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What does "playing politics" mean for software engineers?

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Re: What does "playing politics" mean for software engineers?

#21
post #6

It is funny. Well-socialized person doesn't need this kind of guide, as unwritten rules of social play are learned in the process of growing-up. But it is clear for "nerds" and "hackers" social is impenetrable, thus preference for interacting with the machine and towards techno-solutionism. What, by the way, the main reason FOSS movement will never liberate anything.

> unwritten rules of social play are learned in the process of growing-up. Could you elaborate. Under which circumstances does one learn these things. Family, surely not. I hope so.

> Family, surely not. I hope so

School, workplace, sports club, but yes, family as well.

Children learn how to influence their parents to get what the want, which parent they should put pressure on, which parent should be first to be told about some issue etc.

We don't call it politics as it is just a natural thing, but the principle is the same.

Re: What does "playing politics" mean for software engineers?

#22

This is a recipe to make the work place (the world) a worse place every single day. The powerful people get affirmation and validation for their evilness. But it is not all. The caving and ducking people will inevitably start to adopt that evilness. It is culture after all. It is obvious that treating people "under oneself" badly it the way to be and to become powerful. It is the dictatorship of the strongER. I guess…

Yes. Hence why I personally believe learning how to be productive outside of power hierarchies is the most important thing for the Western world to learn.

Re: What does "playing politics" mean for software engineers?

#23
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more than that, some of us actually believe in a thing called "good work." The idea that powerful manager saying untrue things shouldn't be contradicted may seem like "obviously correct" to you, but actually at the places where 80% of engineers call that shit out that political manager probably gets booted from the company. But many people genuinely believe politicians are a net negative on the company as a whol…

> actually at the places where 80% of engineers call that shit out that political manager probably gets booted from the company. Congrats, you will soon discover that politics is about realizing your goals by influencing other people and their decisions. And it is easier when you end up in the group that share your set of values.

Cool bro, only 20 years into my career, can't wait to soon discover that!

Gonna be so awesome to try hard to keep a mental model of every single director's desires and kiss their ass and make a bunch of fake projects and fake announcements all to not get promoted anyways! An introvert's dream.

Can't wait to do that instead of remote working chilling in my hammock!

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