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That's how it works for every organization. Not just corporate America. Want to play on the varsity baseball team? Better be popular with the coaches and other

That's how it works for every organization. Not just corporate America. Want to play on the varsity baseball team? Better be popular with the coaches and other players. Otherwise you're on the bench keeping score. Want to go to Harvard grad school? Better be the right kind of popular. Want to be celebrated in machine learning? Better be popular by doing shallow work on lots of projects. The whole world is a scam, and the scammers always win.

TimByte 10mo ago
But calling the whole world a scam feels like letting the worst parts define the whole yet it can feel like the game is rigged in favor of the loudest or most connected
- micromacrofoot 10mo ago
  It is a scam, it's objective. If you live in ignorance of this you will eventually be taken advantage of. There is nowhere on the planet you can live where you can take people or systems of people at their word.
  - fragmede 10mo ago
    If it's only an eventuality, then doesn't that imply that you can mostly take people at their word? If you do nine deals, and get scammed on the the tenth, then doesn't that mean those first nine people are honest and could be taken at their word?
    - micromacrofoot 10mo ago
      lol no the eventuality is because a lot of people are just too poor to even be allowed to engage in deals — they're largely living in faceless systems where they're pre-scammed by faceless corporations
  - venturecruelty 10mo ago
    Sorry, but this feels like a very American take. There are places in the world that still have high social cohesion and high trust. Not everyone is out to get you everywhere all the time, just in societies which encourage that sort of relating to others.
    - micromacrofoot 10mo ago
      Which one would you recommend? because AFAIK most of them are consuming the American products that are constantly scamming you... I've experienced this as a resident of the EU as well.
    - theplatman 10mo ago
      there are high trust societies where you still cannot take people at their word because it might not be a culture of being direct to others. thinking of japan which is high social cohesion and trust, but still difficult to navigate business contexts due to how problems would be communicated.
    - fsckboy 10mo ago
      thank you, venturecruelty, for your take on who might be out to get me. do you think choosing a username says nothing about what comes to your mind?
zeroonetwothree 10mo ago
It works that way sometimes but I have found that merit and skill does get rewarded. The best case is when you have both.
- landedgentry 10mo ago
  When merit is easy to define and measure. I have a lot more respect for athletes than tech leaders.
SoftTalker 10mo ago
There's an exception though if you're truly good. If you can hit home runs or throw a baseball with laser accuracy and speed you will be on the varsity team even if you're an introverted social misfit. You might not be team captain but bottom line is the coach wants players who can win games, not be prom king.
- WhyOhWhyQ 10mo ago
  Where I went to school the coach distributed chewing tobacco to players he liked and bullied the nerds. The black kid who was extremely athletic got bullied and switched schools. The starting pitcher was an idiot who drove a big truck, and was not especially talented.
  - SoftTalker 10mo ago
    Yeah I'm assuming the coach is a normal person who's goal is to build a team and win. If his goal as an adult is to have a lot of teenagers for friends because he himself is still stuck in that mentality, then there's not much you can do but get away.
- thwarted 10mo ago
  Sometimes achievements speak for themselves and provide the marketing for the actor. But that requires both the achievement to be extremely outsized, so as not to get lost in the noise, and very obviously the result of a singular actor. Only one person can step up to the plate and swing the bat.
- marcinzm 10mo ago
  It’s not a scam. It’s a system that exists for people and made by people. Period. Money, outcomes and so on only have value because people assign them value. If you remove people then what you do has no value or concept of value. Life is not some video game with an omniscient score counter. Other people are the score counter.
  - QuantumFunnel 10mo ago
mh2266 10mo ago
I don’t think being popular with the players is entirely irrelevant for players in team sports. Locker room cohesion matters.
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bdangubic 10mo ago
with all due respect, every word you wrote is wrong. michael jordan was and still is biggest a-hole that every teammate hated - the best to ever do it. getting into harvard - nothing to do with popularity. mom&pop alumni perhaps or you can just be a great student, I know several harvard grads who are about as popular as wahington generals. machine learning - most celebrated are ones pulling 7-8-figure salaries no one has ever heard of (I’ve heard of one through a colleague).
- WhyOhWhyQ 10mo ago
  "with all due respect, every word you wrote is wrong. michael jordan was and still is biggest a-hole that every teammate hated - the best to ever do it." Bronnie James is in the NBA... ... .. . Michael Jordan was terrible at baseball and got to sign up for a real chance at the MLB. "most celebrated are ones pulling 7-8-figure salaries no one has ever heard of" You've got a direct contradiction in the span of one sentence... I've directly worked with people like the ones you're referring to and most of them were frauds. "I know several harvard grads who are about as popular as wahington generals" You didn't understand what I wrote. It's all about the dynamics of the environment. Academia is as much about fitting in just as much as any other place.
anonymars 10mo ago
I don't think it's a scam, I think all too often people forget that people don't just automatically know things that are going on. It's an important life lesson: telling the story is as important as taking the action. "If you build it, they will come" is bunk Marketing, publicity, networking, call it what you will. If no one knows a feature is in your app, it doesn't matter how good it is. You see this in politics too. That's why you have those signs on the road saying "your tax dollars at work" I bet you can think of any number of poorly publicized success stories that didn't get the credit they deserved, or became victims of the invisibility of their success
- cal_dent 10mo ago
  FWIW, coming from another unknown internet person, this is 100% the best reply to this whole thread and the most pragmatic way in corporate life. If you think otherwise, you're an idealist and I wish all the best for you in what I suspect you might find a frustrating career. Unless you create your own company.
  - drfranke 10mo ago
    Writing “I ignore the spotlight as a staff engineer” with a long description of how they’re better than the other person, is not something a leader that will rise in any company should be writing for the public, even if they’ve given up. Someone else will always at some point will steal or deserve the spotlight. You can’t have a successful show full of prima donnas that all vie for the lead role on stage. You can do your best, and have some way to promote yourself for compensation when the time comes, but if there’s this much of a problem that you feel you have to write a lengthy defense to the public, you’ve lost your way and should go elsewhere/
- lo_zamoyski 10mo ago
  Exactly. One shouldn't confuse the spotlight with communication. This is just a matter of letting the appropriate people know the things you want them to know or they need to know. We're social animals. We communicate. If someone doesn't know what you're doing, then, as the Captain says, we have a failure to communicate. Being able to communicate is a core life skill and part of what it means to be a functioning adult. (I'm also willing to bet that the very same people who pout about not being "appreciated" would be the first to complain about someone "hovering" or "spying" on them, because that's what it would take for someone to know what you're up to in such cases. Like, make up your mind, bruh.) And if you take a moment to think about it, those who expect others to just know what they've done are displaying the very narcissistic behavior they often claim to be avoiding. After all, why you? Why should anyone know what you, of all people, are doing? Do you know what others are doing? No, you don't. Not until they tell you or someone who has been told knows. You may think you know, but there is plenty that you don't know, and to be fair, perhaps don't need to know. The world does not revolve around you. Like you (I would hope), people have their own lives and tasks and concerns. Think of something as everyday as a PR. Even if your manager looks at every PR, he doesn't know what you did to get there unless you communicate that to him. Unless you write it down and share it or tell him that you've experimented with three different approaches before settling on the chosen one, or done some kind of detailed analysis based on which you drew up your design, how the hell is he going to know? And even if a manager should know certain things, it is pointless to make that appeal. So what if he should? Aren't there things you should be doing but aren't, like, say, communicating with clarity and coherence? "Shoulding" doesn't make things so. You have to deal with the world as it is, not as you would like it to be. Every manager is different. If your manager requires a huge banner and a neon sign to get the message, then that's what it takes to make him know things. Behave accordingly.
FromTheFirstIn 10mo ago
I think your definition of popular is holding you back. If popular just means other people like you, you’re obviously wrong- plenty of people are very successful even though they are disliked. Often this will happen multiple times on a single team at a company. If popular means you’re perceived as valuable, you’re obviously right. All institutions are social institutions and operate on social understandings of value. So to be successful you have to be perceived as valuable by these social structures. I think calling this a scam misunderstands the non-quantitative metrics of worth. There isn’t actually a Best Academic, a Best Engineer, or a Best Coworker in some measurable objective sense. Those are all social evaluations and they’re valuable because of that, not despite it
Libidinalecon 10mo ago
This is completely delusional lol. No one that played high school sports can possibly believe this. Everyone knows by day two who the gifted players are, who is average and who sucks. The good players are never bench warmers because everyone wants to win. The world is made up of a bunch of average people by definition but there is a percentage of those average people that think they are gifted when they are not. Then they blame the world for not understanding their "genius". The most brilliant person I know dropped out of medical school and just raced up the corporate ladder. It took her about 2 months in any role for management to see she should move up. Myself on the other hand have had to really grind it out, constantly learning and networking to improve my luck because I am just so very average.

TimByte 10mo ago

But calling the whole world a scam feels like letting the worst parts define the whole yet it can feel like the game is rigged in favor of the loudest or most connected

micromacrofoot 10mo ago
It is a scam, it's objective. If you live in ignorance of this you will eventually be taken advantage of. There is nowhere on the planet you can live where you can take people or systems of people at their word.
- fragmede 10mo ago
  If it's only an eventuality, then doesn't that imply that you can mostly take people at their word? If you do nine deals, and get scammed on the the tenth, then doesn't that mean those first nine people are honest and could be taken at their word?
  - micromacrofoot 10mo ago
    lol no the eventuality is because a lot of people are just too poor to even be allowed to engage in deals — they're largely living in faceless systems where they're pre-scammed by faceless corporations
- venturecruelty 10mo ago
  Sorry, but this feels like a very American take. There are places in the world that still have high social cohesion and high trust. Not everyone is out to get you everywhere all the time, just in societies which encourage that sort of relating to others.
  - micromacrofoot 10mo ago
    Which one would you recommend? because AFAIK most of them are consuming the American products that are constantly scamming you... I've experienced this as a resident of the EU as well.
  - theplatman 10mo ago
    there are high trust societies where you still cannot take people at their word because it might not be a culture of being direct to others. thinking of japan which is high social cohesion and trust, but still difficult to navigate business contexts due to how problems would be communicated.
  - fsckboy 10mo ago
    thank you, venturecruelty, for your take on who might be out to get me. do you think choosing a username says nothing about what comes to your mind?

zeroonetwothree 10mo ago

It works that way sometimes but I have found that merit and skill does get rewarded. The best case is when you have both.

landedgentry 10mo ago
When merit is easy to define and measure. I have a lot more respect for athletes than tech leaders.

SoftTalker 10mo ago

There's an exception though if you're truly good. If you can hit home runs or throw a baseball with laser accuracy and speed you will be on the varsity team even if you're an introverted social misfit. You might not be team captain but bottom line is the coach wants players who can win games, not be prom king.

WhyOhWhyQ 10mo ago
Where I went to school the coach distributed chewing tobacco to players he liked and bullied the nerds. The black kid who was extremely athletic got bullied and switched schools. The starting pitcher was an idiot who drove a big truck, and was not especially talented.
- SoftTalker 10mo ago
  Yeah I'm assuming the coach is a normal person who's goal is to build a team and win. If his goal as an adult is to have a lot of teenagers for friends because he himself is still stuck in that mentality, then there's not much you can do but get away.
thwarted 10mo ago
Sometimes achievements speak for themselves and provide the marketing for the actor. But that requires both the achievement to be extremely outsized, so as not to get lost in the noise, and very obviously the result of a singular actor. Only one person can step up to the plate and swing the bat.
marcinzm 10mo ago
It’s not a scam. It’s a system that exists for people and made by people. Period. Money, outcomes and so on only have value because people assign them value. If you remove people then what you do has no value or concept of value. Life is not some video game with an omniscient score counter. Other people are the score counter.
- QuantumFunnel 10mo ago

mh2266 10mo ago

I don’t think being popular with the players is entirely irrelevant for players in team sports. Locker room cohesion matters.

deleted 10mo ago

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deleted 10mo ago

[deleted]

bdangubic 10mo ago

with all due respect, every word you wrote is wrong. michael jordan was and still is biggest a-hole that every teammate hated - the best to ever do it. getting into harvard - nothing to do with popularity. mom&pop alumni perhaps or you can just be a great student, I know several harvard grads who are about as popular as wahington generals. machine learning - most celebrated are ones pulling 7-8-figure salaries no one has ever heard of (I’ve heard of one through a colleague).

WhyOhWhyQ 10mo ago
"with all due respect, every word you wrote is wrong. michael jordan was and still is biggest a-hole that every teammate hated - the best to ever do it." Bronnie James is in the NBA... ... .. . Michael Jordan was terrible at baseball and got to sign up for a real chance at the MLB. "most celebrated are ones pulling 7-8-figure salaries no one has ever heard of" You've got a direct contradiction in the span of one sentence... I've directly worked with people like the ones you're referring to and most of them were frauds. "I know several harvard grads who are about as popular as wahington generals" You didn't understand what I wrote. It's all about the dynamics of the environment. Academia is as much about fitting in just as much as any other place.

anonymars 10mo ago

I don't think it's a scam, I think all too often people forget that people don't just automatically know things that are going on. It's an important life lesson: telling the story is as important as taking the action. "If you build it, they will come" is bunk Marketing, publicity, networking, call it what you will. If no one knows a feature is in your app, it doesn't matter how good it is. You see this in politics too. That's why you have those signs on the road saying "your tax dollars at work" I bet you can think of any number of poorly publicized success stories that didn't get the credit they deserved, or became victims of the invisibility of their success

cal_dent 10mo ago
FWIW, coming from another unknown internet person, this is 100% the best reply to this whole thread and the most pragmatic way in corporate life. If you think otherwise, you're an idealist and I wish all the best for you in what I suspect you might find a frustrating career. Unless you create your own company.
- drfranke 10mo ago
  Writing “I ignore the spotlight as a staff engineer” with a long description of how they’re better than the other person, is not something a leader that will rise in any company should be writing for the public, even if they’ve given up. Someone else will always at some point will steal or deserve the spotlight. You can’t have a successful show full of prima donnas that all vie for the lead role on stage. You can do your best, and have some way to promote yourself for compensation when the time comes, but if there’s this much of a problem that you feel you have to write a lengthy defense to the public, you’ve lost your way and should go elsewhere/
lo_zamoyski 10mo ago
Exactly. One shouldn't confuse the spotlight with communication. This is just a matter of letting the appropriate people know the things you want them to know or they need to know. We're social animals. We communicate. If someone doesn't know what you're doing, then, as the Captain says, we have a failure to communicate. Being able to communicate is a core life skill and part of what it means to be a functioning adult. (I'm also willing to bet that the very same people who pout about not being "appreciated" would be the first to complain about someone "hovering" or "spying" on them, because that's what it would take for someone to know what you're up to in such cases. Like, make up your mind, bruh.) And if you take a moment to think about it, those who expect others to just know what they've done are displaying the very narcissistic behavior they often claim to be avoiding. After all, why you? Why should anyone know what you, of all people, are doing? Do you know what others are doing? No, you don't. Not until they tell you or someone who has been told knows. You may think you know, but there is plenty that you don't know, and to be fair, perhaps don't need to know. The world does not revolve around you. Like you (I would hope), people have their own lives and tasks and concerns. Think of something as everyday as a PR. Even if your manager looks at every PR, he doesn't know what you did to get there unless you communicate that to him. Unless you write it down and share it or tell him that you've experimented with three different approaches before settling on the chosen one, or done some kind of detailed analysis based on which you drew up your design, how the hell is he going to know? And even if a manager should know certain things, it is pointless to make that appeal. So what if he should? Aren't there things you should be doing but aren't, like, say, communicating with clarity and coherence? "Shoulding" doesn't make things so. You have to deal with the world as it is, not as you would like it to be. Every manager is different. If your manager requires a huge banner and a neon sign to get the message, then that's what it takes to make him know things. Behave accordingly.

FromTheFirstIn 10mo ago

I think your definition of popular is holding you back. If popular just means other people like you, you’re obviously wrong- plenty of people are very successful even though they are disliked. Often this will happen multiple times on a single team at a company. If popular means you’re perceived as valuable, you’re obviously right. All institutions are social institutions and operate on social understandings of value. So to be successful you have to be perceived as valuable by these social structures. I think calling this a scam misunderstands the non-quantitative metrics of worth. There isn’t actually a Best Academic, a Best Engineer, or a Best Coworker in some measurable objective sense. Those are all social evaluations and they’re valuable because of that, not despite it

Libidinalecon 10mo ago

This is completely delusional lol. No one that played high school sports can possibly believe this. Everyone knows by day two who the gifted players are, who is average and who sucks. The good players are never bench warmers because everyone wants to win. The world is made up of a bunch of average people by definition but there is a percentage of those average people that think they are gifted when they are not. Then they blame the world for not understanding their "genius". The most brilliant person I know dropped out of medical school and just raced up the corporate ladder. It took her about 2 months in any role for management to see she should move up. Myself on the other hand have had to really grind it out, constantly learning and networking to improve my luck because I am just so very average.