4 ms·

Well, are you an executive, or one step from becoming one? Then it's entirely possible that spending more time socializing recreationally can directly help you

Well, are you an executive, or one step from becoming one? Then it's entirely possible that spending more time socializing recreationally can directly help your career. Golf happens to be a common choice, but maybe your exec team likes rock climbing or playing video games... just depends on the company or the social group. Also, whether you are an executive or middle-manager or an IC, overall I don't doubt that socializing and networking and investing in good relationships, is helpful to one's career, but to differing degrees (i.e. for execs = a lot, for middle-managers = a medium amount, for line-level tech ICs = a much lesser amount). And building relationships or earning trust by spending time together != "sucking up". Just the implication that you associate "golf" with "sucking up" apparently, shows that you likely have an inherently antagonistic view of personal relationships. For any given group of people, either they truly like playing golf, or golf just happens to be a convenient activity that allows for lots of downtime, and therefore encourages discussion/communication to happen, either way it's very likely that they are getting together for reasons other than "sucking up". Why do you assume that what happens on the golf course is inherently or inevitably about "sucking up"? Have you never encountered a group of people, getting together for some event (recreational or otherwise), where they just communicate on equal footing, or debate ideas together, but with no one being fawned over or worshipped?

apwell23 2y ago
i think you are getting too carried away by that phrase. I dont have any moral qualms about "sucking up". i adressed this here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41061026 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41061026 I presonally think "sucking up" is a better phrase because you "build relationships" with your peers and equals not with someone who can take food away from your family table just because they don't like you. What kind of relationship is that where you are always inferior.
- strgcmc 2y ago
  Well, if this is how you think, then I am afraid no useful advice is going to penetrate your preconceived notions of inferiority. It is actually possible, and happens every day at every company, that meaningful relationships exist across managerial lines or levels of seniority; it is simply an existence proof because it exists all around you. But if you are someone who rejects the evidence in front of your eyes, or feels like you are too unique/special that "normal advice" doesn't apply to you somehow, then I am sorry but you are stuck until you address these deep-seated issues about inferiority and viewing everything through a lens of enmity. FWIW, I actually personally hold two conflicting beliefs at the same time: I distrust capitalism and dislike the distribution of power between the capital-owning class and the working class in society, but I also understand and appreciate and respect the amoral ruthless effectiveness of capitalism. So, I can emphasize to some degree about the moral unfairness of an amoral corporation holding your livelihood over your head, but I can also build real relationships based on human connection, while compartmentalizing the human part away from the structural imbalance of capitalism part.
  - apwell23 2y ago
    Inferior is not a "feeling". You are in a inferior position to your boss, thats why they are call your "superior" https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/superior https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/superior "one who is above another in rank, station, or office" I am not sure why you are hung up on words anyways. I have a feeling you might be trolling me for fun.
    - strgcmc 2y ago
      Look, you asked for advice, I gave some advice and suggested you do some introspection, and just based on the evidence of this comment chain alone, we can see the answers to some of my earlier-suggested questions: - You aren't willing to accept feedback or alternative challenges to your base worldview. You like to twist conversations so that they happen on your terms only. - You are unlikely to revisit a previously-held belief, or you rarely change your mind based on new information or new perspectives, or you are unlikely to admit mistakes or acknowledging that the viewpoints of others can also be valid (in fact, specifically you seem unable to comprehend that, admitting that someone else's perspective is valid != admitting yours must be wrong... it's not a zero-sum game, but you seem to think it is). - When you try to ask for help (again, you were the one who asked for advice in the first place...), some people may try once, but they won't want to continue talking to you, because there is no mutual benefit here. Nobody gets anything positive out of talking to you in this manner, if you bring nothing to the table besides negativity and appeal to surface-level pedantry (e.g. definitions from the dictionary? simple acknowledgement that power structures exist?). If you actually learn how to have constructive conversations, where both parties get something positive out of it (aka make it non-zero-sum), then I promise you, you will find more traction with relationship-building, AND it won't feel like "sucking up". But if you can't learn how to do this, then I fear that people will rightfully avoid talking to you, because they get nothing from it except the misery you inflict on them. --- I'm sure you'll want to get a last-word in, so feel free to do that (and likewise, I will exercise my freedom to not respond and just go about my own life). But if you ever have a change of heart, perhaps when you gain a little more maturity or perspective and you somehow revisit this thread, then you may realize that: - I already agreed with you that power structures exist esp. under capitalism, that essentially yes, "superior" or "inferior" are necessary-but-not-sufficient factually true labels. Nonetheless, these labels fail to capture the complete spectrum of human relationships, and you offered nothing substantive to refute this point either, so I assume you either don't understand it, or are incapable of acknowledging new information or alternative perspectives. - I tried to suggest, in various ways with a few leading questions, that you lack humility and an inability to accept feedback. IMHO, this along with your reductive stubbornness about reducing working relationships into simple "boss vs underling" power structures, are the most direct reasons for your professional struggles. In other words, you don't need to learn "how to suck up". You need to reframe your entire approach to human relationships, and recast it in terms other than the one-dimensional interpretation of power structures... We live in a multi-dimensional world, but your "mental model" is too simple, because you reduce everyone to a one-dimensional vector embedding with a single boolean flag: "is_superior (T/F)". - If you think I am over-focusing on one particular phrase like "sucking up", then you were free to offer alternative angles for discourse, if you wanted to steer the conversation in a more productive direction. But what you ended up doing was basically trying to suck me into the same pit of misery that you inhabit, where superiors are evil and holding your livelihood at threat... maybe that's a fun way to pass the time for you, but frankly there's nothing productive about going down that path, so I won't join you there (and I sincerely hope you find a way to climb out of it yourself). --- As a parting gift, here are some random resources for career growth (I don't know if you are an engineer or a manager or what, but perspectives about other people can still be helpful). I hope if you are sincerely trying to grow and overcome personal limitations, that you are willing to engage with curiosity and humility, to learn something new that might challenge your preconceived ways of interpreting the world: - https://staffeng.com/guides/ https://staffeng.com/guides/ - https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/engineering-career-paths https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/engineering-caree... - https://github.com/keyvanakbary/learning-notes/blob/master/books/the-managers-path.md https://github.com/keyvanakbary/learning-notes/blob/master/b... - https://www.learninpublic.org/ https://www.learninpublic.org/

apwell23 2y ago

i think you are getting too carried away by that phrase. I dont have any moral qualms about "sucking up". i adressed this here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41061026 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41061026 I presonally think "sucking up" is a better phrase because you "build relationships" with your peers and equals not with someone who can take food away from your family table just because they don't like you. What kind of relationship is that where you are always inferior.

strgcmc 2y ago
Well, if this is how you think, then I am afraid no useful advice is going to penetrate your preconceived notions of inferiority. It is actually possible, and happens every day at every company, that meaningful relationships exist across managerial lines or levels of seniority; it is simply an existence proof because it exists all around you. But if you are someone who rejects the evidence in front of your eyes, or feels like you are too unique/special that "normal advice" doesn't apply to you somehow, then I am sorry but you are stuck until you address these deep-seated issues about inferiority and viewing everything through a lens of enmity. FWIW, I actually personally hold two conflicting beliefs at the same time: I distrust capitalism and dislike the distribution of power between the capital-owning class and the working class in society, but I also understand and appreciate and respect the amoral ruthless effectiveness of capitalism. So, I can emphasize to some degree about the moral unfairness of an amoral corporation holding your livelihood over your head, but I can also build real relationships based on human connection, while compartmentalizing the human part away from the structural imbalance of capitalism part.
- apwell23 2y ago
  Inferior is not a "feeling". You are in a inferior position to your boss, thats why they are call your "superior" https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/superior https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/superior "one who is above another in rank, station, or office" I am not sure why you are hung up on words anyways. I have a feeling you might be trolling me for fun.
  - strgcmc 2y ago
    Look, you asked for advice, I gave some advice and suggested you do some introspection, and just based on the evidence of this comment chain alone, we can see the answers to some of my earlier-suggested questions: - You aren't willing to accept feedback or alternative challenges to your base worldview. You like to twist conversations so that they happen on your terms only. - You are unlikely to revisit a previously-held belief, or you rarely change your mind based on new information or new perspectives, or you are unlikely to admit mistakes or acknowledging that the viewpoints of others can also be valid (in fact, specifically you seem unable to comprehend that, admitting that someone else's perspective is valid != admitting yours must be wrong... it's not a zero-sum game, but you seem to think it is). - When you try to ask for help (again, you were the one who asked for advice in the first place...), some people may try once, but they won't want to continue talking to you, because there is no mutual benefit here. Nobody gets anything positive out of talking to you in this manner, if you bring nothing to the table besides negativity and appeal to surface-level pedantry (e.g. definitions from the dictionary? simple acknowledgement that power structures exist?). If you actually learn how to have constructive conversations, where both parties get something positive out of it (aka make it non-zero-sum), then I promise you, you will find more traction with relationship-building, AND it won't feel like "sucking up". But if you can't learn how to do this, then I fear that people will rightfully avoid talking to you, because they get nothing from it except the misery you inflict on them. --- I'm sure you'll want to get a last-word in, so feel free to do that (and likewise, I will exercise my freedom to not respond and just go about my own life). But if you ever have a change of heart, perhaps when you gain a little more maturity or perspective and you somehow revisit this thread, then you may realize that: - I already agreed with you that power structures exist esp. under capitalism, that essentially yes, "superior" or "inferior" are necessary-but-not-sufficient factually true labels. Nonetheless, these labels fail to capture the complete spectrum of human relationships, and you offered nothing substantive to refute this point either, so I assume you either don't understand it, or are incapable of acknowledging new information or alternative perspectives. - I tried to suggest, in various ways with a few leading questions, that you lack humility and an inability to accept feedback. IMHO, this along with your reductive stubbornness about reducing working relationships into simple "boss vs underling" power structures, are the most direct reasons for your professional struggles. In other words, you don't need to learn "how to suck up". You need to reframe your entire approach to human relationships, and recast it in terms other than the one-dimensional interpretation of power structures... We live in a multi-dimensional world, but your "mental model" is too simple, because you reduce everyone to a one-dimensional vector embedding with a single boolean flag: "is_superior (T/F)". - If you think I am over-focusing on one particular phrase like "sucking up", then you were free to offer alternative angles for discourse, if you wanted to steer the conversation in a more productive direction. But what you ended up doing was basically trying to suck me into the same pit of misery that you inhabit, where superiors are evil and holding your livelihood at threat... maybe that's a fun way to pass the time for you, but frankly there's nothing productive about going down that path, so I won't join you there (and I sincerely hope you find a way to climb out of it yourself). --- As a parting gift, here are some random resources for career growth (I don't know if you are an engineer or a manager or what, but perspectives about other people can still be helpful). I hope if you are sincerely trying to grow and overcome personal limitations, that you are willing to engage with curiosity and humility, to learn something new that might challenge your preconceived ways of interpreting the world: - https://staffeng.com/guides/ https://staffeng.com/guides/ - https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/engineering-career-paths https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/engineering-caree... - https://github.com/keyvanakbary/learning-notes/blob/master/books/the-managers-path.md https://github.com/keyvanakbary/learning-notes/blob/master/b... - https://www.learninpublic.org/ https://www.learninpublic.org/