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mattnewport comments on The fallacy of work-life compartmentalization - Less Wrong
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I think a lot of the 'irrational' workplace behaviour you describe can also be seen as a rational response to bad incentives on the part of employees. It is relatively rare for jobs to consistently reward employees for performance that contributes directly to company profits so much employee behaviour is instead a response to what is actually rewarded by a perverse incentive structure.
One of the reasons small companies and startups can be successful despite lacking the resources or economies of scale of larger companies is that large companies have great difficulty maintaining a structure that rewards employees for productive activity.
I agree. My strategy has always been to determine what my supervisor / professor / etc really wants, and give that to them, as opposed to what they say they want. Occasionally, this requires a great deal of effort and skill, as they demand brilliance, but quite often all they really want (and will reward) is for every print-out to be in color or something equally useless.
The frustrating thing is that what some of my supervisors have wanted from me is failure. Robert Greene lists the first rule of power as 'Never Outshine the Master'. This has meant sometimes sabotaging projects to increase my status (and prevent hostility). I sometimes find that just a few hours per week on a project is an optimal contribution and I have had some success with using the remaining work time to work on external projects.
Unfortunately, playing that game in the long term requires either the right personality or psychological reserves that I did not have at the time so I left what was at least superficially a perfect opportunity to get paid a full time wage while actually working on my own entrepreneurial interests.
It might be nice to think about how you would have to think about things in order to not have your psychological reserves depleted by such situations.
We have this crazy tendency to be hurt just by other people being crazy.
That's a good point, and I given the chance I may actually accept such a role in the future because I suspect I would be far better at it now.
Some of this, the emotional frustration, can be reduced through introspection and personal development. On the other hand there are some parts of the problem that aren't a matter of mere preference or weak boundaries. Dealing with crazy people can actually be a genuinely challenging task. It is easier to think straightforward thoughts but it can be hard to account for exactly the right amount of crazy.
I've encountered quite a bit of hostility when proselytizing that viewpoint. I just can't wrap my head around the sort of worldview that causes people to feel bad for giving their boss what they want. I think a lot of overly smart engineering types extend their ego boundaries excessively into the workplace and think of it as their job to "save the company from those bumbling managers."
It's the sort of viewpoint you're supposed to have, not admit to having.
Upvoted for the point about ego boundaries, but pardon me, "overly smart"??
Yes, when you take on a job for someone, it's wise to focus on fulfilling the request, and to avoid inflicting help that they haven't asked for. And if the managers are bumbling their way around, your interests are also partly at stake (i.e. you may lose your job if the company fails), so it's legitimate to want to do something about that. You have no obligation to do more than update your resume, but you also have the option of trying to improve things.
overestimating your own impact on the company is a classic bias. thinking that you can save a sinking ship is usually kind of silly.
by overly smart I mean that most engineering jobs require quite a bit less rigor than engineers are trained for. at least in the experience of myself and my engineering friends.
Use of the shift key is preferred.
It is sometimes even wiser to focus on giving the manager what they really want.
Tim Harford gave an argument like that in "The Logic of Life". It's not that he had data backing that up, the book is heavily based on economic theory & reasoning.
Yeah, I've read the book. Having worked in large companies where a lot of unproductive activity went on it always seemed fairly clear to me that people were generally responding rationally to the incentives that existed when they took actions that didn't maximize shareholder profits. I work at a startup now where the incentives are rather different.