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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)

#51

Ironically the original Office, featuring Ricky Gervais, has a much better and more nuanced implicit theory of management than this. Brent (Gervais) is neither a sociopath nor the top dog he thinks he is, he's a middle manager who it's implied was legitimately good at sales, but is not at all good at the role he's been promoted into because it's a completely different one. The actual upper management, sociopathic or…

> Brent (Gervais) is neither a sociopath nor the top dog he thinks he is, he's a middle manager who it's implied was legitimately good at sales, but is not at all good at the role he's been promoted into because it's a completely different one.

I think in this hierarchy Brent is supposed to be Clueless rather than Sociopath.

I agree it doesn't 100% match the characters.

By the way, I like Steve Carell but the British show was much better than the US one.

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

#52
post #33

From what I have observed. Quiet people who speak sense and don't get involved in arguments, never rise to the top, whereas those loud morons almost certainly do. Often because those quiet people think they'll be less shouty, nagging. As long as the quiet ones can get on with the job and the loud pricks don't interfere, it makes the organisation dysfunctionally work. That said, world would be much nicer if these type…

The quiet ones need to learn to speak up when they have something important to add. Just sitting there quietly and not speaking, not participating in discussions, and not speaking up when something is wrong, is NOT noble. "Quiet" people who know when to speak absolutely rise above anyone else, in a professional setting, in my experience.

The right time to speak up about something that's wrong is always NOW. Why? Because if you knew and didn't say something at the earliest possible moment you will get blamed for inaction later.

If you don't say something when you see something is wrong, never say anything about it (at all). Otherwise you're asking for trouble later when the shit eventually hits the fan. "You knew and didn't say anything‽"

Even if someone gets upset at you for speaking up, that's still a better situation than being blamed later when the real finger pointing occurs.

"Don't look at me! I warned about this!" is a very real get-out-of-jail-free card in medium to large organizations. Especially if you have your objections in writing (save all emails!).

As a great example: At my work, the company made a piss poor decision to buy an (expensive) enterprise product that I warned would not work to solve the problem it was being purchased to solve. I warned them ahead of time that it wouldn't work. Then I warned them in the middle of the project and again, at implementation time.

When it didn't work, management came down HARD on everyone. In the middle of the finger pointing meeting I pulled up my emails which were sent to the people trying to point the proverbial finger and the meeting was over. Just like that! I saved the whole team with the simple act of voicing my objections in writing at every stage of the project.

If I didn't do that I have no doubt that some scapegoat would've been fired. Instead, no one got fired (sadly, because the normal rules of incompetence don't apply to the clueless/management layer, haha).

Unfortunately, to this day management never takes my offers of, "instead of purchasing this terrible 'enterprise' solution for millions of dollars, give ME that money and I'll produce a solution that's better in every way. I'll even have it up and running faster than we could requisition and install the product!"

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

#53
post #5

That was a fun read, and it might even explain why a lot of Gen-z is opting out of any sort of career building, wanting values instead (or next to) a paycheck. They saw their parents do The Office in real life. Interesting is also that Michael does make a really good arc from season one to when he leaves. He remains clueless, or rather he it dawns on him he does not want to become like Ryan or David (the articles soc…

> That was a fun read, and it might even explain why a lot of Gen-z is opting out of any sort of career building, wanting values instead (or next to) a paycheck. Wouldn't that make them even bigger ~losers~ Clueless? The ~losers~ Clueless are strictly those who put in more effort than they get in return but who cannot see it! Putting in +25% extra into their job for a 5% promotion, for example. Putting in effort for…

> The losers are strictly those who put in more effort than they get in return but who cannot see it!

I think those would be the losers who get promoted to clueless, at least in this metaphor. The losers who aren't clueless are putting in the bare minimum work that doesn't get them fired. If they overperform, they (according to the theory) get promoted.

I fully agree this nasty "vibes-as-compensation" bullshit, "we're all a family", etc, is in the interest of the top leadership. The sociopaths, if you will.

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

#54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think those two things are alike at all, unfortunately, however "cool" it feels to make such an analogy. Perhaps it's worth going and reading about actual slavery and what it was like.

Either side of an analogy can have factors at different scales. But it can still be a valid analogy. If you are saying that because slavery was much worse, then modern slaves should just suck it up and work harder. Then that isn't really helping is it? This is kind of the argument "others have had it worse, so lets not try to make anything better for people today".

Are you seriously equating the modern office and work, where, you know, you can go home after, to life as a slave on a plantation? Sure, analogies can have factors at different scales but the scales come into the equation when the factor is the axis we are analyzing.

Is your issue that life requires action to maintain it? Do you believe no work is required at all in life? The idea that work is like slavery is deep when you're 14 and then not so much.

No one had said our modern lives couldn't be better but you don't have to liken our existence to slavery to get to "things could be better".

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

#55
post #33

From what I have observed. Quiet people who speak sense and don't get involved in arguments, never rise to the top, whereas those loud morons almost certainly do. Often because those quiet people think they'll be less shouty, nagging. As long as the quiet ones can get on with the job and the loud pricks don't interfere, it makes the organisation dysfunctionally work. That said, world would be much nicer if these type…

The quiet ones need to learn to speak up when they have something important to add. Just sitting there quietly and not speaking, not participating in discussions, and not speaking up when something is wrong, is NOT noble. "Quiet" people who know when to speak absolutely rise above anyone else, in a professional setting, in my experience.

Yes but how else will they live a rich internal life where they are the hero’s and everyone else is useless.

If they speak up their illusions might be shattered!

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

#56
This essay was my bible at Google. It openly matched internal hierarchy and our own secret GDNA testing results illustrated it directly showing VP and above scored highly on the need to dominate over discover truth etc.

The problem was to my existential horror: i couldn’t use this knowledge to get anywhere beyond clueless. Because super large western organizations either purposefully hide information or are full of stupidity so much that they can’t share it.

I never could climb to any kind of safety —- until I realized that was the point. There is no safety. You only climb if you recognize death is inevitable, leaving those who want safety behind.

So now that I’m further up: Peter Turchins elite over production is my new nightmare

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

#57
post #3

The MacLeod Life Cycle reminds me on the 5 seasons of the illuminati calendar: Verwirrung Season of Chaos January 1-March 14 Zweitracht Season of Discord March 15-May 26 Unordnung Season of Confusion May 27-August 7 Beamtenherrschaft Season of Bureaucracy August 8-October 19 Grummet Season of Aftermath October 20-December 31 From the book Illuminatus!

The translations make no sense to a German native speaker. The list even swap meanings, i.e. between confusion and clutter. Accurate translations are: Verwirrung = Confusion Zwietracht = Discord You swapped i and e; somehow English speakders do this to German words all of the time. The 'ie' in here is a long 'i'. Zweitracht on the other hand would mean a "double traditional costume", if that word existed (it does exi…

But Beamte are heavily linked to bureaucracy.

Chaos is the opposite of order and the opposite of Ordnung is Unordnung

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

#58

This essay was my bible at Google. It openly matched internal hierarchy and our own secret GDNA testing results illustrated it directly showing VP and above scored highly on the need to dominate over discover truth etc. The problem was to my existential horror: i couldn’t use this knowledge to get anywhere beyond clueless. Because super large western organizations either purposefully hide information or are full of s…

I resonate with your comment but completely reject the conclusion. Death is inevitable, who cares how high you climbed on a ladder you didn't define? Why is that meaningful?

Money is nice, dont get me wrong, but to value the climbing itself?

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

#59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Adhering to the predictable/ritualistic/comfortable nature of "Gametalk", Here's one question I asked: "How does Eric Berne's Gametalk as interpreted by Venkatesh Rao signal to the sociopaths that those who engage in them are losers worth talking to? Distinguish between "channels" that Eric has identified as well as new signals that Rao or others have discovered." https://youtu.be/9B3oem_56jg?t=52s

Can you expand on your included youtube link? It's not clear the relationship.

I'll admit the connection is loose, personally found it amusing because:

Mike is the archetypal nihilist (Sociopath or Loser), the other two would potentially be engaging in a Clueless interaction if Mike wasn't there, according to the Scott/Rao theory of jokes, you need 3 for a Loser joke.

The preceding banter seems to be more of a Loser Gametalk: no social status is at stake; it's irrelevant to their white-collar role. Mike's Straighttalk intervention is typical of a sociopath; the wall breaking joke is that these Losers don't know what his real job is. If they did, the pointless but playful debate would have died a violent death-- because it'd get too real

If these were Clueless middle managers debating their value to their company, it might even be out of character for Mike to notice them..

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

#60
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That was a fun read, and it might even explain why a lot of Gen-z is opting out of any sort of career building, wanting values instead (or next to) a paycheck. Wouldn't that make them even bigger ~losers~ Clueless? The ~losers~ Clueless are strictly those who put in more effort than they get in return but who cannot see it! Putting in +25% extra into their job for a 5% promotion, for example. Putting in effort for…

> The losers are strictly those who put in more effort than they get in return but who cannot see it! I think those would be the losers who get promoted to clueless, at least in this metaphor. The losers who aren't clueless are putting in the bare minimum work that doesn't get them fired. If they overperform, they (according to the theory) get promoted. I fully agree this nasty "vibes-as-compensation" bullshit, "we'r…

You're correct, I meant Clueless, sorry. In my defense, I last read this when it was first published, so maybe ... 15 years? 20?
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