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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)

#61

Post by pelagicAustral »

I love The Office (UK version). It is one of my all time favorites, and crudely enough, after so many years of being a fan, I got a taste of what having David Brent as a boss is like... My Boss is so much like Gervais' character, that it is almost like God is taking a piss on me.

I absolutely hate my current work environment, and it is all fueled by the archetype of boss caricatured in The Office. It is real, then again, where else would they find so much comedy gold? it had to come from real life...

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

#62

Post by pelagicAustral »

trojanalert wrote: post #12

To be read in conjunction with the Babbler hypothesis - The amount of time some people spend talking gets them into leadership positions. It doesn't matter what they say, just how much they rant on. I read that, and realised how insanely true it is

Goes with my reply to OP [0]. I have a colleague that is a total waste of space. Never finished a project, never wanted to take on advice, always fought on really shady grounds, but he fought everything, almost like it was either his idea of what was on-point or nothing... But he was constantly talking, he was always talking, he is always talking, most of the time about things he doesn't have a clue about... and just a week ago, he got bumped... I don't get it... I honestly do not get what the fuck is wrong with this world.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41215788

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

#63

Post by osigurdson »

nkrisc wrote: post #29
_odey wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You would be surprised, but companies actually pay hard money to consultants to do these astrology readings and present them to shareholders as a "measure of workforce compatibility".

I had to do something like that once at work. I picked random answers for all the questions.

Most people know how to game these now. Want to be a "leader"? Choose extroverted type answers. Get the red patch.

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

#64

Post by lupire »

WJW wrote: post #26
cen4 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well these observations have nothing with to do with the main conundrum - How do you keep a group of chimps who all have different interests, personalities, needs, beliefs, values, upbringings, culture, religion, language, history etc etc in sync? And these days groups grow quite large quite fast. Historically, if you take rewards, bribery, force, domination and manipulation out of the story, the babblers/non threate…

I think you missed the point of the GP: Venkatesh Rao has written so much posts around this idea that he's now positioned himself as an authority on the topic of workplace power dynamics, regardless of if what he wrote is actually accurate or not. He is also quite fond of using poorly defined (in this context) words like "dialectical" and "illegibility" that makes the reader doubt whether he's actually full of shit o…

That's not what the GP said. That's your contributing opinion.

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

#65

Post by chongli »

_yb2s wrote: post #54
nkrisc wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“INFJ”, that’s from that workplace astrology, right?

Meyers briggs is not “astrology” - it doesn’t claim to predict anything. It categorizes how people already consciously see themselves with Carl Jungs archetypes. The main point of the archetype concept is to then explore the part of you that is different from how you see yourself- your “shadow” for the purpose of personal development. It’s not mysterious, mystical, or claiming to be science- it’s just a very simple s…

It’s astrology because it takes unimodal distributions and splits them into two groups above and below the mean. This is a cardinal sin in statistics because it implies the existence of distinct populations that don’t really exist and so any predictions you try to make are no better than a coinflip.

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

#66

Post by lupire »

AmericanChopper wrote: post #34
trojanalert wrote: post #12

To be read in conjunction with the Babbler hypothesis - The amount of time some people spend talking gets them into leadership positions. It doesn't matter what they say, just how much they rant on. I read that, and realised how insanely true it is

I would say it's more because companies and other organisations are social systems, and your ability to succeed in a social system comes down largely to your social skills. I think people with poor social skills don't understand the importance of them, and therefor don't understand why the people with better social skills are succeeding, and subsequently come up with these post hoc rationalizations that allow them to…

You have to define "social skills" in a more specific but non tautological way for this argument to carry weight.

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

#67

Post by rbanffy »

szundi wrote: post #43
vasco wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of my good thinking is done like this. Walking around the house talking out loud to myself about a topic without knowing where it's going. Over the years I've trained myself to try and speak more and more in this mode and I find it has good outcomes. It's not how it works but to myself I call it "putting my brain in analog mode". I also try to write like this for all my first passes. I also found it works for dr…

Stephen King does this with whole trilogies haha

This is actually a very practical way of creating stories - set up the stage and see what the characters go about doing. The writer needs to be aware of the larger stage in order to keep the reader interested in understanding what’s actually going on and why.

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

#68

Post by lupire »

the_duke wrote: post #37
trojanalert wrote: post #12

To be read in conjunction with the Babbler hypothesis - The amount of time some people spend talking gets them into leadership positions. It doesn't matter what they say, just how much they rant on. I read that, and realised how insanely true it is

Correlation vs causation? Management has to collect information, disseminate information, coordinate, make decisions and propagate them. All of that requires a lot of communication, aka talking.

It also requires a lot of listening and reading and thinking, aka not talking.

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

#69

Post by rbanffy »

t43562 wrote: post #15
mikhael28 wrote: post #10

I’ve read this before, and while an entertaining thought experiment, I’m not sure there is anything really actionable here. Maybe just be mindful that people are trying to exploit you.

As you say, it's worth knowing what shit can happen but that doesn't mean everyone in leadership is a sociopath or that it's unwise or losing to accept a paycheck. It can be unwise to start a business and lose all your money which does happen to people.

The terminology on the three groups is used very loosely. The “psychopaths” put their own interests on top, the “clueless” put the company on top and the “losers” are the ones who opt for a low-risk, low-reward strategy. Risk goes up as you move up on the pyramid as well, but lots of current C-levels use the company to buffer the downsides while keeping the upsides for themselves. It’s a bit sociopathic, but there are endless layers of self-delusion happening on all levels.

This is also an “average” company set in a specific culture. Outliers exist and different cultures will also reflect in the power dynamics.

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

#70

Post by lupire »

nkrisc wrote: post #30
fch42 wrote: post #21

A lot of these "organisational models" treat organisational behaviour as a kind of game; you can get ahead by exploiting game masters' mistakes, by cheating, or possibly by knowing and playing the rules really well. And just like poker, there's always a supply of those who believe in luck and just go all-in with no plan. While I get that "as such", and therefore can follow a classification sociopath/clueless/loser, w…

> The Losers like to feel good about their lives. They are the happiness seekers, rather than will-to-power players, and enter and exit reactively, in response to the meta-Darwinian trends in the economy. But they have no more loyalty to the firm than the Sociopaths. They do have a loyalty to individual people, and a commitment to finding fulfillment through work when they can, and coasting when they cannot.

This is the main annoyance I had that turned me off this theory. Not playing a game may be technically "losing" the game, but empathizing that part gives the game undue importance in the big picture, instead of looking for what actually is important.
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