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The Gervais Principle, or the Office According to “The Office” (2009)

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Re: The Gervais Principle, or the Office According to “The Office” (2009)

#111

Post by stan3223 »

Nomentatus wrote: post #75

I hadn't realized it before today, but Jerry Pournelle (a science fiction writer) pioneered here (with two groups, not three, which is an advance in understanding.) "Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy states that in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people": First, there will be those who are devoted to the goals of the organization. Examples are dedicated classroom teachers in an educational…

I heard someone say - 'Problem with corporations is that most of them are run by finance people and lawyers.' I think they fall into your 2nd group - administrators.

Re: The Gervais Principle, or the Office According to “The Office” (2009)

#112

Post by akomtu »

lioeters wrote: post #8

Company hierarchy: Sociopaths at the top > Clueless middle managers > Losers at the bottom. That's a bleak view, but I've worked in organizations that fit the model. To think that this could be the norm.. What if the model could be applied to human society in general! With such power dynamics, no wonder we seem to be barely hanging together with tense, mutual disrespect.

This aspect of human nature has been known well before ancient Egypt was a thing. The traditional allegory, which you may find in all major religions, is that every human is driven by "priests" of ambition and desire, who are empowered by the demon of ignorance. The priest of ambition wants power over others, he wants to be feared. The selfish priest of desire wants to be loved by everyone, but will love no one in return. Ambition dominates desire. Most successful men are servants of the two. Sociopaths are driven by inhuman ambition. Clueless - by selfish desire. Losers are the weak, indecisive crowd. There are two outcomes for most: some will manage to kick out both priests and expell the demon, while others will become its slaves, appearing powerful to the crowd, but miserable inside.

Re: The Gervais Principle, or the Office According to “The Office” (2009)

#113

Post by dTal »

x86x87 wrote: post #41
citizenpaul wrote: post #24

>(the office) I’ve been unable to figure out what makes it so devastatingly effective, and elevates it so far above the likes of Dilbert and Office Space. Dilbert is a hand drawn comic so it will never have the media reach of TV. It also tends to focus more on the details of the bureaucratic brokenness for people to laugh rather than cry at in daily life. The office is syndicated TV with a new episode every week. It…

Dilbert does have a cartoon TV series that ran for 2 seasons. https://youtu.be/J1KEPvuiQIs

"This video is no longer available because the YouTube account associated with this video has been terminated."

Oddly coincidental timing?

Re: The Gervais Principle, or the Office According to “The Office” (2009)

#114

Post by ssharp »

citizenpaul wrote: post #60
x86x87 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dilbert does have a cartoon TV series that ran for 2 seasons. https://youtu.be/J1KEPvuiQIs

Wow that is bad. Its like they gave an intern a shoestring budget and told them to make something happen. The voice actors are like they just grabbed the nearest person and told them hey you are gonna voice these characters.

Scott Adams blames the cancelation of his shown on "reverse racism" by whatever network was running it.

Re: The Gervais Principle, or the Office According to “The Office” (2009)

#115

Post by ted_bunny »

dkarl wrote: post #42
vlunkr wrote: post #13

I love The Office, but I don’t believe that the writers actually have some deep knowledge of business psychology and hierarchy. It seems pointless to attempt a deep analysis through that lens.

It feels like an observation that could be more easily made from the outside. On the inside of a company, we're wrapped up in everyone's immediate motivations for every decision they make, and we can see at a micro level that everyone is doing their best in their own eyes to get from it what they can, but from the outside you could see a larger pattern of the attitudes and beliefs of people at different levels in cor…

Thanks for writing this, it was an interesting read

Re: The Gervais Principle, or the Office According to “The Office” (2009)

#116

Post by Nomentatus »

throwaway280000 wrote: post #97
guerrilla wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That assumes a static hierarchy. Cooperatives could fix most of that though, since anyone becoming a problem could be recalled from their position.

Of relevance to this point might be Union Democracy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_Democracy It examines a particularly democratic union which seemed unusually able to withstand degeneration into an oligarchy.

Very consistent with Madison's thinking. The U.S. eventual became less fractionated, and fell into large parties, but different unions, for quite different jobs, might have more persistent differences.

Re: The Gervais Principle, or the Office According to “The Office” (2009)

#117

Post by titanomachy »

stu_ wrote: post #25

This is an old but good read! My take since then after numerous debates - there is merit hence the massive success of the Office series. But in general it is a 'glass half empty' perspective. CEOs are often gifted, hard working, but also a bit lucky at times to be born into fortunate situations. Middle managers, are typically leadership-qualified but simply don't want to devote enough time for a CEO or startup founde…

“Middle managers, are typically leadership-qualified but simply don't want to devote enough time for a CEO or startup founder role.”

I would say it’s not just a time issue, but often their risk tolerance that keeps them in middle management. The “sociopaths” are willing to take huge (but calculated) risks to advance their goals.

Re: The Gervais Principle, or the Office According to “The Office” (2009)

#118

Post by titanomachy »

izacus wrote: post #104
vlunkr wrote: post #13

I love The Office, but I don’t believe that the writers actually have some deep knowledge of business psychology and hierarchy. It seems pointless to attempt a deep analysis through that lens.

The writers at some point decided that Michael Scott is a character we should be sympathetic with and started writing episodes that expect us to feel bad for him. It's when I dropped off the show, I like Steve Carell, but I couldn't get past the fact that the show forgot just how the characters are awful people.

I haven’t watched all of the show, but I actually kind of like that aspect. Shows with irredeemably evil or incompetent characters are boring, real life is more nuanced. It’s always interesting trying to find the lens through which someone’s actions make sense.

Re: The Gervais Principle, or the Office According to “The Office” (2009)

#119

Post by titanomachy »

IsaacL wrote: post #93
buscoquadnary wrote: post #37

So I read this article before and found it interesting. Then I read this article that reviewed and now put less stock in the Gervais Principle https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/book-review-the-gervai...

It's funny, I was rereading this article and Scott Alexander's review just now, before I saw that it had been reposted on HN. Scott makes some good points but I think he simply lacks experience in the kind of big corporations Venkat describes. I think the Gervais Principle can be observed most readily in large, old-economy firms operating in zero-sum industries. It's probably more predominant on the east coast than t…

“It’s possible that Scott and his friends… are Losers”

I don’t know if the term is even applicable to people who don’t work in large organizations. Scott’s a psychiatrist. A lot of doctors work in small partnerships where these dynamics might not play out.

Re: The Gervais Principle, or the Office According to “The Office” (2009)

#120

Post by nostrademons »

tomrod wrote: post #7

I really used to buy into this mental model. There are certainly some points that seem to correspond to my lived experience. At this point though, I've been through each of the tiers and have never been either cluelessly obsequious nor a sociopath -- so I have my doubts that the model is worthwhile despite being a good laugh! For those that haven't read it: - Tier 1 - fresh younguns or burnt out talented people who a…

Also:

Losers: Aemon Targaryen, Catelyn Tully, Hot Pie, pre-Braavos Arya Stark, Hodor, most of the Freys, the random Lannister soldiers led by Ed Sheeran's character in S08E01.

Clueless: Brienne Tarly, Jon Snow, Rob Stark, Stannis Baratheon, Daenerys Targaryen

Sociopaths: Olenna Tyrell, Varys, Cersei Lannister, Bran Stark, post-Braavos Arya Stark

The non-Lannister Sociopaths are in many ways more interesting, because they are more subtle about their will to power and hence more effective. Bran in particular - with his Greensight and warging abilities, he has the ability to influence events basically at will, but he's also physically crippled and dependent upon others for action. And note that when asked if he would accept the crown (not take it), he simply says "Why do you think I came all this way?".

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