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I agree. Too much paranoia. Sometimes it is intentional. Some people love to create drama.
I worked with a woman like that. She got a letter in the mail from a client, with his name, address, phone number and email address. It was written on nice letter stock and nicely written.
He said he really enjoyed talking with her, and wanted to know if he could take her to dinner sometime, and if she was uncomfortable with it, he would understand.
Now, she ran around all excited, saying this guy was "stalking me!!!" I said, "How is he stalking you? This is a compliment. He gave his full name, address, etc., you can look him up. This isn't a stalker." But she kept going with it and found a manager who agreed with her and the two of them sounded like a couple of soap opera watchers. I said, "If you're that scared, call the police..." They never did. They would have looked so stupid.
Obviously, Weekend Traveller is a majorplayer, or else he wouldn't be so shocked with the statement.
People who engage regularly are usually frightened they can't cut it on their skill sets alone and have to "lube" everything and everyone to get by.
While managment may not be aware of every incident in the office (unless it blows up into something), they are the one that sets the tone for dysfunction. A good manager will also know if someone is crawling or blowing smoke up their a**, and if they're good, won't tolerate it because it's not establishing boundaries of a healthy work relationship -- because it's DISHONEST.
It also REWARDS people for being dishonest. A good manager knows that to most of their staff, this is their livelyhood to support their families. They may not be the King/Queen of the Prom , but they certainly are reliable, honest and get the job done at hand. They DESERVE the respect of doing just that -- without interference from others.
Why should I "play nice" with the receptionist who shoots dope in the supply closet and kisses up to me so I won't tell? While it's not my business, she's hurting the company and it's reputation with the clients. It's not my call to fire her, but it's another to pretend there's not a problem there.
A good manager will also nurture diversity in the office, instead of allowing a "tribe" mentality which criticizes anything different. After all, how would the company respond to clients/customers who are "different" -- probably not very well, because they lack the skills and temperment.
If someone is singled out by the pack on a personality issue, a good manager will throw some red meat over a cliff for them to follow.
I don't have to "hang" with the marketing director who wants to do 10 shots after work so I can keep my job because "he likes me." Is he going to pay for my cab ride home for the offer?
Do I have to spend my ENTIRE lunch break listening to the financial guy spout off the latest Yankees stats and play-by-plays, while I'm a RedSox fan? Do I care? When we were there having lunch in the first place to review my departments budget and now we've run out of time? This means Cindy won't get her deserved raise right now because we were playing politics?
To me, that's how you can distinguish a good company from a bad one. If it's bad, you'll probably end up unemployed sooner or later anyway.
So I guess the guy in the exit interview actually turned out to be one of the most successful from this company!
I don't think of politics as personal skills or the ability to sell ideas. That is professionalism. That is about social skills.
The ability to work with others, communicate, and deal with issues is
Politics means favoritism, patronizing, buddy-ing up under false pretenses, gaining favor by sexual advances, pandering, pleasing, and just verbally stroking someone to get ahead.
Totally agree with this and with SMG's post.
I worked with a woman who is very good at playing the game, buys the boss lunch, laughs at all the jokes, listens in rapt attention for hours to the bosses stories, takes credit for other peoples work, etc. She will probably go further in the company than I will, and probably much faster too, because I can't stand that kind of BS. (Eventually I'll get to where I'm going and I'll still have my self respect. Just as importantly I'll hopefully have the respect of my coworkers, which is something this other woman has already lost.)
She also plays the game in the other direction, playing favorites with some of the employees under her. This has created resentment and division among the employees, and caused many to question the judgment of the manager. Morale went down quickly once she started working there.
I transferred out to another area and am much happier not having to work in that environment any more.
I always found that one person says the others is playing and the other says that one is playing. Its liike people who thnik that the office will close down after they leave;just their impression and they are shocked when it doesn't.
Totally agree with this and with SMG's post.
I worked with a woman who is very good at playing the game, buys the boss lunch, laughs at all the jokes, listens in rapt attention for hours to the bosses stories, takes credit for other peoples work, etc. She will probably go further in the company than I will, and probably much faster too, because I can't stand that kind of BS. (Eventually I'll get to where I'm going and I'll still have my self respect. Just as importantly I'll hopefully have the respect of my coworkers, which is something this other woman has already lost.)
She also plays the game in the other direction, playing favorites with some of the employees under her. This has created resentment and division among the employees, and caused many to question the judgment of the manager. Morale went down quickly once she started working there.
I transferred out to another area and am much happier not having to work in that environment any more.
I have seen the same thing, and I bet you thought like I did, you wondered what you DIDNT see going on...I always suspected sexual favors, bribes, gifts, etc. going on........
I worked one place where this girl was married to some guy in charge of another office. She was hardly ever at work, and one time, came back from Hawaii and brought the boss a dish of pineapple to eat at his desk. It was like something from "The Office". It wasn't a harmless act, this stuff went on daily. There was a lot of nepotism there too, she got both her parents jobs there.
The whole bad thing is, the sucking up gets them ahead. The boss has to know they are just empty compliments and praises, yet, they promote them.
The days of getting ahead by your education, skills, and hardwork are gone, because like the OP expounded, everything is really about politics. And that is why the quality of products and services is so bad, because the good employees don't really have the jobs that matter.
That is possible only in the most routine of jobs. If you spend your entire day alone entering data or filing or sorting documents. But as soon as you need the assistance and agreement of others you have no real power over the office politics starts.
If you try to ignore the office politics it will eat you alive. That is what happened to the guy who was fired due to lack of workplace survival skills. He ignored the politics and he was not able to get his ideas implemented. He was fired and replaced by someone who knows how to play the game.
*That* is exactly the problem. Life should not have to be a "game".
You only live once. People who want to make it a game should be summarily executed. (Humor intended, but I still hold by the sentiment.)
Playing games takes time away for serious problem solving and implementation.
Yes, yes, I know that's the "engineers's mindset". But it is a valid observation.
Typically people who are well received socially, because they are attractive or sling BS pretty well want "management discretion", "pork barrel" and "good ol' boy" systems to stay in place.
Less well received but equally or harder working people generally want a promotion and payment system that removes touchy, feely, human subjectiveness removed from the equation. Hence the sentiment, "My work should stand on it's own." They want... "I do X, I get Y... no questions asked."
I've seen this dichotomy for decades in my working life as I've often worked in companies and/or departments that involved engineering disciplines.
The typical engineer has such a house of cards of technical issues in his/her head that he's trying to tie together and solve that there isn't much left over for second guessing human subjectiveness.
For example, consider the "eccentric inventor" that walks around in his bathrobe, etc. They are pre-occupied with concrete problems.
On the other hand, the politicos are of course, pre-occupied with gaming.
To the politicos, the engineers are social morons, geek, dorks. To the geeks, the politicos are gaming cheating schmoozers.
My old boss was great; no office politics at all. For my hard work I was rewarded with a bonus and raise every year.
My new boss was an idiot and only knew how to pass the buck, back-stab, second-guess, and micro-manage. I refuse to play office politics, and my "reward" was being laid off (unemployment comp and a severance package are nice, but no paycheck really stinks). Nevertheless I am much happier now.
Quite a few HR people are glorified r-tards, and I think the threadstarter is one of them, actually having the nerve to blame an exiting employee for not wanting to play along with office politics.
I can relate to many of the statements on this topic. I transferred from the headquarter office of a company in NYC to a MUCH smaller office/manufacturing facility in South Carolina. The fact that I stayed clear of the gossipy southern culture in that office and just came in to the office, did my work and went home was a problem for them. They were actually offended and took it personally. The manager actually told me in his office one day that I was the one with the problem because I needed to learn how to play the office politics game!! I truly believe the office politics are worse depending on what area of the country you are working in.
For example here in the southern states the politics game seems to be worse. They act like they are trying to be friendly with you calling it the southern way (southern hospitality) when really the motive is that they want to find out your business so they will have something to gossip about!! Another thing that made the office politics so bad where I was working is the fact that the office is located in a small town. Everyone in the office is either related to eachother or grew up together!! By the way feel this is another thing that employers should put a stop to. Husbands/wives, sisters/brothers all working in the same office!
The work world is a lot like high school. People form cliques and if you're not part of the "cool" crowd, you'll have a harder time. I've worked primarily at small companies because I didn't want to be just another corporate drone sitting in a cube farm, but the politics is unavoidable. At least at small companies, everyone knows what you do or don't do and how you contribute. But the gossip culture was always a turn off. People love to talk about everyone else. I tend to be very private, which rubbed some people the wrong way. In the beginning, I played the game. I'd go to lunch with coworkers I didn't really care for or go out for drinks after work. But after a while, I decided it wasn't worth it. I did my job and made sure to be friendly with people, not one of those people who just hides in his cubicle. That's seemed to work for me. But it's up to the manager to set the right tone, which is why I'm constantly evaluating mine wherever I work. If he micromanages, shows favoritism, doesn't back up his team, etc. I start looking for a new job.
Therein lies the problem, most people take one of two options.
1) Don't play in the realm of social engineering. Be completely ignorant of social rules when it comes to you work life. Make a statement with your working career about it. In the end you will have been passed over for promotion by those more sly, set up by those more cunning, shine less bright to those around you who know how to bring themselves to their bosses attention, and be less successful in the end. You will be helpless and miserable to those around you that know work is more then punching in and out after getting done what's placed in your inbox.
2) Work at social engineering. This isn't gossip, dishonesty and illegal activities (which I think hurt people more then help), something so broad by extreme negatives, power is amoral and how it is used defines the person who uses it. it's about putting what you do in the nicest frame possible and emotional mastery. You gain more by doing certain things over others (like calmness over uncontrolled s**t fits), you gain more by accepting/learning from the past and adapting to the future (instead of bemoaning your fate or cursing what has been done to you), or dealing with people in the best fashion (you can't forcibly treat people however you feel like, what one doesn't mind offends the other). Sorry to say there are jerks in the world and you cannot always just get out of a workplace when you find them, so sometimes you just have to deal with them and survive.
I'm not sure about many people, but my life is not to protest against "the all mighty game". I would just be beating my poor tired old drum in anger that no one would hear, even then nothing would change, and I would lose out to those who accept and adapt. So I chose to accept, adapt, learn, and move on using what I know. I have used it to make myself earn more and look better with a number of promotions while removing those jerks who hurt the working environment and my team.
Please define your life by what you want it to be, but next time some one does gets a reward over yourself distance your emotions from the situation and really look at why.
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