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Any interaction with another human at work is politics
Yes, but derisively referring any interaction with another human at work as “office politics” is the problem.
Also why it is a problem ?
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The average HN reader is highly overrated for other reasons. > have detest for office politics The problem is that many people on HN believe any interaction with someone with an MBA, marketing background, manager, etc. is “office politics.”
I think the problem is that people think that all office politics is necessarily bad.
"ok we need this and that"
"we can deliver it by X, is that okay?"
"nope, we need that by Y"
"ok, we can cut this feature and it will be by then"
"that works, thanks"
is not "office politics", yet it is pretty common.
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You misunderstood what I was saying. What I meant was that lying and manipulating are generally considered objectively bad by most people. However, that behavior is considered normal in corporate cultures. It's even part of the job if you're in marketing or sales! And no, I won't stop judging large groups of people who's jobs are built on deception. And I won't stop judging people who are naturally drawn to those job…
> It's even part of the job if you're in marketing or sales! I know I’m not going to change your mind here, but I stress: It really really isn’t. Marketing and sales are about communicating some value to people who might need that value. You can find this distasteful if you like.
Am I expected to believe that these things are about communicating value? I'm sorry but that's a steaming pile of BS.
Using power tactics with your customers during sales calls. Creating a sense of urgency. Bending the truth to make your product appear more favorable in general and vs competitors products.
Am I expected to believe that these things are about communicating value? I'm sorry but that's a steaming pile of BS.
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The average HN reader is highly overrated for other reasons. > have detest for office politics The problem is that many people on HN believe any interaction with someone with an MBA, marketing background, manager, etc. is “office politics.”
Yes because if you look at it objectively those people tend to be lying, manipulative people with big fake smiles on their faces. People are so accustomed to our messed up society that they don't even realize how amoral "normal" behavior is.
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Yes, but derisively referring any interaction with another human at work as “office politics” is the problem.
The other interactions like talking about your weekend aren't exacty something to comment on. Also why it is a problem ?
The problem is that there’s no reasonable definition of “office politics” that frames it as a positive thing. You’re approaching every interaction negatively as something you can win/lose.
Man the slackware clock thing is so common. “Is that in confluence?” burns me up regularly. Things like how to delete a file in git. Or revert a file. As the number of tools required to build software continues to grow there are more and more opportunities for people to play dumb and act dopey.
I don't see how that can work. If someone does that even once you're going to lose respect for them. Twice and you're going to fire them for just not being smart enough.
And hey sometimes they have a valid point but yeah usually they will feel out management about it and if it works you’re going to hear about it non-stop
These articles come out with some regularity, and yet no one ever says, "Yep! That's totally me! I'm a non contributing zero but I've made a living at making others think I add to the team!" Everyone knows people like this, but no one is one.
I think the reality is that anyone might engage in these behaviors from time to time. I've seen myself doing some of these things in my weaker moments and I've seen others doing them. And I've seen those same people turn around and contribute positively on other days. Of course no one is going to categorize themselves as highly overrated. Maybe that's because people often don't reliably fit into specific categories.
> Distract with Arguments about Minutiae
is easy for tech people as we could discuss every detail for tens of minutes ignoring the fact remaining 4 people in the meeting don't give a shit about the minutia of solution, just that it is done
> Time It So You Look Good (Or Everyone Else Looks Bad)
is easy if you (or your manager!) mismanages priorities of tasks and you don't have habit of starting with stuff that might block other people first..
Like, simeple example, ticket looks "long" from title so you don't even read it before you have longer time period. You read it, then it turns out before start you need some information first from the submitter.
You now delayed tasks by hours, maybe days, compared to if you read it first, sent the "give me stuff I need" message, then went back to doing other things before the response came
These articles come out with some regularity, and yet no one ever says, "Yep! That's totally me! I'm a non contributing zero but I've made a living at making others think I add to the team!" Everyone knows people like this, but no one is one.
First: there is of course an incentive not to admit this. Second: I do believe that many people on HN really deeply care about technology/hacking topics and have detest for office politics. On the other hand, the people that the article discuss are good at office politics/marketing themselves and often don't have such a deep knowledge about programming. Thus, I would indeed assume that the typical HN reader/writer le…
I think it's more accurate to say that they have a detest for dealing with people in ways that require persuasion, or more generally situations without an "objective" right answer.
You want to do A, someone else wants to do B, you can't do both, you both think you're right, boom, "politics."
Man the slackware clock thing is so common. “Is that in confluence?” burns me up regularly. Things like how to delete a file in git. Or revert a file. As the number of tools required to build software continues to grow there are more and more opportunities for people to play dumb and act dopey.
After trying for hours to make their autogenerated libray to work (I had to patch their own wrappers to return actual error code coz they fucked up error handling) I just gave up for a day and threw some excuse
... the code worked next day. By which I mean it displayed another nonsensical error but it was progress!
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> It's even part of the job if you're in marketing or sales! I know I’m not going to change your mind here, but I stress: It really really isn’t. Marketing and sales are about communicating some value to people who might need that value. You can find this distasteful if you like.
Sexualizing products. Creating cute jokes during the super bowl. Implying that if you buy this product, you'll improve your social status. Am I expected to believe that these things are about communicating value? I'm sorry but that's a steaming pile of BS. Using power tactics with your customers during sales calls. Creating a sense of urgency. Bending the truth to make your product appear more favorable in general an…