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Not being an asshole will make you more money

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Re: Not being an asshole will make you more money

#91
post #32

I have an example. In a previous role was in a position where we were negotiating a large-ish (>1M USD) multi-year contract when our client asked us to also do a proof of concept about some topic. It was just 1 week or 2 weeks so I said it would be free but because of various regulatory stuff we needed a contract in place. I was dealing with the same purchasing lawyer on both contracts. The process was super-standard…

> by backing out all of our changes and only putting in his changes That so feels like a mistake because that's the sort of tactic that would completely and utterly remove their capability of ever working as a corporate lawyer ever again for any company. If that genuinely happened, that lawyer needs to be disbarred, but that's a pretty damn egregious accusation.

you are badly naive here .. far, far worse is common in certain markets

Re: Not being an asshole will make you more money

#92
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that is true Warren Buffet' father was a congressman Larry Page's father was a professor of computer science at University Sergey Brin's father was professor of mathematics at University and his mother worked at NASA these are the first three I looked up and they don't look like low or middle class

How are professors not middle class, financially? Academia doesn't pay particularly well.

Financially - it's possible they're middle class. I've seen plenty of professors making $150k+/yr though... That's 3x the median household income.

But, I think middle class is more than just raw finance. Educational background of the parents is very important too. If you grow up with two professors - don't you think you'll do better than two high school dropouts? (On average)

Re: Not being an asshole will make you more money

#93
post #6

Most of the billionaires are assholes and/or criminals with a couple of noteworthy exceptions. So maybe not being an asshole will get you ahead in the middle but it won't get you all the way to the top of the foodchain. So this is solid advice, but unfortunately the role models are exactly those people that didn't follow this sort of advice. Microsoft, Amazon, Oracle, Apple, Google and Facebook all would not have bee…

I'd guess that most people would be ok with not getting to the top. Most would be happy to have a few million dollars in the bank by the time they retire.

America seems to have an absolutist mindset. Being a billionaire != success/happiness in life. There's a lot of grey between the black and white.

Re: Not being an asshole will make you more money

#94
post #19

The most common difference between us peasants and the people of means is that those other people ASK more often. Ask for more money, ask for a bonus, ask for lower rent. And then it adds up. The one thing that holds most of us back is shame. But shame is a good thing in general. It's the glue that keeps societies together, preventing them from spiraling down to the lowest common denominator. Questionable if this sti…

I think the other thing is ruthless prioritization.

If you say "no" when you should, you can say "yes" when it's important.

Re: Not being an asshole will make you more money

#95
post #34
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> by backing out all of our changes and only putting in his changes That so feels like a mistake because that's the sort of tactic that would completely and utterly remove their capability of ever working as a corporate lawyer ever again for any company. If that genuinely happened, that lawyer needs to be disbarred, but that's a pretty damn egregious accusation.

"Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity."

No. This can't be attributed to stupidity.

He's an attorney. Contract version control is part of his job. Selectively discarding counterparty edits is blatant.

Re: Not being an asshole will make you more money

#96
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I often ask people who are complaining about their salary whether have asked for a raise. Most of the time the answer is “no” followed by reasons like “I am afraid to get fired” or “they will make my life miserable” or “they should just do the right thing”.

Exactly. 9 out of 10 managers will give you more money. They are not going to offer it to you, normally, because they are not a charity. They want to give you the least amount of money that you will except. Secondly, who ever gets fired for asking for a raise? I mean, that is not normal. And if that does happen to you, it's most likely of some other underlying factors, where asking for a raise is just the last drop.

> Exactly. 9 out of 10 managers will give you more money.

I don't know - man. I've worked at a lot of places and this doesn't seem to be a common thing. It could be I've just worked at a lot of bad places but still. Asking for more isn't enough. It has to be the threat of leaving in order to get them to give more. At which point - the advice now for managers is, if they're threatening to leave unless you pay more then just let them leave.

Re: Not being an asshole will make you more money

#97
post #20

Just like Madoff or Trump or Weinstein

Being in jail doesn't sound profitable. Robbing a bank makes rich for a second too. As for Trump, he probably should've put his daddy's money in the S&P.

I think we can agree that billionaires main trait is not being nice

Putin is worth 200 billions...

Re: Not being an asshole will make you more money

#98
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I often ask people who are complaining about their salary whether have asked for a raise. Most of the time the answer is “no” followed by reasons like “I am afraid to get fired” or “they will make my life miserable” or “they should just do the right thing”.

Exactly. 9 out of 10 managers will give you more money. They are not going to offer it to you, normally, because they are not a charity. They want to give you the least amount of money that you will except. Secondly, who ever gets fired for asking for a raise? I mean, that is not normal. And if that does happen to you, it's most likely of some other underlying factors, where asking for a raise is just the last drop.

If you're underperforming, and have the gall to ask for a raise closer to someone that isn't, that could be indicative of issues grasping reality/fit into the team.

Not everyone is you/us.

Re: Not being an asshole will make you more money

#99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being in jail doesn't sound profitable. Robbing a bank makes rich for a second too. As for Trump, he probably should've put his daddy's money in the S&P.

I think we can agree that billionaires main trait is not being nice Putin is worth 200 billions...

I'm almost certain that Putin makes tons of money for those immediately around him and as soon as he stops, he'll be replaced. That's generally how dictatorships work.

Re: Not being an asshole will make you more money

#100
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I've had this happen when drawing up contracts with American lawyers way too many times for it to be mistakes. We've had lawyers try to sneak in one sided clauses after we agreed differently with business owners pretty much constantly. It always significantly deteriorated relations with that company. But I guess Americans think that's fine because "it's just business".

IANAL, but if you have correspondence indicating that you wanted something removed and both sides agreed to it, then I'd imagine you'd have a case in court if they slipped something in. Contracts are never 'iron-clad' -- for example, you cannot legally sign away your soul. Lots of stuff can be invalidated in court.

Sure, but when they "fix" things like ticket/issue response times, SLAs, responsibilities of both companies, it can later be very hard to prove what you've agreed on a video call with a CEO/CTO. Especially when that other company decides that you'll be the one taking the blame for their internal politics.
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