6 ms·

School is a flawed meritocracy, but it actually makes efforts to be one. Corporate is a deliberate non-meritocracy whose purpose is to ratify the inadequate de

by ltfey 5y ago

School is a flawed meritocracy, but it actually makes efforts to be one. Corporate is a deliberate non-meritocracy whose purpose is to ratify the inadequate descendants of an existing oligarchy as meritocrats. Mussolini didn't make the trains run on time; he punished people who said the trains were late. Corporate is the same: meritocracy by assertion--and only by assertion. In school, you learn that hard work is rewarded (with some noise) and that cheaters eventually get caught. The system isn't perfect, and there's definitely some corruption in admissions decisions later on, due to the socioeconomic fuckery that infects everything... but the attempt to be a meritocracy is at least clearly there. If you are treated unjustly by the system, you can at least appeal to the concept of meritocracy, and you have a chance of winning. Corporate is easier, in the sense that the work is almost never demanding, and the evaluation thereof is invariably political... but if you go in expecting a meritocracy, because that's what 16-20+ years of schooling had you believing you would find... then oh boy are you going to be disappointed when you see what it's actually like. If a professor played favorites the way the average corporate manager does, he'd be fired. Corporate is also a lot noisier. In school, you might get a B when you should have gotten an A, once in a while, but over time the noise cancels out. In corporate, you can get fired, and have your income turned off, for all kinds of stupid political reasons.

selimthegrim 5y ago
>If a professor played favorites the way the average corporate manager does, he'd be fired. Have you been near a grad school lately?
A4ET8a8uTh0 5y ago
Corporate is weird. The tendency is to have an in-group and out group, but that is just normal human behavior. Nothing ground-breaking here. But to say that work is not demanding and evaluation always political is very big generalization. Some hard projects go to people that can handle them ( or can't if you don't like them ). When that big project is over, there seems to be a very clear indication, who MVPs are ( even if they do not have 'in-group' status ). So some level of meritocracy exists. It is hardly perfect, but it is there. On the other hand, school-wise I had a very wide range experiences, which kinda taught me that 'people tend to believe what they want to believe', by which I mean that teachers that think you are a good student will let you be a good student. I am writing this as I am sipping coffee preparing mentally for this year's projects.
- ekidd 5y ago
  > But to say that work is not demanding and evaluation always political is very big generalization. Some hard projects go to people that can handle them ( or can't if you don't like them ). When that big project is over, there seems to be a very clear indication, who MVPs are ( even if they do not have 'in-group' status ). From what I've witnessed consulting, this varies greatly by company size. I once heard a Vice President of major bank explain it like this: "Look, beyond a certain size, almost nothing you can do will save or destroy a company. At that point, people mostly go to work to play politics. Occasionally, as a side effect of the political maneuvering, work sometimes gets done." But at a 50 person company, or even a 500 person company, it's possible for single person to make a huge difference. And yes, if the company is competent, then saving the day will cut through the politics to a remarkable extent. To some extent, this must also be true at a Fortune 500 company. But there, most of the people will the ability to "save the day" will usually be in upper management. The big tech companies may be an exception this: Google has their two "level 11s", and Microsoft had the massively talented team that they used to catch up to Netscape Navigator in the 90s.
  - mattxxx 5y ago
    > "Look, beyond a certain size, almost nothing you can do will save or destroy a company. At that point, people mostly go to work to play politics. Occasionally, as a side effect of the political maneuvering, work sometimes gets done." From working at a big company, this is accurate. > But at a 50 person company, or even a 500 person company, it's possible for single person to make a huge difference. That's true, and you still might be stuck fighting politics to do it.
    - ekidd 5y ago
      > That's true, and you still might be stuck fighting politics to do it. Yeah, politics are kind of built into the human condition. You can't avoid them entirely, and even if you could, I'm not sure it would actually be a good thing. You need to able to convince people, to recognize them and boost them up when they're doing good work, and to get groups onto the same page. And all of this involves "politics" to some extent. But a company's politics might be relatively healthy, or completely poisonous. Or anything in between. The best organizations are the ones where the overall goal is important, and where ethics are important, and where the politics are mostly positive-to-neutral. Finally, if you want to save the day, you have to convince someone to take a risk on your plan, and your ability to implement it. After a couple of successes, this can become easier the next time. But there's politics involved in that, too.
eadmund 5y ago
I think that's needlessly cynical, and moreover does not align with my own experience in large and small corporations. I think that most folks in a corporation are trying to do well and do good. What you don't see is that 'politics' are one of the merits the corporate meritocracy is optimising for — and that 'politics' is just a single word shorthand for 'dealing with human beings.' My experience has been that yes, both professors and managers have favourites: they tend to favour those who have positive, unselfish, engaged attitudes. And sure, that is itself selfish: positive, unselfish, engaged people are more pleasant to work with. And I have also found that those who complain the loudest — I include myself in that number, in my lesser moments — are those who are not engaging with the system as it is, rather than the system as they wish it would be. The real trouble is that in a large enough organisation the system as it is may be so opaque that it really does defy understanding and consequently engagement. Anyway, rather than assuming bad faith, try assuming good faith. But of course verify it, too!
- arvinsim 5y ago
  > 'politics' is just a single word shorthand for 'dealing with human beings.' No wonder why we are so messed up if this is the bar that we set and condone.
bko 5y ago
You have it exactly opposite in almost every way. Corporate attempts to be meritocratic. They have every incentive to be. Executives want to hire the more effective people to perform tasks so they can maximize profits. They can be greedy or stupid, but not both. They can hire their friends and family, sure, and sometimes they do. But they have an incentive to make decisions on merit otherwise they would go out of business and be out-competed. What incentive does a school have to reward hard work? The teachers and administrators don't get a bonus if they're school does well. Many don't even get evaluated and firing teachers is very difficult in the US. I knew plenty of teachers that would just phone it in year after year. Everyone knew this, but really couldn't do anything about it. Many do care because its the right thing to do, but it's not built into the system. > [re schools] If you are treated unjustly by the system, you can at least appeal to the concept of meritocracy, and you have a chance of winning. Yeah, I don't know your experience but I was treated unjustly in school. The disciplinarian (yes this was a real thing in my high school) was a tyrant. He would selectively yell at certain kids, humiliate others and apply uneven justice. What could I have done about it? Some parents complained sure but you're pretty much stuck there unless you want to pack your bags and move to a different town. In corporate world you just find another job. It's a lot easier than convincing your parents to move > Corporate is easier, in the sense that the work is almost never demanding, and the evaluation thereof is invariably political Not all jobs are bullshit jobs. Some jobs actually deliver some kind of value with a feedback loop
- ltfey 5y ago
  - BobbyJo 5y ago
    > profits aren't the true goal... Ok, we can all stop there and go home. This person knows more than every economist and game-theorist on the planet. >They're all kinda the same, though, and the system is designed that way. I take it you haven't had many jobs I've worked at 5 different corporations and this is just verifiably wrong. 'The system' you're referencing is voluntary exchange, and it's not designed, it emerges from the concept of private property.
swayvil 5y ago
Social media is very much like corporate in that arbitrary assertion backed with absolute power (downvoting, censorship, banning, cancelling...) runs everything. And anything can be asserted. Up is down, black is white, beautiful is ugly. And you'd better go along with it or you're out. Call it hive-corporatism. It seems to be a natural social formation.
- ltfey 5y ago
  I agree. I don't know what's "natural" because I don't think human nature is well-defined or stable; most humans seem to reflect the context they are in. Otherwise, you are absolutely correct, and this problem is not limited to the corporate adversaries or "the right". It is truly systemic.
- nsv 5y ago
  At least social media has an element of democracy to it.
stared 5y ago
The critical difference is simple: for students, the hierarchy is flat. In particular, there is no risk that a student gets promoted to being a teacher (even if they know more). Even among teachers, it isn't the case - there is internal politics as in every workplace.
dxbydt 5y ago
Both corporate & school seek feedback. Guess who acts on it ? Here is some stellar feedback: https://google.com/search?q="worst+professor"+https://www.ratemyprofessors.com https://google.com/search?q="worst+professor"+https://www.ra... Literally none of these fine folk have been fired. They have a job for life. For life. I can give you a long list of professors who have been utterly unethical in their dealings, but I could do nothing about it because they have tenure. Whereas when corporate gets blackballed on their glassdoor, current employees bail, future employees won't bother to apply, word spreads & market justice is swift, stock ticker points down & to the right. Now tell me who is meritocratic.

by ltfey 5y ago

selimthegrim 5y ago

>If a professor played favorites the way the average corporate manager does, he'd be fired. Have you been near a grad school lately?

A4ET8a8uTh0 5y ago

Corporate is weird. The tendency is to have an in-group and out group, but that is just normal human behavior. Nothing ground-breaking here. But to say that work is not demanding and evaluation always political is very big generalization. Some hard projects go to people that can handle them ( or can't if you don't like them ). When that big project is over, there seems to be a very clear indication, who MVPs are ( even if they do not have 'in-group' status ). So some level of meritocracy exists. It is hardly perfect, but it is there. On the other hand, school-wise I had a very wide range experiences, which kinda taught me that 'people tend to believe what they want to believe', by which I mean that teachers that think you are a good student will let you be a good student. I am writing this as I am sipping coffee preparing mentally for this year's projects.

ekidd 5y ago
> But to say that work is not demanding and evaluation always political is very big generalization. Some hard projects go to people that can handle them ( or can't if you don't like them ). When that big project is over, there seems to be a very clear indication, who MVPs are ( even if they do not have 'in-group' status ). From what I've witnessed consulting, this varies greatly by company size. I once heard a Vice President of major bank explain it like this: "Look, beyond a certain size, almost nothing you can do will save or destroy a company. At that point, people mostly go to work to play politics. Occasionally, as a side effect of the political maneuvering, work sometimes gets done." But at a 50 person company, or even a 500 person company, it's possible for single person to make a huge difference. And yes, if the company is competent, then saving the day will cut through the politics to a remarkable extent. To some extent, this must also be true at a Fortune 500 company. But there, most of the people will the ability to "save the day" will usually be in upper management. The big tech companies may be an exception this: Google has their two "level 11s", and Microsoft had the massively talented team that they used to catch up to Netscape Navigator in the 90s.
- mattxxx 5y ago
  > "Look, beyond a certain size, almost nothing you can do will save or destroy a company. At that point, people mostly go to work to play politics. Occasionally, as a side effect of the political maneuvering, work sometimes gets done." From working at a big company, this is accurate. > But at a 50 person company, or even a 500 person company, it's possible for single person to make a huge difference. That's true, and you still might be stuck fighting politics to do it.
  - ekidd 5y ago
    > That's true, and you still might be stuck fighting politics to do it. Yeah, politics are kind of built into the human condition. You can't avoid them entirely, and even if you could, I'm not sure it would actually be a good thing. You need to able to convince people, to recognize them and boost them up when they're doing good work, and to get groups onto the same page. And all of this involves "politics" to some extent. But a company's politics might be relatively healthy, or completely poisonous. Or anything in between. The best organizations are the ones where the overall goal is important, and where ethics are important, and where the politics are mostly positive-to-neutral. Finally, if you want to save the day, you have to convince someone to take a risk on your plan, and your ability to implement it. After a couple of successes, this can become easier the next time. But there's politics involved in that, too.

eadmund 5y ago

I think that's needlessly cynical, and moreover does not align with my own experience in large and small corporations. I think that most folks in a corporation are trying to do well and do good. What you don't see is that 'politics' are one of the merits the corporate meritocracy is optimising for — and that 'politics' is just a single word shorthand for 'dealing with human beings.' My experience has been that yes, both professors and managers have favourites: they tend to favour those who have positive, unselfish, engaged attitudes. And sure, that is itself selfish: positive, unselfish, engaged people are more pleasant to work with. And I have also found that those who complain the loudest — I include myself in that number, in my lesser moments — are those who are not engaging with the system as it is, rather than the system as they wish it would be. The real trouble is that in a large enough organisation the system as it is may be so opaque that it really does defy understanding and consequently engagement. Anyway, rather than assuming bad faith, try assuming good faith. But of course verify it, too!

arvinsim 5y ago
> 'politics' is just a single word shorthand for 'dealing with human beings.' No wonder why we are so messed up if this is the bar that we set and condone.

bko 5y ago

You have it exactly opposite in almost every way. Corporate attempts to be meritocratic. They have every incentive to be. Executives want to hire the more effective people to perform tasks so they can maximize profits. They can be greedy or stupid, but not both. They can hire their friends and family, sure, and sometimes they do. But they have an incentive to make decisions on merit otherwise they would go out of business and be out-competed. What incentive does a school have to reward hard work? The teachers and administrators don't get a bonus if they're school does well. Many don't even get evaluated and firing teachers is very difficult in the US. I knew plenty of teachers that would just phone it in year after year. Everyone knew this, but really couldn't do anything about it. Many do care because its the right thing to do, but it's not built into the system. > [re schools] If you are treated unjustly by the system, you can at least appeal to the concept of meritocracy, and you have a chance of winning. Yeah, I don't know your experience but I was treated unjustly in school. The disciplinarian (yes this was a real thing in my high school) was a tyrant. He would selectively yell at certain kids, humiliate others and apply uneven justice. What could I have done about it? Some parents complained sure but you're pretty much stuck there unless you want to pack your bags and move to a different town. In corporate world you just find another job. It's a lot easier than convincing your parents to move > Corporate is easier, in the sense that the work is almost never demanding, and the evaluation thereof is invariably political Not all jobs are bullshit jobs. Some jobs actually deliver some kind of value with a feedback loop

ltfey 5y ago
- BobbyJo 5y ago
  > profits aren't the true goal... Ok, we can all stop there and go home. This person knows more than every economist and game-theorist on the planet. >They're all kinda the same, though, and the system is designed that way. I take it you haven't had many jobs I've worked at 5 different corporations and this is just verifiably wrong. 'The system' you're referencing is voluntary exchange, and it's not designed, it emerges from the concept of private property.

swayvil 5y ago

Social media is very much like corporate in that arbitrary assertion backed with absolute power (downvoting, censorship, banning, cancelling...) runs everything. And anything can be asserted. Up is down, black is white, beautiful is ugly. And you'd better go along with it or you're out. Call it hive-corporatism. It seems to be a natural social formation.

ltfey 5y ago
I agree. I don't know what's "natural" because I don't think human nature is well-defined or stable; most humans seem to reflect the context they are in. Otherwise, you are absolutely correct, and this problem is not limited to the corporate adversaries or "the right". It is truly systemic.
nsv 5y ago
At least social media has an element of democracy to it.

stared 5y ago

The critical difference is simple: for students, the hierarchy is flat. In particular, there is no risk that a student gets promoted to being a teacher (even if they know more). Even among teachers, it isn't the case - there is internal politics as in every workplace.

dxbydt 5y ago

Both corporate & school seek feedback. Guess who acts on it ? Here is some stellar feedback: https://google.com/search?q="worst+professor"+https://www.ratemyprofessors.com https://google.com/search?q="worst+professor"+https://www.ra... Literally none of these fine folk have been fired. They have a job for life. For life. I can give you a long list of professors who have been utterly unethical in their dealings, but I could do nothing about it because they have tenure. Whereas when corporate gets blackballed on their glassdoor, current employees bail, future employees won't bother to apply, word spreads & market justice is swift, stock ticker points down & to the right. Now tell me who is meritocratic.