Divided We Stand, United We Fall

There are thousands of ways to get to know your colleagues, some fun, and some mundane. Play team sports, get drunk together, group hypnosis, or walk into work late with a sawn-off shotgun and see how fast they run. In reality, very few of us have the real time and patience to get to really know our colleagues, besides having to work with them is taxing enough, so learn to classify people, and fast.

Emotion taints reality. At a basic level people crave harmony, yet they are caught between trusting others too much or too little. By default they aim to please, to not be a hindrance, unless they want something. In this case they will behave however they like to get what they want, depending on what is tolerated. If you meet someone and are already familiar with them through gossip, ignore what you have heard and trust your instinct.

Knowledge also taints reality. Buy ten books on the subjects of human behaviour, leadership traits, sharpening your memory and anything else that provides you with fantasies that are potentially quasi-superior and intimidating. Randomly highlight sections in the books, insert bookmarks, dog-ear pages, and arrange the pile of books on your desk for all to see (it’s OK to place The Art of Office War on the top of the pile). Watch people slow down and incline their heads as they read the titles on the spines, and then race away in a hurry. People are scared of analytical evaluation because it might reveal their weaker points. You don’t even have to read the books; all you have to do is bluff with knowledge. Watch how people have been doing the same to you.

Money is an indicator. Remember that everyone is selected to work in an office for a reason, someone pays them for doing something. Even in the civil service (government) where the majority of people do very little, they nonetheless achieve something: They create valid reasons why taxes should be used to pay them – that’s their duty, that’s what they do extremely well, but they’ll never earn too much no matter how much they protest and strike . Similarly, in the mightiest and meanest of cost-cutting corporations that are bent on siphoning a profit 24/7 out of every tangible asset available in their globalised world until it all crashes in a depression, there will be people coasting along in one of the several layers of tolerate, institutional bureaucracy. They’ve found a safe place to exist and they probably get paid well. All around the world people are getting paid because they’ve proven their value to the market (which is driven by society’s needs), but in many cases they shouldn’t be paid or even paid less. Too much analysis of it all will give you a headache.

On a grander scale, something that may one day be noted in the chunky history books and regarded as a pinnacle of fatty success or survival finesse over our environment, is the Western Age of Excess. Thanks to geopolitics, the free-market, social and technological revolutions and an inherent sense of order from an obedient citizenship (plus a thousand other things), we can feed and pay ourselves extremely well, enjoy a luxury lifestyle, and still complain ad nauseam. The West is so wealthy that there is an abundance of jobs that keep people in the knowledge and services industry, doing God knows what. This is the flipside of advanced civilisation – there are people who are paid and happy to work, yet don’t contribute a great amount to the world. They even find it hard to measure their worth and hence alleviate their absence of purpose by performing niche tasks that enable them to reign supreme, such as stamp collecting, sports, and other chic perversions. But they will be productive when they are called upon to assist the hard working people who make things happen. The latter lead the way and build stuff (like bridges, trade agreements, space-rockets), correct the world’s mistakes, maintain the civilisation we enjoy so much, and ignite revolutions.

Universal Hard Worker. Hard workers are hard workers because they have valid incentives; which go beyond the lust for security, responsibility and status, and a fat ego. Think of the satisfaction of completing something, the pleasure of having an occupied mind, and money. Amusingly, they are not hard workers because of some romantic notion of a work ethic, for it must be noted that they are usually paid more than their lazier comrades. This does not mean justice follows hard work. People being people, there are low paid, lazy people jealous of highly paid, hard workers, and there are also low paid, hard workers jealous of lazy, highly paid leaches. There is incredible injustice in the office, whereas in the jungle, it’s plain life and death.

Find out what your colleagues are up to. What do they want? What do you want? Just to stay in your position and do what you were hired for? Advancement depends upon the acquisition of new skills and taking on extra tasks. But by snatching extra tasks from those around you who are lazy, you are stealing their reasons for employment. Take more. Take less. It is up to you. In any position, in any organisation, you must know everything about your position and every other position. To move up you must train someone with all the skills you know and bequeath them your responsibility so that they can step into your shoes and you can move up, or sideways and then up. Some people adopt dirty tricks to advance themselves – do not observe them and them only. Observe everyone around you and what is tolerated. Know why and how they conform to the system when the system should be spitting them out.
 
Understanding colleagues isn’t that hard. In this chapter you will learn the equivalent of three university years, but sadly without the wild parties, sex, silly drugs, adventures in rock’n’roll/techno, bad hangovers and student debt.