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Earlier quoted context omitted.
What happened afterwards? It's not quite clear from your writing whether the truth was clear just to you or to everyone involved :)
CTO still at the company. I resigned both on moral grounds, but also because despite the nice hourly billing fee I was charging, I understood the relationship with the CTO, from them on would be ...Let's say...Toxic? :-))
Earlier quoted context omitted.
CTO still at the company. I resigned both on moral grounds, but also because despite the nice hourly billing fee I was charging, I understood the relationship with the CTO, from them on would be ...Let's say...Toxic? :-))
So what happened in that meeting? Did you tell them it wasn't "Mark's" material?
A toxic world. We live in a world where good people being silenced and bad people become creators, influencers... And kids grow up being taught (being influenced) by admiring fake things: fake smiles, fake tears, fake beliefs, fake beauties... I don't think the words "social skills" are correct. "Dark skills" are more suitable, just like the dark patterns. All come down to the human nature.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
CTO still at the company. I resigned both on moral grounds, but also because despite the nice hourly billing fee I was charging, I understood the relationship with the CTO, from them on would be ...Let's say...Toxic? :-))
So what happened in that meeting? Did you tell them it wasn't "Mark's" material?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Dude, I had a colleague, senior to me, do the opposite. I had an idea that I struggled internally to get off the ground for months and months. I pretty much did all the research, found the contacts, got the architecture direction, sought feedback and buy in from multiple stakeholders - including him. Practically I was ignored. After about 6 months, he's presenting this identical idea to our team! Guess what, it was a…
But didn't hesitate to go back and use all my notes, research and contacts to quickly backfill all his lack of details with my stuff!
with some tools, you even get information on the top visitors to a given page. you know, like if someone needs to fill in their presentation at the last minute.
if someone uses your notes for the benefit of the company, this is fantastic! but you need to save your receipts. just in case you need them.
Story time for the young kids in the room: Once upon a time, in my role as a technical consultant for hire at a large multinational corporation, I found myself tasked with a management board presentation. I was filling in for several project managers who were otherwise engaged due to urgent commitments. My responsibility was to elucidate the difficulties stemming from the company's current internal systems integratio…
A toxic world. We live in a world where good people being silenced and bad people become creators, influencers... And kids grow up being taught (being influenced) by admiring fake things: fake smiles, fake tears, fake beliefs, fake beauties... I don't think the words "social skills" are correct. "Dark skills" are more suitable, just like the dark patterns. All come down to the human nature.
both involve the same signals, the same situations, even at times the same actions. the motivations differ.
influencer is only a dirty word because the vast majority cultivate influence for the sake of closing sales. influencing isn’t a new idea, and not inherently bad.
light and dark side of the force, guns can be used to both attack and defend, buildings can be bombed or demolished. however you want to look at it, the tools are uncomfortable because they can be abused. because they have been abused.
the danger in labeling these as dark arts is that typically those who would oppose misuse will avoid the thing that can be misused.
call it a bad person tool, most people that don’t want to be bad are going to be ignorant of what it can do. to them.
Two words: social skills.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
So what happened in that meeting? Did you tell them it wasn't "Mark's" material?
I diplomatically decided not to press on, with the embarrassing subject, but clarified all materials were of my own authorship. I assumed most present understood between the lines, what was happening. I had no illusions of any outcome similar to the feelgood movie stories...These are normally politically well connected players :-) As I mentioned in another comment, CTO still with the company.
A toxic world. We live in a world where good people being silenced and bad people become creators, influencers... And kids grow up being taught (being influenced) by admiring fake things: fake smiles, fake tears, fake beliefs, fake beauties... I don't think the words "social skills" are correct. "Dark skills" are more suitable, just like the dark patterns. All come down to the human nature.
When it goes south, the incompetent and incapable do get whats due though.. turns out social manipulation skills do not make bullet proof.
I almost wish my parents had enough cracks in their defenses to just beat me across the face instead of the long-term psychological punishment they sentenced me to under the guise of learning from my mistakes. At least then there's a concrete playbook to dealing with the aftermath of being a battered teen and I could have saved myself another decade of anguish and self-flagellation instead of continuing to be tricked. To this day they still treat me like a child and don't tolerate me as anyone else than their ideal, I have to force myself to hang up on them because I know from reason it's just a trauma bond, because my emotion will just drag me back to them every time
And the thing is, from the outside they've successfully passed undetected, and it doesn't seem like they will ever get their due as they could have both retired by now. Instead my mom works in healthcare to "give back" after recently being diagnosed with cancer, and my dad is a successful startup co-founder that has won contracts with supermarkets and IT firms, some of them huge companies that everyone has heard of (To be sure it makes me hesitant to pursue the founder lifestyle) To someone from the outside they could look like superstar parents, reasonably moral people. And in places they actually are, in a material sense. It is impossible to deny the material successes of my father that I'm sure dozens of other founders on this very site would be salivating to achieve in their entire lives. But when they speak from the heart you realize they have no emotional skills, instead they simply research what they think people need them to hear to not be called out and repurpose the syllables of those words to meet their own needs. And at the same time they're smart enough never to be cold with their genuine friends, co-workers or family who are on good terms, but me. Me and only me.
And the thing is it's good enough for society at large. No, sociopaths do not necessarily get their due from being inherently cold or amoral, because they can still learn the interfacing standards that allow them to pass and just do well enough on the tests of society.
The only reason you can call someone a sociopath to the world is because they've failed at being a sociopath. If the sociopath is indistinguishable from a non-sociopath, which is by design, nobody else will believe you except the people in the pseudosciences you pay to believe you
My life has taught me that there's no difference in a person who genuinely says something and someone who isn't genuine but says the words in a convincing enough manner. Not to mention, that has given me a whole new perspective on behavioral software interviews that has made me totally disillusioned about the industry and process. They convinced me I was in the wrong for so long, and... To this day I still believe that's at least partially true. In spite of denying contact with them now at every turn. I think I'm beyond the point of being fully convinced otherwise
So no, my parents had iron-clad social manipulation skills but they were both far from incompetent to anyone besides me who asked. it was a valuable lesson that life doesn't emulate fiction, because if life were translated to fiction without embellishments then people would get bored and tend not to care. They have ensured my story is a boring one that resists novelization for the social workers that attempt to listen but has traumatized me regardless
The only thing I can do now is move on, quit blaming myself for everything and pick up the pieces, because all I can tell myself is they didn't define my life and I am my own person, I am my own person...