How Bullshitters Not Just Survive But Thrive (2016)

I should mention that i was working in cell biology; in cell biology, you earn career points by publishing papers telling a new story, where papers comprise a series of figures, each one showing results which demonstrate some point of your story. Papers also have an introduction, description of the results, and discussion, but those are pretty much filler. The smart scientists i know read the title, the figures, and the materials and methods section. Perhaps not every field is like this.

So, to make a good paper, you have to come up with a series of good figures, which means (a) finding a story you want to tell, (b) working out what points you want to make, and (c) getting results which make those points. Having done that, there's the technical work of making up the figures (learn to love Illustrator), and some writing, and you're done.

Finding the story is usually the easy bit. Your supervisor usually has some untold ideas for stories floating about, or there will be some variation on an existing story that people will enjoy hearing. Or you might just need to spend a year or two trying stuff, which can be fun until it suddenly isn't.

Working out what points you need to make takes time, but once you know the story, is usually not too hard. Crucially, you don't need to know up front that these points are all true. As you work towards them, if you find any that aren't true, you just throw them away, and either replace them, do without them, or change the story a bit.

It's getting the results which is hard. That is the actual work in scientific research. Designing, performing, interpreting, and refining experiments. Finding, preparing, and characterising materials. Learning or inventing techniques. Spotting weaknesses and plugging them with control experiments. Endless, seemingly incessant, tea breaks.

Having a concrete list of the figures you need helps you keep going at getting results, and helps you do the right ones. Before i had a list of figures, i did all sorts of experiments because they seemed interesting, and connected to what i was doing, but which could never have contributed to my paper.

I'm confused why so many commenters are quick to shout "B.S" on this article (are they BSers in hiding?) but maybe he is oversimplifying too much. True S-W types are pretty rare and are probably evidence of some extreme psychological disorder. (E.g., malignant narcissism or sociopathy. Robert Hare is a researcher in criminal psychology and wrote a book on such people: https://www.amazon.com/Snakes-Suits-When-Psychopaths-Work/dp...).

1. has never had the misfortune of working with one of these people. "poser" devs who care more about "communicating up" and making a show of their (often quite trivial) contributions

2. has worked with people like this, but doesn't perceive the behavior described in the article, for whatever reason.

A couple times in my life, not just in software, I have worked with people who are _exactly_ like the article describes. The work they do is all perception-management stuff. Shuffling around work tickets, setting up/attending meetings, etc., when they are supposed to be individual contributors. Meanwhile, they contribute nothing. I've even had a coworker -- a peer -- come to me to ask me to do a task when they were assigned to do it. Because they were busy organizing work tickets.

Don't get me wrong. You have to toot your own horn when you do something that should be noticed. Your boss won't always recognize when you've made a meaningful contribution, so saying, "Hey I did this and it's pretty good, and it adds value to our org in these ways" is not inherently bad.

It's when that autotooting is to bring attention to stuff outside what they're _supposed_ to be contributing that it should raise red flags. Or when they start trying to delegate work to their peers. I'm really glad so many of you find this article so awful because it means you've never felt the frustration of watching someone like this get praised for and advance by essentially doing nothing.

edit: I don't know how to explain it to someone who hasn't ever noticed it. The behavior pattern in the article is not something a lot of people notice. But among people who do notice -- at least those I've talked to -- it's very obvious and really bothersome.

That said, most of the time coworkers -- even really smart, kind, hard-working coworkers -- either don't notice or don't care. So it's not surprising to me that commentators here think the article is BS. You've probably sat next to people like this but you didn't notice. Good on you.