>This makes me wonder what would happen if you took a job there and just refused to do the sucking up? What if you just competently did what they asked and didn

>This makes me wonder what would happen if you took a job there and just refused to do the sucking up? What if you just competently did what they asked and didn't worry about getting fired for bullshit reasons? Having seen it occur to various people elsewhere where cultural rot had set in quite deeply, it's really quite simple. Failing to suck up means you'll get mediocre to poor performance reviews. In places with stack ranking systems (reportedly Amazon is one of them), somebody has to be the goat and you basically are volunteering. You manager will say to you, with varying levels of sincerity, "I tried really hard to get you higher up in the rankings but there were a lot of people who did really strong work this year. You'll have to work extra hard next year to try to get a better ranking.". Unless you genuinely aren't doing a good job, you won't be punished directly but you won't get much in the way of raises, bonuses, or promotions either. Eventually, people will notice that you have a long string of poor/mediocre reviews and relatively low level compared to your peers and will start assuming that you're not a good employee and look down on you. Internal transfers then become much more difficult and you become a prime target for being managed out or laid off.