Any job where Level 3 and Level 5 exists might be a nightmarishly bureaucratic corporation. Never work for a business larger than 150 people if you want to keep your sanity!
Very few people have my same exact skillset. I had a recent job interview. The company has an outsourced warehouse and logistics. Thinking about getting their own. Telling me one obstacle is no one in the company has any idea how warehouse management software works and thus are afraid that external consultants might lie to them. I have implemented several ones and added my own inventions, such as workers wearing a sleeve with the digits 0 to 9 printed in barcode, so they can enter numbers by scanning.
I would make the opposite case. 90% of people at work are so useless, anyone actually useful is a superstar :)
Have you guys watched Dr. House? It is real. Someone actually not incompetent at diagnosing illnesses (or anything), someone who can do more than Apply Procedure, can afford to be an unlikeable grumpy asshole.
Can we add the myth of the annual raise and the association with the performance review? For the rank and file…every year the annual “merit increases” are a budgeted inflationary number. Typically 2-4%. Let’s average it at 3%. That is the baseline. The reason that we rate most folks at “Meets Expectations” is because that’s how we define the average merit increase. Like a bell curve, for every “Exceeds Expectations” there must be a “Needs Improvement”. So you get 4% and they get 2%…but in the end the pool of $ granted doesn’t change. If everybody is performing, everybody “Meets Expectations” and gets 3%.
That’s why the lure of a new job or a jump typically yields the biggest increases. But it has to be calculated. Jump every 2 years or less and those of us GenX / GenY managers see you as a risk and not worth the additional training and won’t likely hire you.
Typically the sweet spot is 3 years, and the ability to sell yourself to them and convincing them its on them to keep you around. But good stuff, glad someone understands the game as well.
I have seen two people be a victim of this in the past couple months - PIP. I recently wrote about one of the individuals I worked with in a Substack who got one after working for just over a month because of a.) not being likeable, b.) not doing what she was told, & c.) causing the Director of the account to get involved with ground level issues.
All for causing multiple issues and disrupting the stability the project (between client & organization), she got a PIP a month into her new job. The following week after being put on PIP, she was promptly let go. I was even one of the people who signed off on her poor performance, which was mainly because she made herself unlikeable and caused issues for the group. Not knowing how to shut your mouth, do your work, and be likeable with the key people you work with will bite you in the ass, hard..
I think back on my second job a lot because it taught me so much completely unrelated to my role. But sadly only in retrospect.
I got passed over for promotions repeatedly despite meeting the criteria for promotion. They weren't easy criteria either: I had to actually take initiative and do exceptionally well and mentor and hell I even started a class to teach our manual QA how to use a command line... but my boss didn't like me. I complained too much and didn't go drinking with him after work.
I got passed over by a guy who did far less work than me and helped far fewer people. His secret? He automated his tasks but kept it quiet. I automated my tasks, trained people in how to use my scripts, then moved onto a new task. Why pass me over and promote him? He was less stressed so he was more pleasant to be around.
It's crazy looking back because my clique included the fucking CEO. I had the social positioning to succeed but I had no idea how to leverage it or even that it was a thing. In a later job at a larger company where I was just a random dude, I did better because I actually tried at the social sphere of work.
Oh also something that wasn't obvious to me until later: if you don't ask for more money then not only will you not get paid more but also you'll lose respect. People don't promote someone they do not respect.
This is such the best point blank sentence to resume it all.
In the school days it was “eww I don’t like his haircut”, “ew she likes weird music”, “ew he/she doesn’t have [brand of the week] shoes”.
There was the in-group “cool kids” and the out group “nerd kids”.
The teacher would play along and definitely give beneficial treatment to the “cool group”, usually because one or some of them would have some influential family member.
Office politics is all the same just with more expensive toys and more fine tuned tactics. A lot will still boil down with who you know, who’s “the popular one”, coworkers will play the game and connect talking about their latest Teslas over the coffee breaks, their trips, etc.
It’s not just at the office though, these very same people will be parking their freshly new SUVs in the driveway for months instead of using the perfectly available garage slot for everybody to see and post their vacations, restaurants meals and all sorts of events in all their social media accounts.
It’s gotten so out of hand… no wonder buildings, bridges and planes are falling. Movies and video games flopping, etc.
As Roger Sterling once said, half of this business is based on "I don't like that guy"
Likability is such an important skill in corporate jobs
Any job where Level 3 and Level 5 exists might be a nightmarishly bureaucratic corporation. Never work for a business larger than 150 people if you want to keep your sanity!
Very few people have my same exact skillset. I had a recent job interview. The company has an outsourced warehouse and logistics. Thinking about getting their own. Telling me one obstacle is no one in the company has any idea how warehouse management software works and thus are afraid that external consultants might lie to them. I have implemented several ones and added my own inventions, such as workers wearing a sleeve with the digits 0 to 9 printed in barcode, so they can enter numbers by scanning.
I would make the opposite case. 90% of people at work are so useless, anyone actually useful is a superstar :)
Have you guys watched Dr. House? It is real. Someone actually not incompetent at diagnosing illnesses (or anything), someone who can do more than Apply Procedure, can afford to be an unlikeable grumpy asshole.
Can we add the myth of the annual raise and the association with the performance review? For the rank and file…every year the annual “merit increases” are a budgeted inflationary number. Typically 2-4%. Let’s average it at 3%. That is the baseline. The reason that we rate most folks at “Meets Expectations” is because that’s how we define the average merit increase. Like a bell curve, for every “Exceeds Expectations” there must be a “Needs Improvement”. So you get 4% and they get 2%…but in the end the pool of $ granted doesn’t change. If everybody is performing, everybody “Meets Expectations” and gets 3%.
That’s why the lure of a new job or a jump typically yields the biggest increases. But it has to be calculated. Jump every 2 years or less and those of us GenX / GenY managers see you as a risk and not worth the additional training and won’t likely hire you.
Typically the sweet spot is 3 years, and the ability to sell yourself to them and convincing them its on them to keep you around. But good stuff, glad someone understands the game as well.
> The Performance Review Lie
I have seen two people be a victim of this in the past couple months - PIP. I recently wrote about one of the individuals I worked with in a Substack who got one after working for just over a month because of a.) not being likeable, b.) not doing what she was told, & c.) causing the Director of the account to get involved with ground level issues.
All for causing multiple issues and disrupting the stability the project (between client & organization), she got a PIP a month into her new job. The following week after being put on PIP, she was promptly let go. I was even one of the people who signed off on her poor performance, which was mainly because she made herself unlikeable and caused issues for the group. Not knowing how to shut your mouth, do your work, and be likeable with the key people you work with will bite you in the ass, hard..
File those TPS reports 4 weeks in advance, bare minimum
I like the career strategies you post. It’s interesting to get the HR perspective from a male.
I think back on my second job a lot because it taught me so much completely unrelated to my role. But sadly only in retrospect.
I got passed over for promotions repeatedly despite meeting the criteria for promotion. They weren't easy criteria either: I had to actually take initiative and do exceptionally well and mentor and hell I even started a class to teach our manual QA how to use a command line... but my boss didn't like me. I complained too much and didn't go drinking with him after work.
I got passed over by a guy who did far less work than me and helped far fewer people. His secret? He automated his tasks but kept it quiet. I automated my tasks, trained people in how to use my scripts, then moved onto a new task. Why pass me over and promote him? He was less stressed so he was more pleasant to be around.
It's crazy looking back because my clique included the fucking CEO. I had the social positioning to succeed but I had no idea how to leverage it or even that it was a thing. In a later job at a larger company where I was just a random dude, I did better because I actually tried at the social sphere of work.
Oh also something that wasn't obvious to me until later: if you don't ask for more money then not only will you not get paid more but also you'll lose respect. People don't promote someone they do not respect.
Point taken.
High school never ends
This is such the best point blank sentence to resume it all.
In the school days it was “eww I don’t like his haircut”, “ew she likes weird music”, “ew he/she doesn’t have [brand of the week] shoes”.
There was the in-group “cool kids” and the out group “nerd kids”.
The teacher would play along and definitely give beneficial treatment to the “cool group”, usually because one or some of them would have some influential family member.
Office politics is all the same just with more expensive toys and more fine tuned tactics. A lot will still boil down with who you know, who’s “the popular one”, coworkers will play the game and connect talking about their latest Teslas over the coffee breaks, their trips, etc.
It’s not just at the office though, these very same people will be parking their freshly new SUVs in the driveway for months instead of using the perfectly available garage slot for everybody to see and post their vacations, restaurants meals and all sorts of events in all their social media accounts.
It’s gotten so out of hand… no wonder buildings, bridges and planes are falling. Movies and video games flopping, etc.