What you call complacency, I call contentment. Some of us don't like job hopping. Still others of us don't like startup or hustle culture. Some of us have families to support and are quite content to work hard for better than average salaries and benefits, live and work where we want to, engage with friends we've made at work (even across business teams), build retirement. Some of us have even spent many months out of each year, traveling the world with some of our coworkers.
Totally valid. But at least with the Microsoft engineers that I know well enough to have frank conversations with, half of them are the the opposite of content. They are unhappy, but feel trapped by their careers at Microsoft.
I get it, change is scary, but I do remind them that there is a larger world outside of Microsoft and there is very likely a better situation out there for them if they look for it.
As an ex-Microsoftie who's now making more money for less work... Why commit to a company who isn't committed to you? Because I have no commitment to ANY company, I ended up having more savings for me and my family than if I had stayed, that's why I ask.
Oh, BTW: no company is committed to you, only you and your family/friends (if you're lucky) will ever be.
Contentment and complacency are ostensibly the same thing, though the primary reason I tend towards the latter term is because I think we ought to aspire to growth (in whatever sense you determine for yourself). That's just my opinion though. It's also worth noting that I have no way of knowing what others are aspiring to, aside from what happens in their life over the years (which can be a poor proxy, given the role of luck).
There is a component in contentment that I think is lacking in complacency...that of general happiness. So to me, they are not the same.
As someone who has a growth mindset I can assure you that in corporations like Microsoft or Intel (I worked at the latter), one's own personal growth is not only fostered, but highly encouraged.
Corporate life ain't for everyone and I get that. As a 56 year-old being squeezed out of the marketplace due to ageism, some of us aren't just after the highest pay or the most prestige at our jobs.
> There is a component in contentment that I think is lacking in complacency...that of general happiness.
I don't see it that way, complacency can be just contentment from one's own perspective — it may take a third party to call it complacency (sometimes wrongly so, such as that parable[0]).
