4 ms·
I love the Gervais Principle, but only as a cynical joke that can sometimes be applied to real life. There's really no need to read the book. If you're interest
by lopatin 5y ago
I love the Gervais Principle, but only as a cynical joke that can sometimes be applied to real life. There's really no need to read the book. If you're interested in a laugh, just see the blog post [1].
The gist of it is that there are only three types of people who work in organizations:
1. At the top of the food chain are the sociopaths. Executives.
2. Below it are the clueless, the mid-manager who works nights and weekends out of a sense of loyalty to the company. Unlike the sociopaths and the losers (explained below), they don't have it within themselves to straight up leave the company for something better. To them, this is life.
3. And below that, are the losers. That's everyone else. The pawns in this little corporate game designed by the sociopaths and coordinated by the clueless. They won't be promoted. But unlike the clueless, they have a sense of freedom. They can go work for a competitor if it pays more. Or they'll have a real work-life balance, etc..
It (should be) no more than a humorous take on corporate culture. Don't try to take away any life lessons from this.
[1] https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-or-the-office-according-to-the-office/ https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-...
- projectileboy 5y agoI know the book is a bit silly, but I only partially agree with your assessment, because I haven’t ever read anything that better describes existence within most large corporations. Would you be willing to elaborate on what you think it gets wrong?
- MeinBlutIstBlau 5y agoI don't think he gets anything wrong after the first essay. Everything after just sounded like a way to make a mountain out of a molehill in terms of an interesting essay.
- DHPersonal 5y agoThe first blog post about the principle was amusing and offered some basic structure to the disorganized quality of work life, but it was the application of the principle that started to lose me. The machinations of striving to move from one position to the next started to feel rather nihilistic and cynical, even for me.
- projectileboy 5y agoThat’s fair. Going character by character was definitely a bit forced, if taken beyond entertainment value.
- geodel 5y agoI guess it turned out to be reasonable life lesson for me. Now to be clear I am not gonna go crazy at work and tell every colleague "hey I learned the deep secret of how this company works" Even before reading this I had this vague idea about my own 'checked out' existence that he describes as loser. I agree though, to not take life lessons specially when people take these things very literally. Because they can really come up with statement "I have worked with some of the smartest 'clued in' managers. So on the face of it 'Gervais principle is bullshit."
- beaconstudios 5y agoit's loosely based on another book, The Organization Man. I think it's loosely accurate in that there are archetypes around the worker, manager and executive, but it's certainly not as clean cut as Venkatesh makes out. I've met and worked with plenty of Loser and Sociopath types; it's the Clueless that I haven't found to exist, but maybe it's an American thing (I'm from the UK). I think the Sociopath one is most accurate to life but that's just because "executives/investors are profit-seeking goal-maximisers" is both a common trope and pretty realistic - that's their incentive structure after all.
- hungryforcodes 5y agoI'd disagree. The sections on power talk and posture talk were classic. I see people using it a the time now for various purposes.
- culi 5y agoThis is like half way there to David Graeber's realizations that lead him to writing Bullshit Jobs