How to get promoted
Almost everyone who does great work toils in relative obscurity. Performance reviews are social fiction. How do people really advance through the corporate hierarchy?
Hasnain says:
I cannot tell if this is satire or not. This is a great piece of writing that is a view into corporate culture and quite horrifying at the same time. Kudos to the author for achieving their stated goals (they said this can equally be read as satire or not). I am praying this is satire, for what it’s worth.
“When you first encounter this mode of being, it may be so far outside of your normal range of experience you'll have trouble processing it. Marx thought that to be fulfilled, humans must feel a connection to the end result of their work. For example, a carpenter feels satisfaction when he finishes a chair or a table. But in an industrialized society people no longer feel this connection, which robs them of the fulfillment. He called this phenomenon "estranged labor". One way to think about people who are attracted purely to wealth and status is that under these same conditions they don't feel estranged. They've either eradicated this feeling in themselves long ago, or never felt it in the first place.
Can you build a successful organization that keeps the unprincipled out? No. As the company grows more successful, so does the allure. The organization starts getting constantly bombarded by world class actors who specialize in slipping past the founders's defenses. And since at higher rungs much of the job is recruiting, the new hire becomes a Trojan horse. As soon as they're in, they open the door to dozens of cronies who diffuse into the company. It's like putting a drop of ink in a glass of water-- there is no undo.”
Posted on 2020-09-29T05:05:59+0000