corporate ladder” went out of fashion. Finding another job at the professional level can often involve cross-country moves that uproot families and disrupt the proper routing of mail. Are the days of the stockboy one day becoming the CEO over? Or are there still places where, despite terrible difficulties with the boss, people can one day rise above those situations (and stay with a company they love) with hard work and dedication? I’m worried that “get another job” might become your standard answer to every difficult situation.Thanks,Jordan Bradford Jordan …I’m not sure if your question, asking when company loyalty went out of fashion, is rhetorical or not. Either way, I’m going to answer it: Employers changed the fashion a couple of decades ago.I’m tempted to launch on a long rant that lists the various business practices employers now engage in on such a regular basis that few Americans even question them. Instead, I’ll just list three: Layoffs to “send a message to Wall Street”; deliberately underfunding pension funds to improve profits; and awarding huge executive bonuses as a result of the extraction of concessions from labor unions. Corporate America has expended a lot of effort redefining the employer/employee relationship. I see no reason employees should bother to argue about it. What was once a long-term relationship based on mutual trust is now a short-term relationship based on negotiated advantage. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing, by the way – there’s a lot in the current arrangement that’s healthier than the old one. It is, however, neither kinder nor gentler; certainly there’s no basis for any form of trust on the part of employees toward their employer unless the employer has demonstrated a basis for trust.Which brings us to climbing the corporate ladder. Some people are good at it. In most companies, being good at it doesn’t mean strong performance – it means being good at getting along, avoiding taking risks, and being good at getting some of the credit that’s properly due to those who aren’t as good at getting along, instead of taking the risks necessary to move the organization forward.Certainly, none of these generalizations are universal. There are still plenty of good companies to work for, and I’d advise anyone to give a new employer the benefit of the doubt. I’d also recommend keeping your eyes and ears open. It isn’t all that hard to figure out what kind of company you work for if you just approach the world with glass-colored glasses. – Bob ——– Technology Industry