Office Politics/Gossip At Work

[kimpossible]

No matter where you go office politics are going to be an issue. If not now, then eventually. Besides having a strict policy of not talking about work the *moment* I leave the office building, I keep these books handy and refer to them every once in a while when I need a refresher.

How to Become CEO: The Rules for Rising to the Top of Any Organization
Verbal Judo: The Gentle Art of Persuasion
The Art of War

If you read nothing else, read How to Become CEO. That will give you an excellent overview of usable strategies to survive office politics and put yourself in the best position to advance.

Italics aren't working for me right now. Hence the unitalicized titles.

[teaz0r]

i loathe bureaucracy. moreover i loathe stupid bosses.

http://www.fastcompany.com is like a godsend, it helps calm me down and it helps
me manage my little underlings better, be it that i only one. but still.

one of my favourite reads is: It Doesn't Take a Wizard to Build a Better Boss
by Len Schlesinger. it's an easy and humourus read. He talks about three types of
bosses:

I. The Scarecrow: The Boss Does the Talking, You Do the Thinking
"I won't try to manage things, because I can't think." -- The Scarecrow

II. The Cowardly Lion: Do You Have the Courage of Your Boss's Convictions?
"I haven't got any courage at all. I can't even scare myself ... I'm afraid there's no denying, I'm just a dandelion." -- The Cowardly Lion

III. The Tin Man: The Boss Carries an Ax
"Just to register emotion...if I only had a heart." -- The Tin Man



Everybody hates the boss. Maybe not all the time or every day -- but at one time or another, everybody goes home from work, sits down to dinner, and complains bitterly about what's wrong with the boss.
Everybody complains about the same things: The boss doesn't listen. The boss doesn't offer encouragement. The boss doesn't recognize superior effort.

Whatever the specific language, the theme is always the same: there's something wrong with the boss.

Along with these universal truths, I've discovered a number of absolutely pragmatic -- and surprisingly counterintuitive -- conclusions:

You cannot change the boss. Everyone tries; it never works. Complaining about the boss won't make the boss a better boss. It will make you a bitter employee.
You cannot simply adapt yourself to whatever the boss wants. This old-fashioned, 1950s "Company Man" view of the world is obsolete. The world moves too fast for sycophants.
Nor can you declare yourself empowered and become boss-free. Sorry. Hierarchy is here to stay; the boss is still the boss -- and often for good reasons.


the full article here: it doesn't take a wizard to build a better boss (http://www.fastcompany.com/online/03/boss.html)

[airborneranger]

Hey pipsy or thai PHd , I am really impressed and scared of you now because you just happened to be my type
You made me remembered about this certain female accountant in one of my holidays
How this female came to work the next day in high heels, short skirt and teaching me how to use fax machine after she met me
Little did she know I just bullcrapped her about can not use fax machine and how I already knew she tried to attract my attention by wearing short skirt and high heels
How she loved to dominate me around and how I pretended to be a true slave

[teaz0r]

um okay.

:rolleyes:

[kasia]

Originally posted by airborneranger@Mar 1 2003, 06:24 PM
Hey pipsy or thai PHd , I am really impressed and scared of you now because you just happened to be my type
You made me remembered about this certain female accountant in one of my holidays
How this female came to work the next day in high heels, short skirt and teaching me how to use fax machine after she met me
Little did she know I just bullcrapped her about can not use fax machine and how I already knew she tried to attract my attention by wearing short skirt and high heels
How she loved to dominate me around and how I pretended to be a true slave
i bet you really didn't know how to use the fax machine even though you may have thought you did. :lol:

i'll read the recommended books when i have more time after i graduate in may. could come in handy. haven't had to deal much with office politics. most of my bosses were people who looked out for me and wanted to watch me advance. but that's just cause i've been lucky.

i heard that there is a lot of politics involved in working at the public defender's office. unless you network and are aggressive, you could be stuck doing traffic cases and small misdemeanors for years. there's no way that one would be given homicide/serious felony cases unless he/she knows how to work it. i hate politics.

[teaz0r]

Originally posted by kasia@Mar 3 2003, 04:47 AM
i bet you really didn't know how to use the fax machine even though you may have thought you did. :lol:


hehehehehehe :lol:

[airborneranger]

Originally posted by pipSy@Mar 2 2003, 04:17 PM
Originally posted by kasia@Mar 3 2003, 04:47 AM
i bet you really didn't know how to use the fax machine even though you may have thought you did.  :lol:


hehehehehehe :lol:
um okay.

[mrazntre]

Realizations of O.P. :

1) You can't please all of the people all of the time
2) Machiavelli makes sense
3) Youth DOES harm your career
4) The less you say, the smarter you seem
5) The more you say, the stupider you sound


Best advice given to me:

Talk to everyone, but only a little bit. Adults are just like kids. You talk to one person too much and all the other kids get jealous.

[Faithless]

Realizations of O.P. :

1) You can't please all of the people all of the time
2) Machiavelli makes sense
3) Youth DOES harm your career
4) The less you say, the smarter you seem
5) The more you say, the stupider you sound

6) Become a cyber worker:

At-home cyber workers please clients, company they work for (http://www.mcall.com/business/local/all-cyberagentsfeb10,0,3763458.story?coll=all-businesslocal-hed)
After several false starts, the concept is gaining a foothold.

Many employees consider it the perfect job: working from home, picking the hours you want to work. No commute. No office politics. No day care for the kids.

What's more, many corporations consider them the perfect workers: They pay for their own equipment, their own office, their own training, and the company compensates them only for those minutes that they work.

If they're busy from 9:57 to 10:01 a.m., fine, pay them by the minute. If there's nothing to do at 10:02, no pay. And, of course, they get no benefits in any case.

That's the business model for Willow of Miramar, Fla., and its 1,200 cyberagents. Over a decade, despite huge hopes, the company has frequently struggled with disgruntled clients and angry agents. Several teams of management and investors have searched futilely for the right formula.

Now it appears Willow may have found it. Under the helm of veteran call-center manager Basil Bennett, Willow has grown to serve 25 clients, including Office Depot, Alamo Rent a Car, Oceania Cruises, General Electric and a half-dozen AAA auto clubs.

Many of those clients praise Willow lavishly for the way cyberagents handle their customers' calls, and the company is expanding to include agents in the Orlando, Fla., and Phoenix areas.

''A lot more things like this are going to be happening,'' said Thomas W. Malone, a professor of management at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, whose book ''The Future of Work'' is to be published in April.

''We're going to see tremendous changes. More and more jobs basically can be done anywhere.…People can live at ski resorts or beaches or small towns,'' said Malone.

''Future generations may look back and see a change has taken place that was as profound as the changes brought by the industrial revolution.''

Willow, a pioneer in this field in the early 1990s, now has plenty of competition. Alpine Access in Golden, Colo., Working Solutions in Dallas, and West Corp. in Omaha employ thousands of agents.
...

[moser]

There are some people who say to stay clear of office politics, whereas others say that one needs to be involved in office politics to advance his/her career.

So what would you recommend/do: to stay out of office politics (i.e. keep to oneself and just work) or to play the office politics game (albet with integrity), and why?

------------------------
Also, what would you (and should you) do in an office environment where everyone is gossiped about/criticized?

[missmeow]

I happen to get along with almost everyone at work in a friendshippy way, so I guess I am office politicking. I bust out with the chisme, but I also know when to keep my mouth shut too.

I think the only time I really got involved in anything is when I wrote a letter describing how a, now gone, co-worker was making racist and sexist comments and harassing one person.

[Craig]

If you were an Asian guy in the USA, I would say you would need to play the office politics game. Since you are female, it's not as necessary, but still probably advisable. Perhaps you can mention your current job, your educational background, etc. so the advice could be more relevant. For instance, if you work as a computer engineer, you may be able to get into some environments where you can avoid politics. However, if you were a lawyer, that may not be the case.

[Faithless]

You have to be careful.

Sometimes, getting in bed, office politically, with the office blowhard, can make you look bad.

There's nothing wrong with listening to what's going on, but make your judgements based on a round of opinions.

Incidentally, http://forums.yellowworld.org/showthread.php?t=2104

[Craig]

Incidentally, http://forums.yellowworld.org/showthread.php?t=2104Damn, all those people have been on YW since 2002 and are still here ? What losers !

[TB4000]

There's no way to win in office politics. You always have someone who has to make sure you're just as miserable as they are just for the sake of it. If you suck at the job, they complain. If you're good at the job, they complain. This is exactly how it is at my offfice, as there are two women that have this mindset in spades.

[kasia]

or to play the office politics game (albeit with integrity), and why?

i'm skeptical that this can be done. once you start bad-mouthing your co-workers, i think you kinda lose your integrity, unless it's in a situation where your criticism is solicited by a superior or something like that. especially if it's done with the intent of getting ahead. correct me if i'm wrong.

[archspeed]

Generally, if your position somehow separates you away from the main business objectives of the company, you're safe from office politiking.

I work as a student intern at this government company. I'm pretty damn sure that there's lots of jocking/hassling/politiking going on. But I'm at the bottom tier so I don't care. I used to care and learn to keep my mouth shut because I needed the money. But now this job is becoming useless to me, and that I also found another job more conducive to my skills, I've started becoming even more of "I don't give a fuck" attitude around in that workplace.

At my new job, I'm basically a system admin, so I'm not in direct involvement with the main business objectives, I've wisely relocated to a faraway cubes so I don't have to hear any hassling/gossips. Since my job is more on the support side, people only pay attention to me when something goes bad in the system, and that's the way I like it.

[maxwell]

Don't express political/societal opinions that you know are different from the majority of of your co-workers. Don't talk shit about anybody. Nothing good to say? say nothing. Can't appear to be anti-social. Always be calculated and respectful in your conversations with co-workers at all times, even if you want to strangle who and who with the phone cord and then dunk their bodies in acid.

Work sucks.