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"People look out for themselves when there’s nothing to look forward to." This is what it all comes down to, whether at Bing, or at any other large organizatio

"People look out for themselves when there’s nothing to look forward to." This is what it all comes down to, whether at Bing, or at any other large organization. The other bullet points on Philip's list are fine, but this one is perhaps wholly sufficient. Politics exists in every organization. And every organization has some folks who are more Machiavellian than others. But all of this crap comes to the forefront, amplified and accelerated, when an organization is in turmoil. (And that atmosphere of turmoil usually trickles down from the top; a divisional leader who's always politicking and maneuvering inspires his lieutenants to do the same, and on and on it goes). I've had the distinct displeasure of working for at least three large divisions of megagiant companies in varying degrees of peril or stagnation, and all three of them -- despite wildly different corporate cultures and people -- became similar hotbeds of political intrigue. Declining quarterlies led to re-orgs, and re-orgs led to chaos, and chaos bred more chaos. And in this crucible people forged schemes, machinations, alliances, and double-crosses that would make A Game of Thrones look like a Dr. Seuss book. This phenomenon is notable because the same people, operating in the same groups, did not behave so politically in better times. Like I said, I'm sure that a few of them were always plotting and conniving. But only when the division went into steady decline did the sheep cast off their clothing and reveal the wolves beneath.

hello_moto 15y ago
It comes down to: survival instinct. On average people take irrational approaches while a small number of people would stay calm, stick with their integrity, and let time decides.
- gaius 15y ago
  Easy to see this every day. Where I live, if the trains are running on time, everyone is perfectly polite, helps people with their luggage, always says "no, after you" and so on. When the trains are fucked, people become feral and climb over each other to get on, as no-one knows when the next one will come...
  - hello_moto 15y ago
    ... the truth right there ... I can tell you that after living in one of the friendliest place on the planet, people still behave like this (wrt to train/subway).
kenjackson 15y ago
This is what it all comes down to, whether at Bing, or at any other large organization. This isn't just large organizations, but also small. I worked at a start up during the dot com boom that was the most dysfunctional I've ever worked at. If you read bug reports you'd be amazed to see how much bugs jumped around. Devs had a motto, "No my bug" while imitating Neo of the Matrix dodging bullets in slow-motion. And for a company that just existed a couple of years, they rewrote their core product like 3 or 4 times, because someone else wanted to be the hero. Part of this is, as you point out, that the dot com bubble was coming to an end and people saw that all the hours they put in were coming to be worth effectively nothing. I heard an anecdote about Microsoft before that when the stock was going up you could turn off the heat and no one would complain. But when the stock was flat/down HR would get complaints about how much it rained in Seattle and employees would say they didn't sign up for this many cloudy days.

hello_moto 15y ago

It comes down to: survival instinct. On average people take irrational approaches while a small number of people would stay calm, stick with their integrity, and let time decides.

gaius 15y ago
Easy to see this every day. Where I live, if the trains are running on time, everyone is perfectly polite, helps people with their luggage, always says "no, after you" and so on. When the trains are fucked, people become feral and climb over each other to get on, as no-one knows when the next one will come...
- hello_moto 15y ago
  ... the truth right there ... I can tell you that after living in one of the friendliest place on the planet, people still behave like this (wrt to train/subway).

kenjackson 15y ago

This is what it all comes down to, whether at Bing, or at any other large organization. This isn't just large organizations, but also small. I worked at a start up during the dot com boom that was the most dysfunctional I've ever worked at. If you read bug reports you'd be amazed to see how much bugs jumped around. Devs had a motto, "No my bug" while imitating Neo of the Matrix dodging bullets in slow-motion. And for a company that just existed a couple of years, they rewrote their core product like 3 or 4 times, because someone else wanted to be the hero. Part of this is, as you point out, that the dot com bubble was coming to an end and people saw that all the hours they put in were coming to be worth effectively nothing. I heard an anecdote about Microsoft before that when the stock was going up you could turn off the heat and no one would complain. But when the stock was flat/down HR would get complaints about how much it rained in Seattle and employees would say they didn't sign up for this many cloudy days.