Your career is a game of Dungeons & Dragons, not Monopoly | Hacker News Reader

Your career is a game of Dungeons & Dragons, not Monopoly

tjic.com

79 pointstjic32 comments

> on a given turn in the game of Monopoly, you roll the dice, move your token, buy and sell properties . . . and nothing else.

Er . . . that's not how I've ever played Monopoly. In my family, those things are just the opening moves. The real action comes from the constant deal making. Trading properties, negotiating for free rent, paying people to not trade properties. You need to know what your stuff and their stuff is worh. You want to know how to drive a hard bargain without making the other person so mad they won't deal with you again. You need to know how to win, but not reveal too early that you're winning so people don't stop dealing with you.

Monopoly is a game of politics. And not like Settlers of Catan, where who you can make a deal with and what you can trade is constrained. In Monopoly, you can make a deal about anything.

If you don't think a career in a big corporation is like a game of Monopoly, you're either playing Monopoly wrong or managing your career wrong. Possibly both.

(I definitely agree about not accepting the presented rules, but I wouldn't say ignore them completely. Understand the local customs and rituals and their benefits and costs and who cares about them and why. If all you ever do is upset applecarts, you're like the guy playing monopoly who says "screw you guys" to the other players and never makes deals. He loses.)

Ok, so Monopoly is a bad analogy. Chutes and Ladders?

No choices in Chutes and Ladders (or Candyland). "Sorry" is probably closest; rigidly limited choices and a certain amount of backstabbing....

But I'd also observe that the way Monopoly is described in the post is how a lot of people play it. In my experience, I generally manage to make one killer deal, people realize their mistake several turns later, and what inevitably happens is that the response is to never make a deal with me again. Yes, not the spirit of the game, but I am not surrounded by gaming nerds in meatspace. (And my response is that I refuse to play Monopoly. Which isn't as harsh as it sounds as we have a wide variety of other good games, less prone to such terrible gaming by a nerd.)

Yes, you must choose Monopoly partners very carefully. Some people were just not intended to play that game - they get resentful and petty.

Mmm. You are playing it wrong.. I'm, wondering if your games ever finished or everyone just got bored at some point

I come from a long line of ruthlessly cutthroat Monopoly players. If you get into a game with my mom and the aunts on my Mom's side . . . man, you're lucky if there's not blood on the floor when you're done ;)

I saw this headline and deduced a different metaphor:

Your career is not a straight line of promotions (pauper-> land owner-> landlord-> mogul), it is a series of challenges from which you equip yourself with new tools and more experience. As you personally grow, your career grows, and the rest follows from there.

I'll accept that addition to the metaphor!

What about a "You've reached name level, now go forth and build your keep!" self-help advice book?

Well, that would explain how my last gig was too many thieves with high backstabs and not enough wizards. Although there was a cleric.

Can't trust those clerics. Too educated, and they have an In with the Big Guy.

Since its Friday, I'll point out that Monopoly is a primitive RPG. Monopoly has hit points ($), you quest around the board getting items like more hit points, get out of jail free cards, winning beauty pageants, and buying properties which behave like attacking creatures killing your opponent. These attacking creatures can level up.

> buying properties which behave like attacking creatures killing your opponent.

I had never thought of it that way. Looking at it from that perspective, Monopoly feels alot like MtG, except with a board.

Mortgaging all your assets to crank up one color group does feel a little like a channel fireball.

That does not make it a Role-Playing Game. That makes it primitive Magic the Gathering.

Everything's a primitive RPG if you're willing to pretend hard enough.

And if you're a corporate wage slave, you're obviously playing fourth edition.

Hey, let's be fair, Fourth Edition can be a lot of fun. The graphics were better when it was called WoW, but losing Barrens chat makes up for it entirely.

Yeah but now I can't get anyone to tell me where Mankrik's wife is....

Not here, please.

Sorry, I couldn't come up with a decent "rust monster" analogy on the spot. But actually, there are some analogies between adventure structure and lifestyle choices. I actually work as an employee, and the set number of encounters per week is good for my personal sense of safety and mental hit points, but there's a certain yearning for the sandbox world of entrepreneurship…

(I think with this post I used up my nerd budget for today)

I credit my alma mater for leaving me with a deep ignorance of social and professional hierarchies. Nice things can happen when you can approach senior executives in large organizations as if they were any other peer, and yet, it's definitely not one of the standard prescribed actions if you're viewing the world through the Monopoly schema.

The article paints a pretty bleak picture of what working is like in corporations. I have worked at a 6000 people strong tech company based in Palo Alto (okay...why hide it...VMware) and it was nothing like what the article describes. One could suggest new things, argue with managers, walk up to any person and so on. I have heard similar things about other companies with less than 10000 employees.

So, may be the author is talking about the juggernauts employing 50,000 or more people?

I do work at one of those 50k employee behemoths, and I wouldn't say it's bleak. But IMO the D&D metaphor does hold. Unfortunately, at work, not everyone can be an adventurer. Somebody has to run the grimey inn where you met your party; somebody has to be the withered old man that told you of the ancient treasure; somebody has to be the otherwise inconsequential bystander staying at the inn to keep it in business long enough to allow for these encounters. But you'll never get directions to the Temple of Elemental Evil from the latter.

Basically, you have to seek out your own quests - don't let them bury you in Beetle hunting.

If you're intelligent and creative, you're biggest obstacle is going to be getting in a room with the person who has a problem you're capable of solving - and unfortunately, they don't all have yellow question marks above their heads.

As long as I can stand in the back an throw fireballs, I am okay with that.

Think outside the "think outside the box" box. This is ycombinator, after all. ;-)

Are there any CEOs reading this who think of themselves as Dungeon Masters?

Yeah, I can envision how this goes. "I'm casting Fireball at the horde of recruiters!"

Colluding is easier than Competing.

True: You are what you make yourself.

False: Follow the advice of others to a T.

Anyone else now looking forward to D&D 4.5E: Office Space?

It's a little bit of both.

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