Working Until You Die

aeon said:

from Reddit:

I spent most of my career looking for a place with competent coworkers, superiors, and subordinates with potential. The reality of the corporate world is this:

NEVER fail.

If you fail, it's because:

1. You failed to anticipate your failure and pass the buck to someone else.
2. You stayed in a position long enough to be forced to follow through on a responsibility you committed to.
3. You accepted a position that had actual responsibilities, rather than one dictating the responsibilities.

The lessons I've learned in the business world are simple: Get your name on as many committees and projects as possible. This allows you to maximize your schedule for things that you are not directly responsible for, and to minimize the actual job responsibilities you need to answer for. If you have been in a position for 6 months, it's time to start applying elsewhere. Accept an upward or lateral offer around every 12 to 18 months. Don't do your work. Anywhere you possibly can, pivot your responsibilities to the creation of "meta work". Find a problem at your workplace that you can blame production issues on, and then stand up an action plan to address it. --To be clear, don't address it. Just stand up an action plan to do so. Make a committee. Build presentations and be the one to give them. Make sure you move on before implementation of whatever asinine bullshit you come up with so you can claim the projected benefits of the plan, rather than have to own the actual outcomes.

This will make you incompetent at your job. You will destroy company morale and profitability. But you will be rewarded for doing it. American business culture is the most efficient marketplace in the world. Not for production, no, no. Not for market outcomes. But for individual wealth creation at the expense of every single load-bearing wall, pillar, and floor that supports the position you were hired to do.

This is why all of your coworkers are incompetent and burned out. This is why all of your managers are constantly absent, and moving on to bigger and better things. This is why all of your executives are out of touch with what you do. It's because, despite what you think, if you are adding value to the company, you are getting fucked. Anybody who realizes this will either stop feeding the machine, or start eating it right back. Both come from a place of spite. This is why all of your managers/execs are inauthentic, hollow human beings with almost no redeeming qualities whatsoever; They have either been transformed into miserable zombies by staying in place too long, or they are putting a pretty face on cannibalism.

JFC,
Ian

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