Anne Hathaway’s character in “The Devil Wears Prada” was a little irritating sometimes. Although I very much liked that movie overall. I liked all the pretty dresses and I liked how it was girl-power most of the way. However, I did NOT like the ending, as predictable as it was -- the girl choosing the apathetic boyfriend and being happy when he got a promotion over advancing her own career.
I've seen manifestations of this elsewhere. "Oh gosh I'm such a good and pure and kindhearted person.” Permutations in other mass market paperback books also. “Oh gosh I'm such a good and pure person, I have never wanted to hurt someone in my entire life. I’m such a sweet innocent pure-hearted angelic person, I don’t have a selfish bone in my body, oh gosh I would NEVER play office politics to advance my own career. Never ever ever."
Oh, shut the hell up. You ain’t that naiive and sweet. You merely have an inflated sense of yourself, a distorted sense of unearned self-esteem. You need to knock yourself down a couple of pegs and quit thinking so highly of yourself, cause you ain’t that much of a good pure perfect person.
Office politics. I can, I have, and I will do it again.
I think it was in Glamour mag that I once read the following, I don't really remember, this was about thirteen years ago. A mag reader woman wrote in to the advice column or something, that she was starting her own business. Just before leaving her previous job, she took a list of her previous employer's clients with her and was planning to recruit those clients for her own business. Her question was whether or not this was ethical. Then, the column answerer chided this woman for not practicing ethics, this was totally dishonest, this was dishonestly and immorally stealing the business's clients, that’s stealing company property, blah blah blah.
Erm, maybe it's just me, but I really don't see a problem with what the reader woman did. If the column answerer was so sensitive about this situation, well then sweetie, perhaps you should not be in business. That’s just how the game is played. If you really can't handle that, then perhaps you would be better suited to a post in civil servantry. You sort of need to grow a thicker skin if you expect to be able to survive in the business world.
If that business doesn’t want employees stealing their clients, perhaps they should protect and guard them more carefully. All this woman did was take some cards from a Filofax file. It’s not like she broke into a locked office.
An important note -- I have never and I would not ever steal other people's ideas, plagiarize. This is because I know how much work goes into thinking up and implementing good ideas. And I would not do that. I absolutely believe in giving people full credit for their ideas.
However, I would play people against each other, make sure they blame each other for a problem and then act all innocent as if I had absolutely nothing to do with it. (The vast majority of the time, this is my game -- all I'm doing is being a messenger and gleefully cackling as they get angry at each other.) Learn people's insecurities and exploit them. Rally people and turn them against the supervisor because the supervisor is not giving me what I want. Keep a few people in my corner at all times. Go over my immediate and inept incompetent supervisor's head and go to the person who actually has some power and authority -- and get that person to say yes. Make friends with the right people who do have power just so I can have a little bit of weight in my corner.
Of course, I couldn't be an actual low-life criminal. Good god man, even the thought that so many people fantasize about being gangsters or mafia or whatever is quite pathetic. The few times I barely flirted with resorting to criminal means, it was an unpleasant feeling. I feel cold and alone, it's a sick, dark, depressing place. There is no one there to be my partner and friend. It is a low dark place desperate bleak place where all hope is lost, where you are completely alone. A dull feeling of mild devastation, it is dull, for you are so far gone that actual feelings do not register anymore. Despair.
Mind you, that is not the same thing as office politics. Office politics, I don't have a problem with. It’s just business, son. Some people call the act of stealing clients from a company unethical. Sorry, but that's not unethical, it's just business. If I have to play the waters and navigate to make sure I come out on top, I don't really see anything wrong with that. Play people against each other, whatever. I don't necessarily see a problem with that. I can, I have, and I will again.
However, screwing around sexually, sleeping one's way to the top -- that is not okay. Regular office politics shows that you can play the game and handle the business. It shows that you can do the job. But sleeping one's way to the top don't prove nothin' other than the fact that one is a wh---. Also, it's a matter of straightforward logic. The females that do that don't seem to realize that when they screw around like that, they almost always come out as the losers, physically and emotionally.
Sleeping around -- no, because that is disgusting and that truly is a lack of morals and respect for oneself. And again, some females don't seem to realize that when they sleep around, they are hurting themselves the most. Whatever little bit of fleeting recognition one might get from sleeping with the right person is greatly outweighed by the fact that you basically pretended you have zero emotions and that what happens with your body is completely separate from you as a person and that this can transpire without any damage to your own physical or emotional health.
Any males that have a problem with that are probably just mad that a woman got power and authority by successfully playing office politics _without_ needing to open up the goodies to do it. I.e., that male is mad that he didn't get to taste the goodies. And I know some females are going to be furious that I said that office politics are okay but sleeping one's way to the top is not okay. I've seen this before -- these letters are usually from females that are chronic sleep-their-way-to-the-toppers that are mad that I think I am better than them. They seem to think that simply making sure I keep my head above water is as bad as whoring yourself out. Ahh, they're just jealous that I was smart enough not to have to sleep the way to anyone's top. Perhaps they need a little bit of what the kids call "perspective." You're seriously trying to tell me that you can't tell the difference between being savvy in the workplace -- and whoring around? There is a spectrum of behavior that spans from "one-hundred percent lily white pure innocent completely honest with work and career at all times" --and-- being a disgruntled employee that shoots up the place.
And guess what -- office politics and whoring around are not duplicate overlappers on this spectrum.
I see other letters from women who are perhaps a little too innocent. They seriously seem to think that office politics is a huge breach of ethics that is absolutely as bad as sleeping the way to the top. I feel for them and I want to talk to them.
Yes, it is good that they want to be honest people and want to make sure they conduct themselves with self-respect and respect for others at all times. But also unfortunately, the reality is that you cannot go into any business setting and assume that everyone else has a very clear-cut moral and ethical compass and that they would always care about not hurting your feelings. You cannot assume that other people in the office are looking out for _your_ best interests and that they would never ever sell you down the river.
Sure it's great to help other people, but you have to make sure you are looking out for Number One first and foremost. That is the unfortunate reality -- you have to be a little bit on the defensive at all times. Keep your eyes peeled, your ears to the ground, all that good stuff. You have to be able to look out for yourself and be sure that you keep yourself safe and healthy.
And this is not necessarily a bad thing. "Selfish" doesn't have to mean screwing other people over. It can simply mean not letting other people screw you over. You don't have to compromise your core morals and sense of health and self-respect to be able to survive in the business world. You just have to learn to play the game.
Unfortunately some people will attempt to draw parallels between this and how I hypothetically conduct myself in my personal life -- which I find laughable. As if.
Personal life means family, friends, marriage. This means human beings that I interact with, actual relationships that I have with people who are flesh-and-blood and have feelings and need to be treated with respect. I feel a guilty ashamed feeling if the possibility even enters my mind to do something cruel or unfair to someone I love. I don't want to betray a person, and especially I don't want to betray myself. If I do something dishonest or disgusting in real life, i.e., regarding human beings in my personal life whom I love, I feel as if I have betrayed myself the most. I am not okay with human beings in my life treating me that way, and I am not okay with treating other human beings in my life that way.
Believe it or not, I can tell the difference between a human being and the generic work environment. A business is not a person, not a human being, not a living breathing conscious sentient creature with feelings. It is simply a business, a nameless, faceless entity that does not have feelings and does not need to be treated as such. I came here to get mine, get over, and get out. The only person to whom I need to be loyal is myself.
This is one of the reasons that I love "Ugly Betty." She is smart and savvy enough to realize that yes, office politics is important. It is a useful skill to have, to be able to shrewdly analyze people and deduce what their motivations are, to whom their loyalties lie -- and being able to play these to your advantage. And she also steadfastly maintains her personal morals -- she never slept around or got people drunk to agree with her or anything like that.
Now, she was not always good at office politics. When she started out working at the Meade empire, she was very innocent and naiive about the way the business world works. But as the series progressed, she grew and learned and became more wise. And like Freddie Rodriguez said, "I've seen you swim with those sharks at Mode. You were right for choosing yourself. You're going to do great things."
 |
| You are getting there, but you have much to learn, young grasshopper. |
I've seen manifestations of this elsewhere. "Oh gosh I'm such a good and pure and kindhearted person.” Permutations in other mass market paperback books also. “Oh gosh I'm such a good and pure person, I have never wanted to hurt someone in my entire life. I’m such a sweet innocent pure-hearted angelic person, I don’t have a selfish bone in my body, oh gosh I would NEVER play office politics to advance my own career. Never ever ever."
Oh, shut the hell up. You ain’t that naiive and sweet. You merely have an inflated sense of yourself, a distorted sense of unearned self-esteem. You need to knock yourself down a couple of pegs and quit thinking so highly of yourself, cause you ain’t that much of a good pure perfect person.
Office politics. I can, I have, and I will do it again.
I think it was in Glamour mag that I once read the following, I don't really remember, this was about thirteen years ago. A mag reader woman wrote in to the advice column or something, that she was starting her own business. Just before leaving her previous job, she took a list of her previous employer's clients with her and was planning to recruit those clients for her own business. Her question was whether or not this was ethical. Then, the column answerer chided this woman for not practicing ethics, this was totally dishonest, this was dishonestly and immorally stealing the business's clients, that’s stealing company property, blah blah blah.
Erm, maybe it's just me, but I really don't see a problem with what the reader woman did. If the column answerer was so sensitive about this situation, well then sweetie, perhaps you should not be in business. That’s just how the game is played. If you really can't handle that, then perhaps you would be better suited to a post in civil servantry. You sort of need to grow a thicker skin if you expect to be able to survive in the business world.
If that business doesn’t want employees stealing their clients, perhaps they should protect and guard them more carefully. All this woman did was take some cards from a Filofax file. It’s not like she broke into a locked office.
An important note -- I have never and I would not ever steal other people's ideas, plagiarize. This is because I know how much work goes into thinking up and implementing good ideas. And I would not do that. I absolutely believe in giving people full credit for their ideas.
However, I would play people against each other, make sure they blame each other for a problem and then act all innocent as if I had absolutely nothing to do with it. (The vast majority of the time, this is my game -- all I'm doing is being a messenger and gleefully cackling as they get angry at each other.) Learn people's insecurities and exploit them. Rally people and turn them against the supervisor because the supervisor is not giving me what I want. Keep a few people in my corner at all times. Go over my immediate and inept incompetent supervisor's head and go to the person who actually has some power and authority -- and get that person to say yes. Make friends with the right people who do have power just so I can have a little bit of weight in my corner.
Of course, I couldn't be an actual low-life criminal. Good god man, even the thought that so many people fantasize about being gangsters or mafia or whatever is quite pathetic. The few times I barely flirted with resorting to criminal means, it was an unpleasant feeling. I feel cold and alone, it's a sick, dark, depressing place. There is no one there to be my partner and friend. It is a low dark place desperate bleak place where all hope is lost, where you are completely alone. A dull feeling of mild devastation, it is dull, for you are so far gone that actual feelings do not register anymore. Despair.
Mind you, that is not the same thing as office politics. Office politics, I don't have a problem with. It’s just business, son. Some people call the act of stealing clients from a company unethical. Sorry, but that's not unethical, it's just business. If I have to play the waters and navigate to make sure I come out on top, I don't really see anything wrong with that. Play people against each other, whatever. I don't necessarily see a problem with that. I can, I have, and I will again.
However, screwing around sexually, sleeping one's way to the top -- that is not okay. Regular office politics shows that you can play the game and handle the business. It shows that you can do the job. But sleeping one's way to the top don't prove nothin' other than the fact that one is a wh---. Also, it's a matter of straightforward logic. The females that do that don't seem to realize that when they screw around like that, they almost always come out as the losers, physically and emotionally.
Sleeping around -- no, because that is disgusting and that truly is a lack of morals and respect for oneself. And again, some females don't seem to realize that when they sleep around, they are hurting themselves the most. Whatever little bit of fleeting recognition one might get from sleeping with the right person is greatly outweighed by the fact that you basically pretended you have zero emotions and that what happens with your body is completely separate from you as a person and that this can transpire without any damage to your own physical or emotional health.
Any males that have a problem with that are probably just mad that a woman got power and authority by successfully playing office politics _without_ needing to open up the goodies to do it. I.e., that male is mad that he didn't get to taste the goodies. And I know some females are going to be furious that I said that office politics are okay but sleeping one's way to the top is not okay. I've seen this before -- these letters are usually from females that are chronic sleep-their-way-to-the-toppers that are mad that I think I am better than them. They seem to think that simply making sure I keep my head above water is as bad as whoring yourself out. Ahh, they're just jealous that I was smart enough not to have to sleep the way to anyone's top. Perhaps they need a little bit of what the kids call "perspective." You're seriously trying to tell me that you can't tell the difference between being savvy in the workplace -- and whoring around? There is a spectrum of behavior that spans from "one-hundred percent lily white pure innocent completely honest with work and career at all times" --and-- being a disgruntled employee that shoots up the place.
And guess what -- office politics and whoring around are not duplicate overlappers on this spectrum.
I see other letters from women who are perhaps a little too innocent. They seriously seem to think that office politics is a huge breach of ethics that is absolutely as bad as sleeping the way to the top. I feel for them and I want to talk to them.
Yes, it is good that they want to be honest people and want to make sure they conduct themselves with self-respect and respect for others at all times. But also unfortunately, the reality is that you cannot go into any business setting and assume that everyone else has a very clear-cut moral and ethical compass and that they would always care about not hurting your feelings. You cannot assume that other people in the office are looking out for _your_ best interests and that they would never ever sell you down the river.
Sure it's great to help other people, but you have to make sure you are looking out for Number One first and foremost. That is the unfortunate reality -- you have to be a little bit on the defensive at all times. Keep your eyes peeled, your ears to the ground, all that good stuff. You have to be able to look out for yourself and be sure that you keep yourself safe and healthy.
And this is not necessarily a bad thing. "Selfish" doesn't have to mean screwing other people over. It can simply mean not letting other people screw you over. You don't have to compromise your core morals and sense of health and self-respect to be able to survive in the business world. You just have to learn to play the game.
Unfortunately some people will attempt to draw parallels between this and how I hypothetically conduct myself in my personal life -- which I find laughable. As if.
Personal life means family, friends, marriage. This means human beings that I interact with, actual relationships that I have with people who are flesh-and-blood and have feelings and need to be treated with respect. I feel a guilty ashamed feeling if the possibility even enters my mind to do something cruel or unfair to someone I love. I don't want to betray a person, and especially I don't want to betray myself. If I do something dishonest or disgusting in real life, i.e., regarding human beings in my personal life whom I love, I feel as if I have betrayed myself the most. I am not okay with human beings in my life treating me that way, and I am not okay with treating other human beings in my life that way.
Believe it or not, I can tell the difference between a human being and the generic work environment. A business is not a person, not a human being, not a living breathing conscious sentient creature with feelings. It is simply a business, a nameless, faceless entity that does not have feelings and does not need to be treated as such. I came here to get mine, get over, and get out. The only person to whom I need to be loyal is myself.
 |
| We are going to make it, after all. |
This is one of the reasons that I love "Ugly Betty." She is smart and savvy enough to realize that yes, office politics is important. It is a useful skill to have, to be able to shrewdly analyze people and deduce what their motivations are, to whom their loyalties lie -- and being able to play these to your advantage. And she also steadfastly maintains her personal morals -- she never slept around or got people drunk to agree with her or anything like that.
Now, she was not always good at office politics. When she started out working at the Meade empire, she was very innocent and naiive about the way the business world works. But as the series progressed, she grew and learned and became more wise. And like Freddie Rodriguez said, "I've seen you swim with those sharks at Mode. You were right for choosing yourself. You're going to do great things."
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