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Comment by charbuff | Hacker News Reader

I can imagine a lot of new graduates having trouble with this:

> I think many people, especially those newer to the working world, underestimate just how ruthless and sociopathic our late-stage Capitalist working conditions really are [...] I’d love to live in a world where less mercenary advice wasn’t dangerous, but that’s not our world.

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If you are lucky you will land in a place that has empathy and you will work with people whom you can trust, but those places are hard to find and even in the best places there will be ruthless actors.

If you are going to say something on exit it is best to say it to someone who has power who you trust. If you have access to a VP or CEO, for example. HR’s job is to quickly make problems go away and minimize risk to to the company. Them passing along helpful information to impact change is the opposite of making something go away, it creates a complication. No one hires HR people to create complications.

I'm 46 and never in my whole career have working conditions been less ruthless nor less sociopathic than they are today. I'm constantly barraged with acceptance training, "human connection" training and calls where the expectation is to "share and connect" by telling the group something personal. I'm not with a bunch of kids either, these are all upper management very high 6 figure types.

I don't want to be one of those "back in my day" types but it use to be up-or-out. You came in at the bottom and either went up the corporate ladder at the proper rate or you were fired. That was sociopathic and bread ruthlessness in the workforce. Today it is touchy feely to the point of being confusing on what the actual expectations of the job are.

I'd like to agree with the latter part of this sentiment as a young person who didn't experience any other times of working to which you refer.

I got fed this narrative that the corporate environment was ruthless and cutthroat, but I found it highly resistant to even profitable, labor-saving new ideas or practices in favor of ego management, image management, and non disruption.

Maybe it's a false expectation on my part, but I would have at least expected ruthless people to be pragmatic and open minded toward things which may be of benefit. That's not to say they're without fault or downside, but that's certainly not generally characteristic of the corporate environment I've experienced.

OTOH, I've found smaller employers with a more direct connection to market forces much better in this regard. I don't think those two things are unrelated.

I'm constantly barraged with acceptance training, "human connection" training and calls where the expectation is to "share and connect" by telling the group something personal

We had a "leadership training" thing a few weeks back where one of the segments involved a breakout session with a random coworker who you may or may not already know, with the expectation that you share something deep and revealing you've never told anyone else.

The person I got paired up with and I were both incredulous about the exercise, specifically the "something you've never told anyone else" part, and shared a couple of surface level phobias "I'm afraid of spiders", I told him. He told me he was scared of sharks. We spent the remaining 5 minutes of our breakout talking about local sports.

Companies need to back the hell off with this stuff. I pay a therapist for those kinds of conversations.

I'm fine being friendly and even making friends with my coworkers over drinks for a little bit work before we all go home, if it happens organically and in a way where people get to choose their level of interaction and disclosure about their personal lives, but a lot of this "top down camaraderie/management facilitated team building" going around feels like a toddler smashing a Barbie and Ken doll together making smooching noises at best, at worst it feels like mommy and daddy making play dates.

I know someone who had a similar event happen in training, except the deep and dark secrets were meant to be shared among a group of six or seven. People shared actual deep and dark secrets; crying was involved. My friend who told me about this was deeply uncomfortable with the whole affair and found it bizarre and cultish, but of course, they went along with it and made up some semi-plausible thing to be a "team player." Amusingly enough, IIRC, it was also a phobia.

I wonder if phobias are just easier to share because some of the more common ones most of us share are ones we know are probably not very rational but still powerfully held.

Like my other phobia...clowns.

Look, I know. Okay, I know. But still.

Why wouldn't the sociopath in the group file all this information away to use against people later. I think I'd just refuse to take part.

I always dread the "two truths and a lie" game, usually performed in front of a large group of people you don't know. It's the ultimate trap. Either come up with two things that sound impressive to strangers, or risk being seen as a bore. Plus you'll never beat Todd who went before you and is literally the Dos Equis Most Interesting Man in the World. Fuck you Todd.

I prefer to give two vacuous truths which contradict each other and a lie. That's at least more fun.

The things that you mention are performative. You're supposed to pretend to believe in them while acting a in deniably ruthless way.

Do you think this is real though? I always put this in the bucket of "HR is my friend" level of lying. When it comes down to brass tack, outside of a few virtue signalers, I think we'll be fed to the wolves the minute it is expedient to do so.

Yeah. (long pause) Right. (long pause)

Less ruthless and less sociopathic, my ass. If that were true, Justine Sacco would not have lost her job for making a dumb joke on Twitter.

All this touchy feely bullshit matters right up until the point where the company is even in the slightest way negatively effective monetarily, then all your happy happy joy joy horseshit goes right out the window.

If anyone wants me to believe we live in a society that actually holds the values you claim are on display, then the next time someone makes a faux pas on Twitter or Facebook or in the office, the company stands strong against public sentiment and says, "So-and-So is one of our own, and we're not going to throw them to the wolves to appease a mob. Period." And then actually back it up.

Then I'll agree that things have actually changed. And if that ever does happen, then things will actually have changed.

That's OK, they'll refer back to posts like this if[1] they get burned once or twice. I think its the sort of thing most have to experience themselves before they believe it rather than accepting it's true up front.

[1] Who knows, maybe they'll be one of the lucky few who don't get burned.

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