Would I ever make a loyalty oath to Donald Trump? No. Not in his lifetime, yours, or mine. My reluctance has almost nothing to do with Trump. But he has left a long trail of mismanagement obscenities as his legacy that we all should remember—at our peril.  After nearly a lifetime of studying and being a part of organizations large and small, I am at least qualified to write about them from the vantage point of theory and experience.  Or as the philosopher, George Santayana, put it, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

I have taken loyalty oaths to America and to freedom. Both are inanimate concepts that define who or what I admire in my organization, in myself, and in others. The difference between Trump and those ideals is more than something vague or conceptual. It has to do with trust. Trust is observable. It is a relationship that must be two-ways, or it’s nothing. Loyalty oaths can neither replace nor substitute for trust. Your loyalty belongs between you and God, your country, freedom, honesty, sincerity, love, courage, excellence, diligence, humility, perseverance, effort, honor, caring, understanding, tolerance, mercy, loving, or forgiving. You should be willing to forgive your boss, but not again and again all the way to the gates of hell.

On the job, you and I are expected to be loyal to our immediate supervisor. That means—right or wrong—you will not speak ill of him or her, and you will support them at all times, at all costs. Think about how that works in conjunction with the Peter Principle. This principle states that in large organizations those who excel in their present positions are often promoted to a higher position. These promotions continue until that person no longer excels at, or is overwhelmed by, the new responsibilities. But that is where he or she stays--unable to perform with excellence. Multiply this occurrence many time throughout the organization, and we find that—in general—people rise up until they “find their level of incompetence,” thus we find a large number of poorly functioning organizations that cannot be fixed without a lot of firings or demotions. You, however, are expected to speak well, act well, and always support your supervisory dunce.

The flip side of the loyalty oath is the Non-Disclosure Agreement. At a huge cost to you personally, you agree, contractually, to never reveal a discouraging word about your boss, or anything within the walls of your self-contained house of incompetents—forever, or for a designated number of years after leaving. So you are screwed in two directions—inside those walls to your supervisor, and outside of them to the owner, his rules, and to his rulings. It has been reported that Trump as the ruler of his real estate business, demanded Non-Disclosure Agreements with a penalty of $2 million dollars if broken—even when such disclosures are true . I suspect and hope that as President, neither Trump nor any President, could demand such an agreement—except for sensitive security reasons.

Then there is the first cousin to those two agreements. That is the Employment-at-Will Agreement. This agreement—legal in many states—states that you as an employee have no contract with your employer at all. Instead, you are an employee entirely at his will. You can be fired for any reason, or for no reason at all—at any time. If such a firing occurs one day before you have a vested interest in a promotion, a pay raise, or a retirement plan—tough luck! You are out and you have no standing in court of law unless you can show other violations not covered by the Employment-at-Will Agreement.

These are just a few of the reasons why I tend to come down on the side of the underdog, the employee in matters large and small throughout the economy heretofore believed to be one of free markets, where freedom to choose, and competition lives and thrives. It still does in smaller organizations, and that is why I am an opponent of too many mergers and acquisitions, conglomerates, and nincompoops at the top of them. Basically, you are screwed 16 ways to Sunday before you ever receive your first paycheck. It’s also why I suggest anyone to seek employment in the educational or government sectors. They pay a little less, but they also aggravate you a lot less. Better yet: Start your own business. You will probably fail the first 10 times. But falling down is a lot more honorable than giving in and sucking up.