> It's still frustrating to know that this mentality infects so many professional "thought workers".
The article explains the process by which good, honest workers become corrupted into this mentality. Whether you want to do good work or not, most people don't have the confidence, security, nest egg, etc. to quit their day job, so they assimilate out of the necessity to keep their bills paid, and this becomes a cycle. The naive worker comes in determined to do a great job, soon learns that "great job" is not a straightforward evaluation and that people who have no real involvement, knowledge, or investment have control over their career trajectory, and then optimize to improve those numbers.
These people then get promoted and a) consider failure to game the system evidence of naivety, and expect this same political awakening in candidates as a "rite of passage"; and/or b) rise through the ranks without realizing that they've gradually internalized the system, and that they're inadvertently making the same loose determinations based on impersonal, macro-level metrics that are easily gamed, partially because as you get promoted, you can't possibly come to a deep intuitive or direct understanding of the work of everyone in the ranks. Rinse and repeat. The ABCs of employment are "Always Be Campaigning".
Strong, personal leadership from invested, intelligent people with conviction is the only antidote, and even when you get these people, it's a constant battle to keep their disinclination for political games from destroying things.