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The Gervais Principle, or The Office According to "The Office"

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Re: The Gervais Principle, or The Office According to "The Office"

#41

Post by megaduck »

Alex3917 wrote: post #14
boredguy8 wrote: post #5

This is the first blog post that's ever been good enough that I donated to the author merely for having written it. Both brilliant textual analysis and insightful social commentary - definitely worth the read. Or maybe I'm just constructing my delusional world to justify having spent $3 on a public blog post!

You're right, the author is insanely smart. My only real critique is that he is overly embracing of the sociopath concept, probably because his only personal experience comes from within organizations. If he ran his own business I think he'd be able to see this more objectively. Still, he gets a ton of credit for creating all the insights that he does.

I think if he ran his own business, he'd be completely unable to see his own position objectively. People always think that they're doing the right thing, often with the caveat of "under the circumstances".

That's why having a cofounder can be so helpful. Hopefully, your self-serving instincts cancel out and only decisions that are mutually beneficial will make it through.

Re: The Gervais Principle, or The Office According to "The Office"

#42

Post by strlen »

gamble wrote: post #39
strlen wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article handles the case of people who derive a meaning from outside of their work and the people who are looking for financial success and power/status within a corporation. As I've mentioned in a previous comment, the article doesn't take into account the fact that there are people who a) look for a meaning that isn't centered around money or power b) derive it from their work If you're an engineer working for…

I agree wholeheartedly with Paul, but you do have to balance it against the amount of work involved. Something that's fulfilling at 40 hours a week can be grinding when you're at it 60+ hours a week. The problem with working as an employee for a start-up is that you're required to have the commitment of a founder, without the upside. There may be some people who will knowingly invest their youth in buying someone els…

I agree with working for a medium company can be a very good trade off (I am presently at one and enjoy my job a great deal). However, there are always trade offs: in a small company you get a much bigger say in the product features and its architecture; medium companies might also have the same broken processes/tools/standards as an early an early stage standards but they would be much harder to dislodge.

It really comes down to the specific company/specific team/specific position. Main thing is not to have unrealistic expectations (changing the world, earning money/fame power) as well as have a clear picture of what you're looking for (technical challenge, experience for starting your own company, career advancement, etc...).

The other key thing I've learned is if joining an early stage start-up as an engineer, is to be sure that the sort of programming they do is what you want to do. Otherwise, you'd feel underutilized despite working start-up hours. For example, joining a start-up building web applications on the LAMP stack is a bad idea if you want to do systems programming; some start-ups begin with a simple technological stack but then invest a great deal in in-house systems ("build" being a better option for a start-up then "buy") as they encounter scalability/performance challenges (Facebook, Twitter, etc...) -- but the average early stage start-up would never encounter these challenges in the first place.

Re: The Gervais Principle, or The Office According to "The Office"

#44

Post by jwesley »

seigenblues wrote: post #25
orangecat wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, although I'd disagree that it's objectively a "bad bargain". You won't get rich quick, but if you have a basic understanding of finances and a moderate amount of self-discipline you can get rich slowly. If you don't want to go into management, I'd say that's a good bargain.

but why should it be this way at all? The fact that their compensated wealth has become totally disconnected from the reality of productivity makes this a pretty shocking way to run a world. But one very compatible with our simian social organizing. Or to put it another way, why should someone who is (arguably) producing most of the value have to stand for getting rich slowly, when the clueless middle managers fail u…

The reason that losers are losers is that they don't have the balls to start their own company or seize power within an organization. They are free to attempt those things, but they don't, either because they fear risk, don't understand the nature of business, or are too nice to make the sociopathic choices necessary to survive. Sociopaths might not lay the bricks themselves, so to speak, but they take the risks and make the leaps that result in true productivity gains.

Re: The Gervais Principle, or The Office According to "The Office"

#45

Post by netsp »

Alex3917 wrote: post #14
boredguy8 wrote: post #5

This is the first blog post that's ever been good enough that I donated to the author merely for having written it. Both brilliant textual analysis and insightful social commentary - definitely worth the read. Or maybe I'm just constructing my delusional world to justify having spent $3 on a public blog post!

You're right, the author is insanely smart. My only real critique is that he is overly embracing of the sociopath concept, probably because his only personal experience comes from within organizations. If he ran his own business I think he'd be able to see this more objectively. Still, he gets a ton of credit for creating all the insights that he does.

I think he has a certain admiration for the sociopath.

Re: The Gervais Principle, or The Office According to "The Office"

#46

Post by mr_luc »

gsmaverick wrote: post #3
lionhearted wrote: post #2

It gets this half-right/half-wrong: > While some may be losers in that sense too, they are primarily losers in the economic sense: those who have, for various reasons, made (or been forced to make) a bad economic bargain: they’ve given up some potential for long-term economic liberty (as capitalists) for short-term economic stability. Halfway with the author so far. Generally, being salaried is a bad economic bargain…

You're last point was well presented. I have never looked at salary based compensation in that way. But it does make a lot of sense now.

pg wrote an essay about it.

http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html

Subheading "What a Job Is", 5th paragraph down or so:

    In a company, the work you do is averaged together with a lot of 
    other people's. You may not even be aware you're doing something 
    people want. Your contribution may be indirect. But the company 
    as a whole must be giving people something they want, or 
    they won't make any money. And if they are paying you x dollars 
    a year, then on average you must be contributing at least 
    x dollars a year worth of work, or the company will be spending 
    more than it makes, and will go out of business.
And in the next subheading:

    I think the single biggest problem afflicting large 
    companies is the difficulty of assigning a value to 
    each person's work. For the most part they punt. In a 
    big company you get paid a fairly predictable salary 
    for working fairly hard.

    ....

    the company has no way of measuring the value of your 
    work.

    Salesmen are an exception. It's easy to measure how 
    much revenue they generate, and they're usually paid a 
    percentage of it. If a salesman wants to work harder, 
    he can just start doing it, and he will automatically 
    get paid proportionally more.
Gosh, that's a good essay.

Re: The Gervais Principle, or The Office According to "The Office"

#47

Post by allenbrunson »

i tried to read this, since so many of you seem to like it. i couldn't make myself read more than two or three paragraphs before i had to give up.

i am really surprised this is popular amongst this particular group of entrepreneurs. i think if you have to put this level of thought into how crappy your workplace is, you should have quit years ago.

Re: The Gervais Principle, or The Office According to "The Office"

#48

Post by noonespecial »

incandenza wrote: post #18

This is a pretty amazing analysis. I think a lot of really talented engineers in Silicon Valley fit into a kind of hybrid category I might call 'loser with sociopathic tendencies' (gotta love these terms--hey, I didn't invent them, I'm just following the article). Although they deliberately choose to remain at the 'loser' level in terms of the org chart, they have a 'sociopathic' level of awareness of how the busines…

Although they deliberately choose to remain at the 'loser' level in terms of the org chart, they have a 'sociopathic' level of awareness of how the business operates (maybe from being an early employee or founder of previous startups). They're never truly comfortable at the 'loser' level, but maybe not willing or capable of making a move to the 'sociopath' level...

The Steves, Wozniak and Jobs spring instantly to mind.

Did the Woz have fun during his career. Absolutely. Did Jobs? Well, that depends...

Re: The Gervais Principle, or The Office According to "The Office"

#49

Post by 3pt14159 »

gamble wrote: post #40
3pt14159 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have stock options, even a small slice of the company, it's not wasted effort.

The typical employee's <1% share won't even make up for the overtime they put in unless their company turns out to be the next Google.

I get where you are going, but my personal experience has taught me otherwise. A 10X gain on nominal value after 3 years of work isn't atypical. Doesn't make you a millionaire, but it does help pay the mortgage.

Re: The Gervais Principle, or The Office According to "The Office"

#50

Post by netsp »

incandenza wrote: post #18

This is a pretty amazing analysis. I think a lot of really talented engineers in Silicon Valley fit into a kind of hybrid category I might call 'loser with sociopathic tendencies' (gotta love these terms--hey, I didn't invent them, I'm just following the article). Although they deliberately choose to remain at the 'loser' level in terms of the org chart, they have a 'sociopathic' level of awareness of how the busines…

It's tricky placing yourself in the "loser with sociopathic tendencies" category. Most people see themselves this way. No one identifies with Michael. Everyone identifies with Jim.
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