RE: Being loyal or being taken advantage of?

I have been working for the same company for 24 years now, but during all those years I have developed into the 'employee' that I am now. It is not entirely comparable to a regular job because I often work on external assignments. I consider myself very loyal to my employer, but especially to my clients. I always go the extra mile than my colleagues, and not to brag or anything, no, because I really like my job and I think it is great to see when an assignment has been successfully completed. For me, that means that I work quite a few hours, but I do that myself. Nobody forces me to do that. On the other hand, I do not feel bad if I have to go somewhere in between or something like that. I now work at a healthcare institution and a government institution. And those are two completely different cultures. In the Netherlands they say "civil servants are lazy", I will not tar them all with the same brush, but that is the case. In the past, government employees were very protected, once you were working at an institution you could stay there your whole life regardless of how productive you were. That has changed over the years, and that's a good thing.

Of course I like that I earn a nice penny with my work, but I think it's more important to get satisfaction from my work. That I drink a beer in the evening, think about the day and then can say "Yes, this was another beautiful day".