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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)

#71

Post by rbanffy »

chongli wrote: post #65
_yb2s wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

They just said MBTI doesn’t predict anything. It’s a measurement tool, with limitations, and you should use it understanding those.

Much like an IQ test, or a having or not a PhD, it doesn’t hold much predictive power.

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

#72

Post by rbanffy »

DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #20
H8crilA wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet it is not obvious to everyone.

I still maintain there are only 10 types of people in the world. Those who know base-2 numerals and those who don't.

True, but do you really know them? Dan you do long division in base 2?

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

#73

Post by rbanffy »

anal_reactor wrote: post #23
H8crilA wrote: post #2

Keep in mind that in practice this classification is not perfect, as in you cannot just bucketize people into three categories and declare perfect understanding. You should treat the roles described in the article as archetypes of human behavior.

This is true for any kind of generalization. Having said that, I can really see this at my company. At the beginning I was a high-perfoming loser. Then I realized how things work, and since then I do bare minimum. I wish I could be a sociopath, but I don't have the brains nor the lack of morals to do so. I passionately hate the clueless ones because they stand against everything I believe in. My dream is to save enou…

> lack of morals

You don’t really need to be a clinical sociopath for that - you need to know enough to employ the characteristics in order to reach your own goal, which might not be a selfish one at all.

It’s a fun sport if you think about it that way.

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

#74

Post by cjbgkagh »

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 think there is a different power play at work, if politics are important in a workplace then it benefits you to promote the less competent as they are both less threading at a peer level and they owe their position to you so can be expected to be loyal. A competent person might think they got there on their own and may not be relied on as strongly to take your side in office politics. Of course repeating this process many times rapidly erodes management competence.

This simple process is from an emergent behavior of rational actors acting in accordance to the incentives of the structure. Unlike other theories it does not necessitate irrational actors, morons, or sociopaths. Where you have people you have politics so it almost always occurs just at different speeds, hence the pervasiveness and the inevitability of the cycle of collapse and rebirth. It appears to me that only a highly competent king (someone whose position cannot be threatened by a peer) can stop this process and maybe reverse it.

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

#75

Post by rbanffy »

sage76 wrote: post #32

This writing explained nearly everything I saw in the corporate world. One thing I do disagree with is the promotion of enlightened underperformers. Those guys seemed to always end up leaving and starting their own companies.

> Those guys seemed to always end up leaving and starting their own companies

The “enlightened underperformer” path is high-risk/high-reward. Only a minority will be promoted up, and most will end up either doing a lateral move to another company or being promoted out.

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

#76

Post by rbanffy »

A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #52
fancyfredbot wrote: post #48

The key ingredients of successful memetic corporate organizational theory are cynicism, detachment and disparagement. By describing executives as sociopaths and the middle management as losers this article allows the reader to feel superior to those alongside, above, and below them in the org chart, while the generally cynical tone allows the reader to feel aloof and acts to enhance the already established sense of s…

To an extent, sure, there is definitely an element of that. It certainly is interesting that it ends up on HN as often as it does though tbh until now I assumed it had more to do with the theory of office that managed to capture a plausible explanation why "The Office" felt as close to the real thing than most of us felt comfortable with. edit: Just the explanation of 'stakes' made me realize that ribbonfarm was onto…

The Office is triggering to me. Not as much the UK version, but the American one (a lot of Brazilian companies cargo-cult American ones) rings too many bells.

Also, Silicon Valley has triggering moments.

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

#77

Post by _yb2s »

chongli wrote: post #65
_yb2s wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It actually does not do that- each dimension which represents two opposite archetypes (e.g. introvert vs extrovert) is a continuum, and the output of the test isn’t actually a single category but a point on that line for each dimension. The full output is actually a 4 dimensional vector. Importantly- everyone has both traits, it is only telling you which you more consciously identify with. Many people will be near the middle and not strongly on one end of a dimension.

Again, astrology claims to predict the future based on nonsense. MTBI makes no such claims, it predicts nothing, and it’s chosen dimensions are very transparently arbitrary value judgements, among limitless possible archetypes that one could choose.

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

#78

Post by throwaway7ahgb »

pelagicAustral wrote: post #61

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 ag…

Why haven't you been able to get an offer somewhere else?

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

#79

Post by rbanffy »

cushychicken wrote: post #58
HenryBemis wrote: post #55

Dilbert! (I know that Scott Adams got chastised for some views/tweets/whatever and I don't care) Now, to the cartoons. I was introduced to them back in 2000 or 2001 by a colleague. We both loved the Monty Pythons, so we had that in common to begin with. Once I read the first few strips, I got hooked. I starting 'seeing' these chars to my colleagues (and to myself). Dilbert has taught me A LOT about psychology and ope…

Late stage Scott Adams has some pretty icky views, but that doesn’t change the fact that he had some spot on insights about modern office culture. “Spot on” may not be a strong enough term - “timeless” may be a more appropriate one.

My wife, a trained clinical psychologist, rebooted her career into corporate consulting. After her first assignment, she came back and all she had to say was “I didn’t know. I thought it was a joke. It’s all true. Dilbert is true”.

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

#80

Post by alecco »

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.

Not all companies are like this. Some small companies have good leaders. Cherish them if you find one.
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