You see them all over LinkedIn and Twitter - people who once bailed on a struggling company, only to return years later to bask in its success like a long-lost founder. They didn’t stick around when things were ugly. They didn’t push through the hard times. They jumped ship when it was on fire, probably with a post about “seeking new opportunities” or “focusing on personal growth.”

Fast forward a few years, and now that the company is a household name - or it briefly grabs some headlines, these same people are all over social media, name-dropping their past affiliation like they were an integral part of the journey. “Forever proud to have started my career in XYZ LDT (a million years ago)!”

Yeah? Were you proud when you walked out the door just before the company pulled off its biggest pivot? When you left because some other company gave you 10 cents more in stock and a fancy job title made up by Bullshit Job Generator? The only thing you contributed to its success was freeing up a desk for someone who actually believed in the vision.

Let’s be real - no one cares that you had a job somewhere before it made it big. Sitting at the same lunch table as people who built something doesn’t mean you helped build it. Your past employment isn’t a badge of honor if you abandoned ship before the storm cleared. If anything, it’s an admission of your lack of foresight.

And yet, every time ayour former employer makes headlines, these ghosts of layoffs past crawl out to remind everyone that they were once “part of the journey.” Were you, though? Or did you just make the journey easier for those who actually stayed?

There’s a difference between having worked somewhere and having contributed to its success. If you left when it was struggling and only resurfaced to name-drop in the good times, you weren’t part of the story - you were a footnote in its failure arc. Own it.

Photo by Ashima Pargal on Unsplash