Workplace Ethics

This was an interesting article:  Why “Jerks” Get Ahead

Not to get into politics here, but it was clearly written by a liberal as there were plenty mentions of Trump and Cruz, but not one of Hillary or John Mayer, for that matter, and we all know almost all celebrities are on the left.

This topic came up not long ago with little bit. Not how John Mayer is a major a-hole, but how it doesn’t always feel like the good guy wins. More often than not, it feels like the butthole wins. The snitch. The goody-two-shoes. The suck up. And all the while, the good guy is left feeling inadequate and irrelevant.

I learned early on that it wasn’t enough to be busy; you had to look busy. At my first job out of college, I worked with a horrible woman — we’ll call her “Susan” —to whom I actually owe a debt of gratitude as she wound up teaching me a valuable lesson. Have you ever worked with this type of person? Susan was completely and utterly useless. There’s a bump on a log and then there’s Susan standing there staring at the log. The rest of us would bust our humps, multi-tasking and putting out fires (once, literally), running around like crazy people, and Susan would spend 20 minutes fooling with the copier that she jammed in the first place. In between checking trays #2 and #3, she’d make a cup of coffee, walk around the office, stop at every desk and tell each person how busy she was, and then she’d head back into the work room to look at the copier some more. Somehow, at just the right moment, the boss would walk by and see a strategically placed smudge of toner on her cheek and call us all together to celebrate this hero among us who so selflessly put herself above others, risking safety and a dry cleaning bill, to keep the office running smoothly. “What would we do without her?” he’d wonder aloud, and while the entire office stood there, half rolling collective eyes and half day dreaming about life without Susan, there she stood:  triumphant and basking in the glory of avoiding yet another day of honest work.

On the rare occasions that she wasn’t able to be seen being busy by the boss, she would resort to just telling him how busy she was. It was repulsive. And he bought it. In the four years I worked with Susan, I saw her work, honest-to-goodness work, for about 45 minutes and not all in a row. Yet, she managed raises, a fancy Herman Miller chair (for her bad back), an ergonomic wrist rest and mouse pad (for all of her late hours on the computer), and, although she held an administrative position, she wormed her way into an office (with a door) on the senior executive hallway because she had to have a window to help with her Vitamin D deficiency and tendency toward Seasonal Affect Disorder (S.A.D.). Feel free to join me when I say, “puh-leese!”

But I’ll tell you this much…as much as I hated the way Susan acted, I saw that it got results. I never brought myself in any of my jobs to perfect “the Susan” and I kind of pride myself on it. For one thing, I (mostly wrongly) assumed that bosses could see through that level of disingenuous behavior but again and again in different scenarios, men and women, bought it hook, line and sinker.

I eventually came to the conclusion that if it came down to me being a successful jerk or a slightly less successful non-jerk, that I would have to opt for the latter. And that’s my version of ascending the corporate ladder.