Good faith

If you are not being negotiated with in good faith, do you yourself need to continue to act in good faith to remain righteous, even if that means you will be exploited?

Here’s one example that I’ve run up against a number of times. I know plenty of other folks who have as well, so I’m not being especially facetious or arrogant in positing this as a case study.

You can do your job, week in and week out, in just one day (yes: for whatever reason, you are many times over as effective at the job as the job ["job"] warrants). All your commitments are met, no one has cause to complain about your performance, it actually would reasonably take someone else a full week to do what you can do in a day. There is either no indication, or it is explicitly clear, that you will not be compensated in kind for your performance.

Here is how I have reacted:

• Specifically not do more for the benefit of the team [I should describe in full why I think this option is important to consider - perhaps I'll update this post when I've more time].
• Do more anyway to fulfill some personal need.
• Do more anyway because I thought I could somehow use my demonstrated superior performance to leverage some kind of alternate compensation.
• Negotiate a strange deal with my boss and do an additional day or two more.
• Do my one work day and invest the remaining four days elsewhere.
• Quit.

The first and last are the only ones that have satisfied me for more than a very short duration.