Does anyone give more than the minimum effort when they find themselves with a 2% to 4% raise, if any, in their yearly reviews, even if they are in the office?
If I'm so demotivated I'm only putting the minimum effort, I start looking for the next job
[1]: https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-...
There's no believing in metaphorical realities here. It's the real life.
Being an employee is a bad bargain. You sacrifice a massive chunk of the returns from your work to your employer in the form of profits in favor of a small form of stability (or you did in the past anyways). That's just how capitalism works.
Naturally if you go above and beyond sacrificing yourself for this bad bargain, you are losing even more than you would by only doing the necessary to stay employed. Again, this is a fact, not some theory.
The made up characters are just there for the metaphor, but the underlying discussion is not made up.
I've been a Clueless for the majority of my life. I have the equivalent output of 3-4 engineers at the same level and I never got paid 3-4x the salary, even after I got promoted. It's the sad reality of capitalism.
> The piece itself doesn't say anything
Sorry but that must be a bad faith argument. Even if you disagree with the overall theory of how Sociopaths exploit Clueless and Losers to get rich, the individual pieces are more often than not 100% correct. In my view, it's spot on since it's simply a visualization of capitalism.
Are you sure about that? Maybe some introspection needed?
Also - the issue is not that some people are exploitative - that can happen. It’s the rest of it.
The person who wrote the article is making the ‘bad faith’ argument passing on cynical stupid delusions.
This idea that most orgs promote willy nilly is ridiculously wrong. It’s a contradiction of reality.
I never said that. It's clear you're not arguing in good faith so this will be my last reply. Not to mention that completely misses the point.
Even if you have to work 1.5x more than everyone else to get promoted, only to get a 10% salary increase, that's already a bad bargain.
>The person who wrote the article is making the ‘bad faith’ argument passing on cynical stupid delusions.
Sorry but that's not an argument. You're saying it's wrong without saying why. If I were to guess you identified as a Clueless and you're angry at it. It's okay. It's normal.
>This idea that most orgs promote willy nilly is ridiculously wrong. It’s a contradiction of reality.
Yes, most orgs promote the people that double down on bad bargains. Of course, as with anything, there are exceptions.
As an example, it's extremely common to promote people that do unpaid overtime. It doesn't matter the quality of that work or that it's clearly exploitative. What matters is that it signals to the company that you can take advantage of that person. They demonstrate willingness to take on more work, responsibilities and/or bad conditions for a small increase in pay (sometimes just a bit more power). That's the most profitable bargain the company can get so it absolutely makes logical sense.
Maybe you've experienced exceptional companies where only the people that deserve get promoted and they do so without having to get exploited for it. But that's not always the case and I've seen that multiple times in my career.
No - it's not my job to disprove totally made up fantasy.
The delusional author and his naive followers are the group perpetuating completely unsubstantiated theories about the workplace, which have zero scientific backing whatsoever.
The author did not even attempt to 'prove' anything (because he can't) - there is zero worked required to undo that.
Here is the source of the problem with your argument:
You have not defended his thesis at all, rather you keep bringing up arguments about how 'companies can be bad actors' and 'people can be duped'.
Yes - of course, we know that.
What the author is doing is constructing a deluded, fantastical bit of structured that plays into your view that 'companies can do bad things'.
Imagine you 'Trust Trump' so much that you are willing to believe his lie that the 'Election Was Stolen'. If you start from that premise, it's extremely easy for him to make up a set of ridiculous fantasies about how the gov. is broken, evil and 'out to get him'.
As it turns out, the 'election steal' is a lie.
By saying to someone 'But there are election irregularities! Look over here!' - only proves that they occur, which we know, but not at some scale and by some nefarious pattern of election stealing.
So yes - welcome to adulthood - companies and orgs of all kinds sometimes do nefarious things, and there are 'deluded corporate warriors' who on some level don't recognize that. It's fun to point that out.
However - the vast, vast majority of work and corporations are not that. In fact, orgs can do 'life saving' things at the same time they are 'bad'. Best example are drug companies who sometimes charge more than they could get away with, and FYI sometimes it's an inherent moral dilemma.
The second point of emotional leverage that the author is using (i.e. not just against our derision of sneaky corps) - is the fact we live in a political workplace and most of do not like being told what to do. 'Effective Managers' are not necessarily liked, or respected, and that's just reality. A lot of people lack the maturity and self awareness / objectivity to evaluate their position. By far the most common thing among workers is a total lack of understanding of how hard managing is, and the nuances of it. Having been a manager of people myself, I have a completely different set of criteria by which I tend to evaluate managers.
In short: the author is a conspiratorial nihilist populist.
In reality, most systems are 'crudely meritocratic'. Usually, better people are promoted, but you first have to understand that 'better' in your mind may not be 'better' in the mind of the people making the decision.
Yes, people at the top have a few more psychopathic character traits than the rest of the population, but that's actually just a function of the system. Usually, they are not idiots.
Finally - there is no such thing as a 'great team' as a matter of perception, but if you step back and see how things actually work, and that if the company 'did not exist' how it would be bad for a lot of people, then you recognize the funny, imperfect way in which social systems work and respect that they are never going to 'seem' perfect.
People who 'believe' in the ridiculous 'principles' (completely unscientific and unsubstantiated) put forth by the author, have been duped, unfortunately.
Discussed 6 months ago, 150 points:
If you've ever been on a 'decent team' you'll see that there are many 'in between' elements of an operating situation that have to be accommodated, and it takes a bit of extra focus and goodwill by everyone if it's going to work out.
This applies not only to tight-knit groups, but large teams, and also to contractors, and can be extended to the system overall, aka companies working with each other, individuals, public servants etc.
We generally have to keep our chins up, and 'try to do our jobs as we can' not the 'minimum we can get away with', knowing full well that it's not going to work out all the time, that some situations are better than others, and that there will be a lot of variables for which your 'expected bonus of 4%' or whatever is only one small part.
This doesn't mean we 'die on a hill for someone else's cause' or work ourselves in a grind for no reason, nor does it mean accepting negative behaviour on the part of employers, and definitely 'some days are better than others' - but 'life is long' and 'consistency over time' does matter.
It doesn't even mean fake emotional posture (you know those people who are always in a good mood!), but rather just 'doing it'.
In most corporate situations, the bar for 'minimum' is actually fairly low and so pragmatically, if we want to be 'trusted' as individuals, there has to be a general expectation that we will do 'it' not the 'minimum' or it just won't work.
Obviously, things will be uneven in so many ways - some people's 'minimum' will be better than other's 'best effort', but that's life - that's all part of it.
It's an issue of productivity, but arguably, morality as well.
It's actually a bit troubling that people would even need to ask the question, I hope this level of selfish orientation is a niche mentality and not some kind of new, secular social trend.
It's also hard to even grasp that people could be so cynical - I feel sorry for people in that posture, because either they've literally never 'been on a team' and have no internalization of those dynamics, or a are just depressed or have a negative life outlook. I'm not very athletic myself, but over the years I've gravitated towards people who do play sports, especially team sports, as having more of an innate sense for those things. Even 'toxic' people are more often than not just misfits, at least they are interesting.
It's a sad kind of organizational problem as well - the people who are overtly bad or toxic are easy to let go of, but the pernicious malignancy of 'do the least' is worse.
'Doing the thing' it usually doesn't cost any more material time, just focus. If you're going to do it, then do it.
It is a business transaction. You should treat it as such.
The company is not your family and your colleagues are not your brothers. You are one mass layoff away from learning that. And no, your "extra productivity" won't save you from it, but bootlicking just might.
It's not about how hard you work, but how your work is perceived. You're far more likely to go up in the ladder from becoming buddies with your manager than you are by being the guy that gets his hands dirty and fixes everything when the project catches fire.
It is to the company's detriment to promote such a person.
First a couple questions: when you go to you grocer and order and pay 5 apples, do you get exactly 5 apples or do you get 6, or even 7? When you call a professional plumber to fix your sink do they charge you less at the end of the work, or do they charge exactly what their job entailed(or even more)?
Being a professional means exchanging skills and time for money, then why is it that we have developed a company culture in which if you "just" do your job you are seen as a slacker and a terrible employee/person?
This is complete nonsense obviously, and this also one of the tricks that the elites are using since time immemorial to get exponentially richer by exploiting the workers, everyday we are giving away our time and money to enrich the someone else, but at least there needs to be some fairness, it maybe was there in the 1990s but clearly not anymore.
Not every situation is the same, but company dynamics are widely studied and understood by many now, and i suppose we can all agree that getting a 2% raise after pouring many hours of good work everyday is just a complete joke.
Please stop defending practices that just favour the rich and powerful and start taking pride in our value as persons, as opposed to the value that HR attributes us.
Plumbing is artisinal, Carpentry, even more so. There are no two situations the same, and it'd be easy to a builder, carpenter, plumber, electrician to 'cheat' (aka the minimum) and do less than a great job - and - get away with it.
In fact, I have family members who are Carpenters, and this is probably where I get this from because it's more tangible.
'Crap work' is either a function of 'lack of skill' (quite common), but otherwise just poor professionalism and it's bad.
If you want to see the true character of an electrician, look behind the drywall to see the quality of the work.
By the way - there are some carpenters/plubmers/builders who take it way to far on the quality side and build something that could withstand a nuclear war which is not necessary - but this is something else.
The community only works if people are doing 'good work' - not 'the minimum'.
And by the way, sometimes these things are enforced with regulations, but even just conventions, ethos, professional standards.
You can see this if you visit a 'not rich nation', like Mexico. Go to that country and look at the construction - you will see not 'a cut corner' - but a 'million little things' that contribute to the building being shit. Or go look at those 'China Housing' videos on YouTube.
You can see here that there is a 'broader picture' - one that transcends even the mores of a singular project or company.
Let's use the notion of a sports team:
You, as 'guard' are not in a 'transactional relationship' with the 'centre' of the team - it's a 'team effort', which is what is meant by 'trust' and 'got your back', expectations of 'goodwill'. In the military, you're 100% sure that the Medic will do everything possible to save your life, without that trust it would fall apart.
Corporate organizations are obviously not the same, but very similar. People are there to work as a team to do something, 'profit' to shareholders are just one of the factors involved, the other forces are value to supplies, customers and other team members.
As a side note consider that most of the value created by corporations does not even go to shareholders - it goes to customers, suppliers and staff. (If a drug company stopped making a drug, the 'harm' would be felt far more buy customers than investors, similarly for most company formations, private or ngo)
Finally, the 2%. Yes, 'comp' is a part of the equation, obviously, if someone is not getting paid what they want or expect, that's not good - of course a company cannot pay $5/hour for something that would normally cost $50/hr - but - those are the terms of work, not the terms of 'how well we work' (for the most part). A raise of 2% is just 'comp'. That's not 'evil' or even 'bad' - it's just how the comp structure works.
And for reference your notion that '2% is not enough' in some objective way, is not true at all. It's definitely less than inflation, but the sad reality is it's entirely possible the workforce is overpaid right now. Much like the French Pres. having to raise retirement from 62 to 64 and people putting up a fuss, unwilling to accept that reality, the 'inflation' reality is 1) we print money during COVID to keep the patient alive and 2) there are still supply chain problems 3) 'de-globalization' is happening and 4) we're heading into higher interest rates and 5) for many years there was very low inflation, but wages rose a lot. That means we're going to contract a bit relative to where we were, and it's going to happen throughout the system. To be clear, that's only a factor driving 'only 2%' there are obviously others, and to add a final bit of nuance, the FED actually does target 2% inflation - that is their goal on average, which is probably where the 2% standard wage increase comes from.
So again 'my pay' is just part of comp, one part of the much bigger picture. Inn the end, if it's not working out well, then you can move on - that's to be expected and that's what keeps prices working well, churn is normal and healthy - but none of that means you 'do the minimum' where you are, or where you go in the future.
Just and end remark: "minimum" does not mean bad work, minimum means what it's written on the contract, companies just call normal good work "minimum", because like this if you are not in your office form 8 AM to 10 PM you are just doing "minimum work", which is passed as being "bad work", and now we can give you a bed performance review and don't give you a raise.
I still can do "minimum" work and be a good worker.