Venkatesh Rao | The Gervais Principle

Summary

The Gervais Principle is this: Sociopaths, in their own best interests, knowingly promote over-performing Losers into middle-management, groom under-performing Losers into Sociopaths, and leave the average bare-minimum-effort Losers to fend for themselves.
(Rao 2009a)

Thoughts

Independent notes: Sociopath (Gervais principle), Clueless (Gervais principle), Losers (Gervais principle)

Notes

The Office According to The Office

Hugh MacLeod’s well-known cartoon, Company Hierarchy, [MacLeod’s model of hierarchy] […]
[…]
Hugh MacLeod’s cartoon is a pitch-perfect symbol of an unorthodox school of management based on the axiom that organizations don’t suffer pathologies; they are intrinsically pathological constructs. […] It may be horrible, but like democracy, it is the best you can do.
The Sociopath (capitalized) layer comprises the Darwinian/Protestant Ethic will-to-power types who drive an organization to function despite itself. The Clueless layer is what Whyte called the “Organization Man,” but the archetype inhabiting the middle has evolved a good deal since Whyte wrote his book in the fifties. The Losers are not social losers (as in the opposite of “cool”), but people who have struck bad bargains economically – giving up capitalist striving for steady paychecks. […]
Of all organization men, the true executive is the one who remains most suspicious of The Organization. If there is one thing that characterizes him, it is a fierce desire to control his own destiny and, deep down, he resents yielding that control to The Organization, no matter how velvety its grip…he wants to dominate, not be dominated…Many people from the great reaches of middle management can become true believers in The Organization…But the most able are not vouchsafed this solace.
Back then, Whyte was extremely pessimistic. He saw signs that in the struggle for dominance between the Sociopaths (whom he admired as the ones actually making the organization effective despite itself) and the middle-management Organization Man, the latter was winning. He was wrong, but not in the way you’d think. The Sociopaths defeated the Organization Men and turned them into The Clueless not by reforming the organization, but by creating a meta-culture of Darwinism in the economy: one based on job-hopping, mergers, acquisitions, layoffs, cataclysmic reorganizations, outsourcing, unforgiving start-up ecosystems, and brutal corporate raiding. In this terrifying meta-world of the Titans, the Organization Man became the Clueless Man. Today, any time an organization grows too brittle, bureaucratic and disconnected from reality, it is simply killed, torn apart and cannibalized, rather than reformed. The result is the modern creative-destructive life cycle of the firm, which I’ll call the MacLeod Life Cycle.

A Sociopath with an idea recruits just enough Losers to kick off the cycle. As it grows, it requires a Clueless layer to turn it into a controlled reaction, rather than a runaway explosion. Eventually, as value hits diminishing returns, both the Sociopaths and Losers make their exits, and the Clueless start to dominate. Finally, the hollow brittle shell collapses on itself, and anything of value is recycled by the Sociopaths, according to meta-firm logic.
MacLeod’s Loser layer had me puzzled for a long time, because I was interpreting it in cultural terms: the kind of person you call a “loser.” While some may be losers in that sense too, they are primarily losers in the economic sense: those who have, for various reasons, made (or been forced to make) a bad economic bargain. They’ve given up some potential for long-term economic liberty (as capitalists) for short-term economic stability. Traded freedom for a paycheck, in short. They actually produce, but are not compensated in proportion to the value they create (since their compensation is set by Sociopaths operating under conditions of serious moral hazard). They mortgage their lives away, and hope to die before their money runs out. The good news is that Losers have two ways out, which we’ll get to later: turning Sociopath or turning into bare-minimum performers. The Losers destined for Cluelessness do not have a choice.
[…] we can also separate the three layers based on the timing of their entry and exit into organizations. The Sociopaths enter and exit organizations at will, at any stage, and do whatever it takes to come out on top. They contribute creativity in early stages of a organization’s life, neurotic leadership in the middle stages, and cold-bloodedness in the later stages, where they drive decisions like mergers, acquisitions and layoffs that others are too scared or too compassionate to drive.
The Losers like to feel good about their lives. They are the happiness seekers, rather than will-to-power players, and enter and exit reactively, in response to the meta-Darwinian trends in the economy. But they have no more loyalty to the firm than the Sociopaths. They do have a loyalty to individual people, and a commitment to finding fulfillment through work when they can, and coasting when they cannot.
The Clueless are the ones who lack the competence to circulate freely through the economy (unlike Sociopaths and Losers), and build up a perverse sense of loyalty to the firm, even when events make it abundantly clear that the firm is not loyal to them. To sustain themselves, they must be capable of fashioning elaborate delusions based on idealized notions of the firm — the perfectly pathological entities we mentioned. Unless squeezed out by forces they cannot resist, they hang on as long as possible, long after both Sociopaths and Losers have left […]
Which brings us to our main idea. How both the pyramid and its lifecycle are animated. The dynamics are governed by the Newton’s Law of organizations: The Gervais Principle.
The Gervais Principle is this: Sociopaths, in their own best interests, knowingly promote over-performing Losers into middle-management, groom under-performing Losers into Sociopaths, and leave the average bare-minimum-effort Losers to fend for themselves.
[…]
So why is promoting over-performing Losers logical? The simple reason is that if you over-perform at the Loser level, it is clear that you are an idiot. You’ve already made a bad bargain, and now you’re delivering more value than you need to, making your bargain even worse. Unless you very quickly demonstrate that you know your own value by successfully negotiating more money and/or power, you are marked out as an exploitable clueless Loser. […]
A Loser who can be suckered into bad bargains is set to become one of the Clueless. That’s why they are promoted: they are worth even more as Clueless pawns in the middle than as direct producers at the bottom, where the average, rationally-disengaged Loser will do. At the bottom, the overperformers can merely add a predictable amount of value. In the middle they can be used by the Sociopaths to escape the consequences of high-risk machinations like re-orgs.
The example of the “fast-track the under-performing” part of the principle is Ryan, the intern. He tests himself quickly and rapidly learns and accepts that he is incompetent as a salesman. But he is a born pragmatist with the drive, ambition, daring and lack of principle to make it to the top. So rather than waste time trying to get good at sales, he slips into a wait-watch-grab opportunist mode. But he isn’t checked out; he is engaged, but in an experimental way, probing for his opening. The difference between him and the average checked-out Loser is illustrated in one brilliant scene early in his career. He suggests, during a group stacking effort in the warehouse, that they form a bucket brigade to work more efficiently. The minimum-effort Loser Stanley tells him coldly, “this here is a run-out-the-clock situation.” The line could apply to Stanley’s entire life.
Stanley’s response shows both his intelligence and clear-eyed self-awareness of his Loser bargain with the company. He therefore acts according to a mix of self-preservation and minimum-effort coasting instincts. […]
The future Sociopath must be an under-performer at the bottom. Like the average Loser, he recognizes that the bargain is a really bad one. Unlike the risk-averse loser though, he does not try to make the best of a bad situation by doing enough to get by. He has no intention of just getting by. He very quickly figures out – through experiments and fast failures – that the Loser game is not worth becoming good at. He then severely under-performs in order to free up energy to concentrate on maneuvering towards an upward exit. He knows his under-performance is not sustainable, but he has no intention of becoming a lifetime-Loser employee anyway. He takes the calculated risk that he’ll find a way up before he is fired for incompetence.
[…]
The career of the Loser is the easiest to understand. Having made a bad bargain, and not marked for either Clueless or Sociopath trajectories, he or she must make the best of a bad situation. The most rational thing to do is slack off and do the minimum necessary. Doing more would be a Clueless thing to do. Doing less would take the high-energy machinations of the Sociopath, since it sets up self-imposed up-or-out time pressure. So the Loser – really not a loser at all if you think about it – pays his dues, does not ask for much, and finds meaning in his life elsewhere.
[…]
[…] Images of Organization, Gareth Morgan’s magisterial study of the metaphors through which we understand organizations. Of the eight systemic metaphors in the book, the one that is most relevant here is the metaphor of an organization as a psychic prison. The image is derived from Plato’s allegory of the cave, which I won’t get into here. Suffice it to say that it divides people into those who get how the world really works (the Sociopaths and the self-aware slacker Losers) and those who don’t (the over-performer Losers and the Clueless in the middle).
(Rao 2009a)

======== The Gervais Principle: The Complete Series, with a Bonus Essay on Office Space (Ribbonfarm Roughs) (Venkatesh Rao)

Your Highlight on Location 275-277 | Added on Tuesday, June 23, 2015 9:22:17 PM

Powertalk is the in-group language of the Sociopaths. Posturetalk is the language spoken by the Clueless to everybody. They don’t have an in-group language since they don’t realize they constitute a group. Sociopaths and Losers talk back to the Clueless in a language called Babytalk that seems like Posturetalk to the Clueless. Among themselves, Losers speak a language called Gametalk. ======== The Gervais Principle: The Complete Series, with a Bonus Essay on Office Space (Ribbonfarm Roughs) (Venkatesh Rao)

Your Highlight on Location 278-282 | Added on Tuesday, June 23, 2015 9:22:30 PM

pop classics on transactional analysis (TA) from 30 years ago: Eric Berne’s Games People Play and What Do You Say after You Say Hello, and Thomas Harris’ I’m OK–You’re OK. (Yes, they’re dated, and have been parodied to the point that they seem campy today. No, that does not mean they are useless. Yes, you need a brain to read them critically today. Add these three books to the two I already referenced, The Organization Man and Images of Organization.) ======== The Gervais Principle: The Complete Series, with a Bonus Essay on Office Space (Ribbonfarm Roughs) (Venkatesh Rao)

Your Highlight on Location 289-289 | Added on Tuesday, June 23, 2015 9:27:15 PM

Fluent Powertalk ======== The Gervais Principle: The Complete Series, with a Bonus Essay on Office Space (Ribbonfarm Roughs) (Venkatesh Rao)

Your Highlight on Location 308-308 | Added on Tuesday, June 23, 2015 9:27:24 PM

A Powertalk Trainwreck ======== The Gervais Principle: The Complete Series, with a Bonus Essay on Office Space (Ribbonfarm Roughs) (Venkatesh Rao)

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What distinguishes Powertalk is that with every word uttered, the power equation between the two speakers shifts just a little. ======== The Gervais Principle: The Complete Series, with a Bonus Essay on Office Space (Ribbonfarm Roughs) (Venkatesh Rao)

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Powertalk in other words, is a consequential language. ======== The Gervais Principle: The Complete Series, with a Bonus Essay on Office Space (Ribbonfarm Roughs) (Venkatesh Rao)

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Posturetalk and Babytalk leave things unchanged because they are, to quote Shakespeare, “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” Gametalk leaves power relations unchanged because its entire purpose is to help Losers put themselves and each other into safe pigeonholes that validate do-nothing life scripts. ======== The Gervais Principle: The Complete Series, with a Bonus Essay on Office Space (Ribbonfarm Roughs) (Venkatesh Rao)

Your Highlight on Location 337-338 | Added on Tuesday, June 23, 2015 9:30:17 PM

you don’t get what you deserve; you get what you negotiate. ======== The Gervais Principle: The Complete Series, with a Bonus Essay on Office Space (Ribbonfarm Roughs) (Venkatesh Rao)

Your Highlight on Location 333-336 | Added on Tuesday, June 23, 2015 9:30:28 PM

In Powertalk, you play with valuable currency, usually reality-information. In the other languages, you are playing with no stakes. The most important enabling factor in being able to speak Powertalk is simply the possession of table stakes. Without it, whatever you say is Posturetalk. The only Powertalk you can speak without any table stakes is “silence.” ======== The Gervais Principle: The Complete Series, with a Bonus Essay on Office Space (Ribbonfarm Roughs) (Venkatesh Rao)

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A decent 101-level example of this is in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, when Hermoine is the only one who realizes that Professor Umbridge’s apparently bland and formulaic speech is actually a Powertalk speech challenging Dumbledore. ======== The Gervais Principle: The Complete Series, with a Bonus Essay on Office Space (Ribbonfarm Roughs) (Venkatesh Rao)

Your Highlight on Location 355-357 | Added on Tuesday, June 23, 2015 9:32:54 PM

So effective Sociopaths stick with steadfast discipline to the letter of the law, internal and external, because the stupidest way to trip yourself up is in the realm of rules where the Clueless and Losers get to be judges and jury members. What they violate is its spirit, by taking advantage of its ambiguities. ======== The Gervais Principle: The Complete Series, with a Bonus Essay on Office Space (Ribbonfarm Roughs) (Venkatesh Rao)

Your Highlight on Location 374-374 | Added on Wednesday, June 24, 2015 12:11:35 AM

nadir ======== The Gervais Principle: The Complete Series, with a Bonus Essay on Office Space (Ribbonfarm Roughs) (Venkatesh Rao)

Your Highlight on Location 369-369 | Added on Wednesday, June 24, 2015 12:11:40 AM

Toy Guns is the vocabulary of empty machismo. ======== The Gervais Principle: The Complete Series, with a Bonus Essay on Office Space (Ribbonfarm Roughs) (Venkatesh Rao)

Your Note on Location 403 | Added on Wednesday, June 24, 2015 1:10:18 AM

tacit, applied cognitive task analyss ======== The Gervais Principle: The Complete Series, with a Bonus Essay on Office Space (Ribbonfarm Roughs) (Venkatesh Rao)

Your Highlight on Location 403-403 | Added on Wednesday, June 24, 2015 1:10:18 AM

any way to learn it at all? ======== The Gervais Principle: The Complete Series, with a Bonus Essay on Office Space (Ribbonfarm Roughs) (Venkatesh Rao)

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the depth of any transaction is limited by the depth of the shallower party. ======== The Gervais Principle: The Complete Series, with a Bonus Essay on Office Space (Ribbonfarm Roughs) (Venkatesh Rao)

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Well-adjustedness is a measure of the degree to which your worldview is socially acceptable and appropriate in a given environment. Since a messed-up personality can be well-adjusted with respect to a messed-up environment, well-adjustedness has very little to do with sanity and actual mental health. The mental health industry is designed to manufacture well-adjustedness, not cure arrested development. This is partly because lack of well-adjustedness is easier to detect, measure and fix. But that is a minor reason. The major reason is that well-adjustedness is a definable and economically useful commodity that is relatively cheap to manufacture. The fix for arrested development is none of those things. ======== The Gervais Principle: The Complete Series, with a Bonus Essay on Office Space (Ribbonfarm Roughs) (Venkatesh Rao)

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Environments and worldviews really come down to a series of situations and situational reactions. If your situational reactions are generally appropriate but against your best interests, you are a well-adjusted Loser. If they are both appropriate and in your best interests, you are a Sociopath. If your reactions are inappropriate (whether or not they are in your best interests – sometimes they are), you are Clueless. ======== The Gervais Principle: The Complete Series, with a Bonus Essay on Office Space (Ribbonfarm Roughs) (Venkatesh Rao)

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Your development is arrested by your strengths, not your weaknesses. Arrested-development behavior is caused by a strength-based addiction. The mediocre develop faster than either the talented or the untalented. An alternative way of looking at these three laws is to note that defense mechanisms emerge to sustain addictions even when the developmental environment that originally nourished it vanishes. Defense mechanisms though, are more useful as a partial catalog of phenomenology than as a foundational idea. ======== The Gervais Principle: The Complete Series, with a Bonus Essay on Office Space (Ribbonfarm Roughs) (Venkatesh Rao)

Your Highlight on Location 491-495 | Added on Wednesday, June 24, 2015 1:30:55 AM

Each pattern is based on a preferred, dominant variety of delusion: The Clueless distort reality. The Losers distort rewards and penalties. The Sociopaths distort the metaphysics of human life. You really thought the Sociopaths were going to get a free ride to redemption? They may be realists, but we’ll see how they too, are eventually forced to suffer the consequences of their delusions. ======== The Gervais Principle: The Complete Series, with a Bonus Essay on Office Space (Ribbonfarm Roughs) (Venkatesh Rao)

Your Note on Location 508 | Added on Wednesday, June 24, 2015 1:32:11 AM

No. YOU need to write more clearly. ======== The Gervais Principle: The Complete Series, with a Bonus Essay on Office Space (Ribbonfarm Roughs) (Venkatesh Rao)

Your Highlight on Location 508-508 | Added on Wednesday, June 24, 2015 1:32:11 AM

I did warn you we were embarking on a slog. ======== The Gervais Principle: The Complete Series, with a Bonus Essay on Office Space (Ribbonfarm Roughs) (Venkatesh Rao)

Your Highlight on Location 519-525 | Added on Wednesday, June 24, 2015 1:33:32 AM

The world is a dangerous, messy place. Yet infants survive. Their early environment is an abnormally nurturing one. So the first early, theories of the world children are tempted to form are based on the assumption that the world exists to provide for them. Starting with the unconditionally nurturing environment of really early infancy (which, in the language of I am OK, You’re OK is the unconditional I AM OK), the Clueless in The Office represent three sublevels of reality-distorting Clueless delusions: I am OK if Mommy applauds my performance (early childhood, Michael) I am OK if I earn badges from teachers (pre-adolescence, Dwight) I am OK if I can sit with the cool kids (adolescence, Andy) ======== The Gervais Principle: The Complete Series, with a Bonus Essay on Office Space (Ribbonfarm Roughs) (Venkatesh Rao)

Your Highlight on Location 528-530 | Added on Wednesday, June 24, 2015 1:34:03 AM

Keep in mind that that the rough equation of individuals to “levels” merely represents the center of gravity of their most deeply-entrenched strength-addiction behaviors, to which they regress most easily when threatened. All three have a home level, to which they preferentially regress, but they can function at all three levels. ======== The Gervais Principle: The Complete Series, with a Bonus Essay on Office Space (Ribbonfarm Roughs) (Venkatesh Rao)

Your Highlight on Location 542-561 | Added on Wednesday, June 24, 2015 1:37:03 AM

Little children in normal environments win their first victories through creative performance: reciting nursery rhymes, drawing pictures, and demonstrating creative play behaviors. If they succeed too much, they get addicted to the typical adult reaction: Wow, aren’t you clever? and, to a lesser extent, to admiration from younger siblings. In learning to thrive in this particular reward/penalty environment, little children rely mostly on responding to the emotional content of what they hear and see, since they do not understand much. With a few evolved defense mechanisms thrown in, to protect against adult realities that don’t conform to childhood environments, that’s exactly what it feels like to be Michael. When he hears somebody talking, all he hears is “blah blah blah good job, blah blah blah, how could you do this Michael?” in conjunction with facial expressions and body language. Michael’s head is a massive library of childlike mappings between situations, canned phrases and reactions. He is not completely responsible for his actions and utterances because he genuinely does not understand them. There is coherence in what Michael says though; he does not sound completely nonsensical because he reacts meaningfully to body language, facial expressions and emotional cues. “You talkin’ to me?” (borrowed from De Niro) is a belligerent line, and by pulling out that line when he feels threatened, and then displacing the tension with laughter, Michael is able to derail the conversation. His trademark joke, “That’s what she said!” is an extreme example. It makes no sense in most contexts where he trots it out; its only purpose is to dissolve tension and displace threats. Either laughing with Michael or throwing up your hands in frustration is a victory for him. The only effective response is to calmly ignore his disruptive actions, wait for the reaction to die down, and continue the conversation in dominant mode, like Cesar Milan with his dogs. If you attempt to make sense of it, you’ve already lost. As Cesar Milan tells Mrs. Cartman, “Do not reason with it, do not argue with it, just dominate it.” Michael’s nemesis, Charles Miner, does this most effectively. His dealings with Michael are the least contaminated by engagement, frustration or compassion, which is why he triggers the most spectacular Michael meltdown on the show so far. Around Packer, his boorish friend, insulting and objectifying ways of talking about women gain approval, so he trots out borrowed, misogynistic man-talk. Withering under the collective glare of his politically correct employees, phrases like “respect women” gain smiles and halt frowns, so that’s what he offers. ======== The Gervais Principle: The Complete Series, with a Bonus Essay on Office Space (Ribbonfarm Roughs) (Venkatesh Rao)

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In chapter 1, I noted that for the Clueless, “The most visible sign of their capacity for self-delusion is their complete inability to generate an original thought.” Why is lack of originality a clear indicator of Cluelessness? Here is why: delusions are closed logical schemes, where reality is mangled into the service of a fixed script through defense mechanisms, with the rest of the meaning thrown away. To manufacture original thought you have to listen to reality in open ways for data. That is why Michael’s database is so full of movie lines. Movies are goldmines of canned reactions that don’t require much present-reality data to retrieve. When kids quote adults or movies, they seem precocious, and gain approval. In an era where more kids are raised by TV than by parents, parroting movie lines comes more naturally than repeating bromides learned from parental figures or at churches and temples. Recall that social calendars force you through later stages whether or not you master previous ones. So what about later stages? Michael is not quite as enamored of medals and certificates as Dwight because (as a lousy student) he never got very good at earning them, and could therefore not get seriously addicted to them. Finally, Michael has poorly developed peer-affiliation drives. He wants to be the center of attention, not one among many equals in a huddle of peers. When Michael appears to be operating under a peer-affiliation drive (the sort that animates Andy), he is really casting child behaviors into a teen mould. He believes that specific people, rather than formal or informal groups, are cool or admirable (proxy parental figures, older siblings). If they are not cool or admirable, they must be made to view him as cool and admirable (younger siblings). ======== The Gervais Principle: The Complete Series, with a Bonus Essay on Office Space (Ribbonfarm Roughs) (Venkatesh Rao)

Your Highlight on Location 671-679 | Added on Wednesday, June 24, 2015 1:49:52 AM

Each of them – and they constitute 80% of humanity – is born the most beautiful baby in the world. Each is an above-average child; in fact the entire 80% is in the top 20% of human beings. (It’s crowded up there.) Each one grows up knowing that he or she is deeply special in some way, and destined for a unique life that he or she is “meant” to live. In their troubled twenties, each seeks the one true love that they know is out there, waiting for them, and their real calling in life. Each time they fail at life or love, their friends console them: “You are a smart, funny, beautiful and incredibly talented person, and the love of your life and your true calling are out there somewhere. I just know that.” The friends are right of course: each marries the most beautiful man or woman in the world, discovers his or her calling, and becomes the proud parent of the most beautiful baby in the world. Eventually, each of them retires, earns a gold watch, and somebody makes a speech declaring him or her to be a Wonderful Human Being. You and I know them as Losers. ======== The Gervais Principle: The Complete Series, with a Bonus Essay on Office Space (Ribbonfarm Roughs) (Venkatesh Rao)

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“I don’t care to belong to any club that will have me as a member.” There is a deep truth here. Social clubs of any sort divide the world into an us and a them. We are better than them. Any prospective new member who could raise the average prestige of a club is, by definition, somebody who is too good for that club. So how do social groups form at all, given Marx’s paradox? The answer lies in the idea of status illegibility, the fuzziness of the status of a member of any social group. This is governed by what I will call Marx’s laws of status illegibility. Marx’s First Law of Status Illegibility: the illegibility of the status of any member of a group is proportional to his/her distance from the edges of the group. Marx’s Second Law of Status Illegibility: the stability of the group membership of any member is proportional to the illegibility of his/her status. ======== The Gervais Principle: The Complete Series, with a Bonus Essay on Office Space (Ribbonfarm Roughs) (Venkatesh Rao)

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Loser delusions are maintained by groups. You scratch my delusion, I’ll scratch yours. I’ll call you a thoughtful critic if you agree to call me a fascinating blogger. And we’ll both convince ourselves that our lives are to be valued by these different measures. ======== The Gervais Principle: The Complete Series, with a Bonus Essay on Office Space (Ribbonfarm Roughs) (Venkatesh Rao)

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The delusion lies not in a false assessment of her artistic skills, but in the group choosing to evaluate her on the basis of art in the first place. In other words, Losers are too smart to fool themselves. They enter into social contracts which require them to fool each other. This social contract requires them to play games. Games that work at two levels to create cohesion and social capital: they structure current, live situations, and they bolster redemptive life scripts. ======== The Gervais Principle: The Complete Series, with a Bonus Essay on Office Space (Ribbonfarm Roughs) (Venkatesh Rao)

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Remember, you are unique, just like everybody else. And everybody is uniquely above average. This is why, paradoxically, collectivist philosophies that value equality must necessarily value diversity. Nobody wants to be equally average. Everybody must be given a chance to be equally above average. ======== The Gervais Principle: The Complete Series, with a Bonus Essay on Office Space (Ribbonfarm Roughs) (Venkatesh Rao)

Your Highlight on Location 853-855 | Added on Wednesday, June 24, 2015 4:45:22 PM

There is always a jokester, a victim (which can be the same person by design or accident) and crucially, an audience. The victim may or may not be present. So there are at least three roles in a piece of humor, of which the role of audience may be played by a group. This gives us three basic forms of humor. ======== The Gervais Principle: The Complete Series, with a Bonus Essay on Office Space (Ribbonfarm Roughs) (Venkatesh Rao)

Your Note on Location 911 | Added on Wednesday, June 24, 2015 10:32:40 PM

Not in my experience. Who you are, what you represent, matters ======== The Gervais Principle: The Complete Series, with a Bonus Essay on Office Space (Ribbonfarm Roughs) (Venkatesh Rao)

Your Highlight on Location 911-911 | Added on Wednesday, June 24, 2015 10:32:41 PM

Not who you are. ======== The Gervais Principle: The Complete Series, with a Bonus Essay on Office Space (Ribbonfarm Roughs) (Venkatesh Rao)

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summary, seasoned Sociopaths maintain a permanent facade of strategic incompetence and ignorance in key areas, rather than just making up situational incompetence arguments. This is coupled with indirection and abstraction in requests given to reports. The result is HIWTYL judo. How do we know this is not just a case of giving reports autonomy and discretion in how to act? Simple: when you genuinely want to give reports responsibilities that help them grow, you give them autonomy where they are strong. When you want to use them in engineered “failures” that give you the outcomes you want, you give them autonomy in areas where they are weak. If they can be relied upon to break laws, turn to violence, exhibit useful overzealousness or cut corners, those are the areas where you allow them discretion. ======== The Gervais Principle: The Complete Series, with a Bonus Essay on Office Space (Ribbonfarm Roughs) (Venkatesh Rao)

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The Clueless and Losers debate whether or not ends justify the means. Sociopaths use whatever is justifiable to cover up whatever they want to get done. The result is a theater of justification. The theater of justification was largely superficial in the early days of corporatism. Behind the scenes, bribery, murder, intimidation and even general massacres (such as the machine-gunning of strikers) were openly deliberated. Today, the theater extends deep within the organization itself, and evidence implicating Sociopaths is not even allowed to come into existence in most cases. ======== The Gervais Principle: The Complete Series, with a Bonus Essay on Office Space (Ribbonfarm Roughs) (Venkatesh Rao)

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the purpose of a form is not to serve the person who submits it, but to protect the person who processes it. ======== The Gervais Principle: The Complete Series, with a Bonus Essay on Office Space (Ribbonfarm Roughs) (Venkatesh Rao)

Your Highlight on Location 1180-1185 | Added on Wednesday, June 24, 2015 11:01:55 PM

First, as Holly finally gets at the end of the conversation, she must not exhibit any autonomy in executing the process. There is no room for exercising her own judgment or discretion. There is no autocrat in sight, but her orders are autocratic. She is not being managed by gentle suggestion: she has been issued direct orders. When she deviates, she is reined in with a thinly veiled threat. Second, there is a clear legalist distinction between on-the-record and off-the-record parts of the process, and an expectation that the latter will hew to the needs of the former: the formal record must be above reproach, and equivocation must be practiced in everything said before untrusted people (which, for Sociopaths, is everybody else). ======== The Gervais Principle: The Complete Series, with a Bonus Essay on Office Space (Ribbonfarm Roughs) (Venkatesh Rao)

Your Highlight on Location 1197-1207 | Added on Wednesday, June 24, 2015 11:03:48 PM

Bureaucracies are structures designed to do certain things very efficiently and competently: those that are by default in the best interests of the Sociopaths. They are also designed to do certain things incompetently: those expensive things that the organization is expected to do, but would cut into Sociopath profits if actually done right. And finally, they are designed to obstruct, delay and generally kill things that might hurt the interests of the Sociopaths. All three functions are evident in the Kendall-Holly-Michael episode. Desirable things are enabled and expedited (the advantageous discount). Expensive and expected functions are paid lip service (ethics). And things that might actually hurt (the “employee immunity” idea from Michael) are killed. The employee immunity idea is actually quite logical (and is employed in the criminal justice system for example), but is not in the interests of Sociopaths in this case. Sociopaths design the system this way because they are only interested in building an organization that lasts long enough to extract the easy value from whatever market opportunity motivated its formation. Expensive investments that will not pay off before the organization hits diminishing returns are not made. (It is revealing that the longest-lived businesses are family-owned – Sociopaths have an incentive to think long term if they intend to pass the business on to their progeny.) ======== The Gervais Principle: The Complete Series, with a Bonus Essay on Office Space (Ribbonfarm Roughs) (Venkatesh Rao)

Your Note on Location 1197 | Added on Wednesday, June 24, 2015 11:04:10 PM

purpose of a system is what it does ======== The Gervais Principle: The Complete Series, with a Bonus Essay on Office Space (Ribbonfarm Roughs) (Venkatesh Rao)

Your Highlight on Location 1488-1500 | Added on Wednesday, June 24, 2015 11:19:11 PM

Sociopathy is not about ripping off a specific mask from the face of social reality. It is about recognizing that there are no social realities. There are only masks. Social realities exist as a hierarchy of increasingly sophisticated and specialized fictions for those predisposed to believe that there is something special about the human condition, which sets our realities apart from the rest of the universe. There is, to the Sociopath, only one reality governing everything from quarks to galaxies. Humans have no special place within it. Any idea predicated on the special status of the human – such as justice, fairness, equality, talent – is raw material for a theater of mediated realities that can be created via subtraction of conflicting evidence, polishing and masking. Mask is an appropriate term for any social reality created through subtraction, because an appearance of human-like agency for non-human realities is what the inhabitants require. By humanizing the non-human universe, we make the human special. All that is required is to control people who believe in fairness, is to remove any evidence suggesting that the world might fundamentally not be a fair place, and mask it appropriately with a justice principle such as an afterlife calculus, or a retirement fantasy. So the process of ripping away masks of social reality and getting behind them ultimately turns into a routine skill for the Sociopath: game design. Once you do it a few times, it becomes second nature, a sort of basic power literacy. An understanding of the processes by which the fictions of social reality are constructed, and growing skill at wrangling those processes. ======== The Gervais Principle: The Complete Series, with a Bonus Essay on Office Space (Ribbonfarm Roughs) (Venkatesh Rao)

Your Highlight on Location 1502-1518 | Added on Wednesday, June 24, 2015 11:20:48 PM

When a layer of social reality is penetrated and turned into a means for manipulating the realities of others, it is automatically devalued. To create medals and ranking schemes for the benefit of the Clueless is to see them as mere baubles yourself. To turn status-seeking into a control mechanism is to devalue status. To devalue something is to judge any meaning it carries as inconsequential. In terms of our metaphor of masks of gods, the moment you rip off a mask and wear it yourself, whatever that mask represents becomes worth much less. So the Sociopath’s journey is fundamentally a nihilistic one. The climactic moment in this journey is the point where skill at manipulating social realities becomes unconscious. Suddenly, it becomes apparent that all social realities are based on fictional meanings created by denying some aspect of natural, undivided reality. Reality that does not revolve around the needs of humans. The mask-ripping process itself becomes revealed as an act within the last theater of social reality, the one within which at least manipulating social realities seems to be a meaningful process in some meta-sense. Game design with good and evil behaviors. Losing this illusion is a total-perspective-vortex moment for the Sociopath: he comes face-to-face with the oldest and most fearsome god of all: the absent God. In that moment, the Sociopath viscerally experiences the vast inner emptiness that results from the sudden dissolution of all social realities. There’s just a pile of masks with no face beneath. Just quarks and stuff (it is interesting that we have chosen to label the Higgs boson the “god” particle; our mask-seeking is truly desperate). This is reality shock: the visceral experience of the fact that there is only one reality, with no special place for humans. This is the shock that sends David Wallace across the last threshold into fully-realized Sociopathy, as his entire theater of manipulative game-designer authority crumbles around him. This moment is visceral, not intellectual. It is again possible to get to a merely intellectual appreciation of the “this is all there is” raw physicality of the human condition. That is not the same thing. ======== The Gervais Principle: The Complete Series, with a Bonus Essay on Office Space (Ribbonfarm Roughs) (Venkatesh Rao)

Your Highlight on Location 1530-1531 | Added on Wednesday, June 24, 2015 11:21:55 PM

To weather the shock is to first process the sheer terror of a viscerally absent god, and then suddenly awaken to the deep freedom the condition represents. ======== The Gervais Principle: The Complete Series, with a Bonus Essay on Office Space (Ribbonfarm Roughs) (Venkatesh Rao)

Your Highlight on Location 1532-1535 | Added on Wednesday, June 24, 2015 11:22:48 PM

Once the Sociopath overcomes reality shock and frames his life condition as one defined by an absence of ultimate parental authority, and the fictitious nature of all social realities, he experiences a great sense of unlimited possibilities and power. Daddy and Mommy are not here. Anything is possible, and I can get away with anything. I can make up any sort of bullshit and my younger siblings will buy it. ======== The Gervais Principle: The Complete Series, with a Bonus Essay on Office Space (Ribbonfarm Roughs) (Venkatesh Rao)

Your Highlight on Location 1539-1541 | Added on Wednesday, June 24, 2015 11:23:35 PM

Non-Sociopaths dimly recognize the nature of the free Sociopath world through their own categories: “moral hazard” and “principal-agent problem.” They vaguely sense that the realities being presented to them are bullshit: ======== The Gervais Principle: The Complete Series, with a Bonus Essay on Office Space (Ribbonfarm Roughs) (Venkatesh Rao)

Your Highlight on Location 1544-1545 | Added on Wednesday, June 24, 2015 11:24:33 PM

Sociopath freedom of speech is the freedom to bullshit: they are bullshit artists in the truest sense of the phrase. ======== The Gervais Principle: The Complete Series, with a Bonus Essay on Office Space (Ribbonfarm Roughs) (Venkatesh Rao)

Your Highlight on Location 1545-1561 | Added on Wednesday, June 24, 2015 11:25:52 PM

What non-Sociopaths don’t recognize is that these aren’t just strange and unusual environmental conditions that can be found in small pockets at the tops of pyramids of power, such as Lance Armstrong’s racing team, within a social order that otherwise makes some sort of sense. It is the default condition of the universe. The universe is a morally hazardous place. The small pockets of unusual environmental conditions are in fact the fictional realities non-Sociopaths inhabit. This figure-ground inversion of non-Sociopath world-views gives us the default perspective of the Sociopath. Non-Sociopaths, as Jack Nicholson correctly argued, really cannot handle the truth. The truth of an absent god. The truth of social realities as canvases for fiction for those who choose to create them. The truth of values as crayons in the pockets of unsupervised Sociopaths. The truth of the non-centrality of humans in the larger scheme of things. When these truths are recognized, internalized and turned into default ways of seeing the world, creative-destruction becomes merely the act of living free, not a divinely ordained imperative or a primal urge. Creative destruction is not a script, but the absence of scripts. The freedom of Sociopaths is the same as the freedom of non-human animals. Those who view it as base merely provide yet another opportunity for Sociopaths to create non-base fictions for them to inhabit. Sociopath lives, lived under these conditions of freedom, are incomprehensible to non-Sociopaths. So they imagine hidden social realities governing the lives of Sociopaths, turning them into forces of nature. That is the ultimate imaginative act for non-Sociopaths: filling the inaccessible world of Sociopaths with convenient extrapolated social realities. Fictions that they can use to explain free Sociopath lives to themselves as being caused by some mysterious, hidden social order. So Sociopath hero-god-priests come to inhabit entire universes imagined for them. And from these universes, a peculiar sort of Sociopath sometimes descends. One who seems to play neither hero, nor detached priest. One who strives, but fails, to participate in the emotional realities of non-Sociopaths. One who seeks to protect the innocent and help the disillusioned rediscover faith. ======== The Gervais Principle: The Complete Series, with a Bonus Essay on Office Space (Ribbonfarm Roughs) (Venkatesh Rao)

Your Note on Location 1563 | Added on Wednesday, June 24, 2015 11:27:15 PM

This book starts out as about business, however it is soon awash with absent gods and messiah ======== The Gervais Principle: The Complete Series, with a Bonus Essay on Office Space (Ribbonfarm Roughs) (Venkatesh Rao)

Your Highlight on Location 1562-1563 | Added on Wednesday, June 24, 2015 11:27:15 PM

The Birth of the Messiah ======== The Gervais Principle: The Complete Series, with a Bonus Essay on Office Space (Ribbonfarm Roughs) (Venkatesh Rao)

Your Highlight on Location 1569-1571 | Added on Wednesday, June 24, 2015 11:31:05 PM

But freedom can also be a scary condition. It offers no canned reasons to do one thing instead of another, or even do anything at all. It offers no fixed motivations. There is nobody to blame for failures, no meaningful external validation for success. If physics allows it, you can do it. The consequences mean whatever you decide they mean. ======== The Gervais Principle: The Complete Series, with a Bonus Essay on Office Space (Ribbonfarm Roughs) (Venkatesh Rao)

Your Note on Location 1572 | Added on Wednesday, June 24, 2015 11:31:48 PM

reminded of cypher wanting to be plugged back in ======== The Gervais Principle: The Complete Series, with a Bonus Essay on Office Space (Ribbonfarm Roughs) (Venkatesh Rao)

Your Highlight on Location 1572-1572 | Added on Wednesday, June 24, 2015 11:31:50 PM

burden rather than a source of power. ======== The Gervais Principle: The Complete Series, with a Bonus Essay on Office Space (Ribbonfarm Roughs) (Venkatesh Rao)

Your Note on Location 1573 | Added on Wednesday, June 24, 2015 11:32:30 PM

unbearable lightess of being ring ======== The Gervais Principle: The Complete Series, with a Bonus Essay on Office Space (Ribbonfarm Roughs) (Venkatesh Rao)

Your Highlight on Location 1572-1573 | Added on Wednesday, June 24, 2015 11:32:31 PM

instead of being viewed as a canvas for creative expression, becomes intolerably meaningless. ======== The Gervais Principle: The Complete Series, with a Bonus Essay on Office Space (Ribbonfarm Roughs) (Venkatesh Rao)

Your Highlight on Location 68-69 | Added on Saturday, June 20, 2015 7:18:12 PM

To believe that there are types of knowledge that people cannot be trusted with, for “their own good,” is a sort of illiberal paternalism that is characteristic of insecure dictators. ======== The Gervais Principle: The Complete Series, with a Bonus Essay on Office Space (Ribbonfarm Roughs) (Venkatesh Rao)

Your Highlight on Location 85-86 | Added on Saturday, June 20, 2015 7:20:37 PM

Hugh MacLeod’s well-known cartoon, Company Hierarchy, ======== The Gervais Principle: The Complete Series, with a Bonus Essay on Office Space (Ribbonfarm Roughs) (Venkatesh Rao)

Your Highlight on Location 95-97 | Added on Saturday, June 20, 2015 7:21:24 PM

Hugh MacLeod’s cartoon is a pitch-perfect symbol of an unorthodox school of management based on the axiom that organizations don’t suffer pathologies; they are intrinsically pathological constructs. ======== The Gervais Principle: The Complete Series, with a Bonus Essay on Office Space (Ribbonfarm Roughs) (Venkatesh Rao)

Your Highlight on Location 100-100 | Added on Sunday, June 21, 2015 12:35:45 AM

It may be horrible, but like democracy, it is the best you can do. ======== The Gervais Principle: The Complete Series, with a Bonus Essay on Office Space (Ribbonfarm Roughs) (Venkatesh Rao)

Your Highlight on Location 100-104 | Added on Sunday, June 21, 2015 12:36:15 AM

The Sociopath (capitalized) layer comprises the Darwinian/Protestant Ethic will-to-power types who drive an organization to function despite itself. The Clueless layer is what Whyte called the “Organization Man,” but the archetype inhabiting the middle has evolved a good deal since Whyte wrote his book in the fifties. The Losers are not social losers (as in the opposite of “cool”), but people who have struck bad bargains economically – giving up capitalist striving for steady paychecks. ======== The Gervais Principle: The Complete Series, with a Bonus Essay on Office Space (Ribbonfarm Roughs) (Venkatesh Rao)

Your Highlight on Location 105-108 | Added on Sunday, June 21, 2015 12:37:12 AM

Of all organization men, the true executive is the one who remains most suspicious of The Organization. If there is one thing that characterizes him, it is a fierce desire to control his own destiny and, deep down, he resents yielding that control to The Organization, no matter how velvety its grip…he wants to dominate, not be dominated…Many people from the great reaches of middle management can become true believers in The Organization…But the most able are not vouchsafed this solace. ======== The Gervais Principle: The Complete Series, with a Bonus Essay on Office Space (Ribbonfarm Roughs) (Venkatesh Rao)

Your Highlight on Location 108-113 | Added on Sunday, June 21, 2015 6:54:53 AM

Back then, Whyte was extremely pessimistic. He saw signs that in the struggle for dominance between the Sociopaths (whom he admired as the ones actually making the organization effective despite itself) and the middle-management Organization Man, the latter was winning. He was wrong, but not in the way you’d think. The Sociopaths defeated the Organization Men and turned them into The Clueless not by reforming the organization, but by creating a meta-culture of Darwinism in the economy: one based on job-hopping, mergers, acquisitions, layoffs, cataclysmic reorganizations, outsourcing, unforgiving start-up ecosystems, and brutal corporate raiding. In this terrifying meta-world of the Titans, the Organization Man became the Clueless Man. ======== The Gervais Principle: The Complete Series, with a Bonus Essay on Office Space (Ribbonfarm Roughs) (Venkatesh Rao)

Your Highlight on Location 113-120 | Added on Sunday, June 21, 2015 7:40:26 AM

Today, any time an organization grows too brittle, bureaucratic and disconnected from reality, it is simply killed, torn apart and cannibalized, rather than reformed. The result is the modern creative-destructive life cycle of the firm, which I’ll call the MacLeod Life Cycle. A Sociopath with an idea recruits just enough Losers to kick off the cycle. As it grows, it requires a Clueless layer to turn it into a controlled reaction, rather than a runaway explosion. Eventually, as value hits diminishing returns, both the Sociopaths and Losers make their exits, and the Clueless start to dominate. Finally, the hollow brittle shell collapses on itself, and anything of value is recycled by the Sociopaths, according to meta-firm logic. ======== The Gervais Principle: The Complete Series, with a Bonus Essay on Office Space (Ribbonfarm Roughs) (Venkatesh Rao)

Your Highlight on Location 120-126 | Added on Sunday, June 21, 2015 7:41:07 AM

MacLeod’s Loser layer had me puzzled for a long time, because I was interpreting it in cultural terms: the kind of person you call a “loser.” While some may be losers in that sense too, they are primarily losers in the economic sense: those who have, for various reasons, made (or been forced to make) a bad economic bargain. They’ve given up some potential for long-term economic liberty (as capitalists) for short-term economic stability. Traded freedom for a paycheck, in short. They actually produce, but are not compensated in proportion to the value they create (since their compensation is set by Sociopaths operating under conditions of serious moral hazard). They mortgage their lives away, and hope to die before their money runs out. The good news is that Losers have two ways out, which we’ll get to later: turning Sociopath or turning into bare-minimum performers. The Losers destined for Cluelessness do not have a choice. ======== The Gervais Principle: The Complete Series, with a Bonus Essay on Office Space (Ribbonfarm Roughs) (Venkatesh Rao)

Your Highlight on Location 127-130 | Added on Sunday, June 21, 2015 8:03:38 AM

we can also separate the three layers based on the timing of their entry and exit into organizations. The Sociopaths enter and exit organizations at will, at any stage, and do whatever it takes to come out on top. They contribute creativity in early stages of a organization’s life, neurotic leadership in the middle stages, and cold-bloodedness in the later stages, where they drive decisions like mergers, acquisitions and layoffs that others are too scared or too compassionate to drive. ======== The Gervais Principle: The Complete Series, with a Bonus Essay on Office Space (Ribbonfarm Roughs) (Venkatesh Rao)

Your Highlight on Location 132-135 | Added on Sunday, June 21, 2015 8:04:02 AM

The Losers like to feel good about their lives. They are the happiness seekers, rather than will-to-power players, and enter and exit reactively, in response to the meta-Darwinian trends in the economy. But they have no more loyalty to the firm than the Sociopaths. They do have a loyalty to individual people, and a commitment to finding fulfillment through work when they can, and coasting when they cannot. ======== The Gervais Principle: The Complete Series, with a Bonus Essay on Office Space (Ribbonfarm Roughs) (Venkatesh Rao)

Your Highlight on Location 135-137 | Added on Sunday, June 21, 2015 8:04:35 AM

The Clueless are the ones who lack the competence to circulate freely through the economy (unlike Sociopaths and Losers), and build up a perverse sense of loyalty to the firm, even when events make it abundantly clear that the firm is not loyal to them. ======== The Gervais Principle: The Complete Series, with a Bonus Essay on Office Space (Ribbonfarm Roughs) (Venkatesh Rao)

Your Highlight on Location 141-142 | Added on Sunday, June 21, 2015 8:04:52 AM

Which brings us to our main idea – how both the pyramid and its lifecycle are animated. The dynamics are governed by the Newton’s Law of organizations: The Gervais Principle. ======== The Gervais Principle: The Complete Series, with a Bonus Essay on Office Space (Ribbonfarm Roughs) (Venkatesh Rao)

Your Highlight on Location 143-145 | Added on Sunday, June 21, 2015 6:19:50 PM

The Gervais Principle is this: Sociopaths, in their own best interests, knowingly promote over-performing Losers into middle-management, groom under-performing Losers into Sociopaths, and leave the average bare-minimum-effort Losers to fend for themselves. ======== The Gervais Principle: The Complete Series, with a Bonus Essay on Office Space (Ribbonfarm Roughs) (Venkatesh Rao)

Your Highlight on Location 166-169 | Added on Monday, June 22, 2015 12:56:11 AM

So why is promoting over-performing Losers logical? The simple reason is that if you over-perform at the Loser level, it is clear that you are an idiot. You’ve already made a bad bargain, and now you’re delivering more value than you need to, making your bargain even worse. Unless you very quickly demonstrate that you know your own value by successfully negotiating more money and/or power, you are marked out as an exploitable clueless Loser. ======== The Gervais Principle: The Complete Series, with a Bonus Essay on Office Space (Ribbonfarm Roughs) (Venkatesh Rao)

Your Highlight on Location 172-175 | Added on Monday, June 22, 2015 12:56:23 AM

A Loser who can be suckered into bad bargains is set to become one of the Clueless. That’s why they are promoted: they are worth even more as Clueless pawns in the middle than as direct producers at the bottom, where the average, rationally-disengaged Loser will do. At the bottom, the overperformers can merely add a predictable amount of value. In the middle they can be used by the Sociopaths to escape the consequences of high-risk machinations like re-orgs. ======== The Gervais Principle: The Complete Series, with a Bonus Essay on Office Space (Ribbonfarm Roughs) (Venkatesh Rao)

Your Highlight on Location 177-178 | Added on Monday, June 22, 2015 12:56:47 AM

pragmatist with the drive, ambition, daring and lack of principle to make it to the top. ======== The Gervais Principle: The Complete Series, with a Bonus Essay on Office Space (Ribbonfarm Roughs) (Venkatesh Rao)

Your Highlight on Location 178-184 | Added on Monday, June 22, 2015 12:57:43 AM

So rather than waste time trying to get good at sales, he slips into a wait-watch-grab opportunist mode. But he isn’t checked out; he is engaged, but in an experimental way, probing for his opening. The difference between him and the average checked-out Loser is illustrated in one brilliant scene early in his career. He suggests, during a group stacking effort in the warehouse, that they form a bucket brigade to work more efficiently. The minimum-effort Loser Stanley tells him coldly, “this here is a run-out-the-clock situation.” The line could apply to Stanley’s entire life. Stanley’s response shows both his intelligence and clear-eyed self-awareness of his Loser bargain with the company. He therefore acts according to a mix of self-preservation and minimum-effort coasting instincts. ======== The Gervais Principle: The Complete Series, with a Bonus Essay on Office Space (Ribbonfarm Roughs) (Venkatesh Rao)

Your Highlight on Location 185-190 | Added on Monday, June 22, 2015 12:58:12 AM

The future Sociopath must be an under-performer at the bottom. Like the average Loser, he recognizes that the bargain is a really bad one. Unlike the risk-averse loser though, he does not try to make the best of a bad situation by doing enough to get by. He has no intention of just getting by. He very quickly figures out – through experiments and fast failures – that the Loser game is not worth becoming good at. He then severely under-performs in order to free up energy to concentrate on maneuvering towards an upward exit. He knows his under-performance is not sustainable, but he has no intention of becoming a lifetime-Loser employee anyway. He takes the calculated risk that he’ll find a way up before he is fired for incompetence. ======== The Gervais Principle: The Complete Series, with a Bonus Essay on Office Space (Ribbonfarm Roughs) (Venkatesh Rao)

Your Highlight on Location 199-203 | Added on Monday, June 22, 2015 9:32:46 AM

The career of the Loser is the easiest to understand. Having made a bad bargain, and not marked for either Clueless or Sociopath trajectories, he or she must make the best of a bad situation. The most rational thing to do is slack off and do the minimum necessary. Doing more would be a Clueless thing to do. Doing less would take the high-energy machinations of the Sociopath, since it sets up self-imposed up-or-out time pressure. So the Loser – really not a loser at all if you think about it – pays his dues, does not ask for much, and finds meaning in his life elsewhere. ======== The Gervais Principle: The Complete Series, with a Bonus Essay on Office Space (Ribbonfarm Roughs) (Venkatesh Rao)

Your Highlight on Location 225-228 | Added on Monday, June 22, 2015 9:35:56 AM

Images of Organization, Gareth Morgan’s magisterial study of the metaphors through which we understand organizations. Of the eight systemic metaphors in the book, the one that is most relevant here is the metaphor of an organization as a psychic prison. The image is derived from Plato’s allegory of the cave, which I won’t get into here. Suffice it to say that it divides people into those who get how the world really works (the Sociopaths and the self-aware slacker Losers) and those who don’t (the over-performer Losers and the Clueless in the middle). ======== The Gervais Principle: The Complete Series, with a Bonus Essay on Office Space (Ribbonfarm Roughs) (Venkatesh Rao)

Your Highlight on Location 275-277 | Added on Tuesday, June 23, 2015 9:22:17 PM

Your Highlight on Location 278-282 | Added on Tuesday, June 23, 2015 9:22:30 PM

Your Highlight on Location 289-289 | Added on Tuesday, June 23, 2015 9:27:15 PM

Fluent Powertalk ======== The Gervais Principle: The Complete Series, with a Bonus Essay on Office Space (Ribbonfarm Roughs) (Venkatesh Rao)

Your Highlight on Location 308-308 | Added on Tuesday, June 23, 2015 9:27:24 PM

A Powertalk Trainwreck ======== The Gervais Principle: The Complete Series, with a Bonus Essay on Office Space (Ribbonfarm Roughs) (Venkatesh Rao)

Your Highlight on Location 326-327 | Added on Tuesday, June 23, 2015 9:29:08 PM

Your Highlight on Location 328-328 | Added on Tuesday, June 23, 2015 9:29:14 PM

Powertalk in other words, is a consequential language. ======== The Gervais Principle: The Complete Series, with a Bonus Essay on Office Space (Ribbonfarm Roughs) (Venkatesh Rao)

Your Highlight on Location 330-332 | Added on Tuesday, June 23, 2015 9:29:43 PM

Your Highlight on Location 337-338 | Added on Tuesday, June 23, 2015 9:30:17 PM

you don’t get what you deserve; you get what you negotiate. ======== The Gervais Principle: The Complete Series, with a Bonus Essay on Office Space (Ribbonfarm Roughs) (Venkatesh Rao)

Your Highlight on Location 333-336 | Added on Tuesday, June 23, 2015 9:30:28 PM

Your Highlight on Location 348-350 | Added on Tuesday, June 23, 2015 9:32:05 PM

Your Highlight on Location 355-357 | Added on Tuesday, June 23, 2015 9:32:54 PM

Your Highlight on Location 374-374 | Added on Wednesday, June 24, 2015 12:11:35 AM

nadir ======== The Gervais Principle: The Complete Series, with a Bonus Essay on Office Space (Ribbonfarm Roughs) (Venkatesh Rao)

Your Highlight on Location 369-369 | Added on Wednesday, June 24, 2015 12:11:40 AM

Toy Guns is the vocabulary of empty machismo. ======== The Gervais Principle: The Complete Series, with a Bonus Essay on Office Space (Ribbonfarm Roughs) (Venkatesh Rao)

Your Note on Location 403 | Added on Wednesday, June 24, 2015 1:10:18 AM

tacit, applied cognitive task analyss ======== The Gervais Principle: The Complete Series, with a Bonus Essay on Office Space (Ribbonfarm Roughs) (Venkatesh Rao)

Your Highlight on Location 403-403 | Added on Wednesday, June 24, 2015 1:10:18 AM

any way to learn it at all? ======== The Gervais Principle: The Complete Series, with a Bonus Essay on Office Space (Ribbonfarm Roughs) (Venkatesh Rao)

Your Highlight on Location 442-443 | Added on Wednesday, June 24, 2015 1:22:45 AM

Your Highlight on Location 466-471 | Added on Wednesday, June 24, 2015 1:26:09 AM

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Your Highlight on Location 481-485 | Added on Wednesday, June 24, 2015 1:30:29 AM

Your Highlight on Location 491-495 | Added on Wednesday, June 24, 2015 1:30:55 AM

Your Note on Location 508 | Added on Wednesday, June 24, 2015 1:32:11 AM

No. YOU need to write more clearly. ======== The Gervais Principle: The Complete Series, with a Bonus Essay on Office Space (Ribbonfarm Roughs) (Venkatesh Rao)

Your Highlight on Location 508-508 | Added on Wednesday, June 24, 2015 1:32:11 AM

I did warn you we were embarking on a slog. ======== The Gervais Principle: The Complete Series, with a Bonus Essay on Office Space (Ribbonfarm Roughs) (Venkatesh Rao)

Your Highlight on Location 519-525 | Added on Wednesday, June 24, 2015 1:33:32 AM

Your Highlight on Location 528-530 | Added on Wednesday, June 24, 2015 1:34:03 AM

Your Highlight on Location 542-561 | Added on Wednesday, June 24, 2015 1:37:03 AM

Your Highlight on Location 572-584 | Added on Wednesday, June 24, 2015 1:42:23 AM

Your Highlight on Location 671-679 | Added on Wednesday, June 24, 2015 1:49:52 AM

Your Highlight on Location 685-692 | Added on Wednesday, June 24, 2015 1:50:57 AM

Your Highlight on Location 742-744 | Added on Wednesday, June 24, 2015 4:35:24 PM

Your Highlight on Location 745-749 | Added on Wednesday, June 24, 2015 4:36:03 PM

Your Highlight on Location 753-755 | Added on Wednesday, June 24, 2015 4:36:55 PM

Your Highlight on Location 853-855 | Added on Wednesday, June 24, 2015 4:45:22 PM

Your Note on Location 911 | Added on Wednesday, June 24, 2015 10:32:40 PM

Not in my experience. Who you are, what you represent, matters ======== The Gervais Principle: The Complete Series, with a Bonus Essay on Office Space (Ribbonfarm Roughs) (Venkatesh Rao)

Your Highlight on Location 911-911 | Added on Wednesday, June 24, 2015 10:32:41 PM

Not who you are. ======== The Gervais Principle: The Complete Series, with a Bonus Essay on Office Space (Ribbonfarm Roughs) (Venkatesh Rao)

Your Highlight on Location 1082-1087 | Added on Wednesday, June 24, 2015 10:49:34 PM

Your Highlight on Location 1093-1097 | Added on Wednesday, June 24, 2015 10:52:59 PM

Your Highlight on Location 1161-1162 | Added on Wednesday, June 24, 2015 10:56:39 PM

Your Highlight on Location 1180-1185 | Added on Wednesday, June 24, 2015 11:01:55 PM

Your Highlight on Location 1197-1207 | Added on Wednesday, June 24, 2015 11:03:48 PM

Your Note on Location 1197 | Added on Wednesday, June 24, 2015 11:04:10 PM

purpose of a system is what it does ======== The Gervais Principle: The Complete Series, with a Bonus Essay on Office Space (Ribbonfarm Roughs) (Venkatesh Rao)

Your Highlight on Location 1488-1500 | Added on Wednesday, June 24, 2015 11:19:11 PM

Your Highlight on Location 1502-1518 | Added on Wednesday, June 24, 2015 11:20:48 PM

Your Highlight on Location 1530-1531 | Added on Wednesday, June 24, 2015 11:21:55 PM

Your Highlight on Location 1532-1535 | Added on Wednesday, June 24, 2015 11:22:48 PM

Your Highlight on Location 1539-1541 | Added on Wednesday, June 24, 2015 11:23:35 PM

Your Highlight on Location 1544-1545 | Added on Wednesday, June 24, 2015 11:24:33 PM

Your Highlight on Location 1545-1561 | Added on Wednesday, June 24, 2015 11:25:52 PM

Your Note on Location 1563 | Added on Wednesday, June 24, 2015 11:27:15 PM

Your Highlight on Location 1562-1563 | Added on Wednesday, June 24, 2015 11:27:15 PM

The Birth of the Messiah ======== The Gervais Principle: The Complete Series, with a Bonus Essay on Office Space (Ribbonfarm Roughs) (Venkatesh Rao)

Your Highlight on Location 1569-1571 | Added on Wednesday, June 24, 2015 11:31:05 PM

Your Note on Location 1572 | Added on Wednesday, June 24, 2015 11:31:48 PM

reminded of cypher wanting to be plugged back in ======== The Gervais Principle: The Complete Series, with a Bonus Essay on Office Space (Ribbonfarm Roughs) (Venkatesh Rao)

Your Highlight on Location 1572-1572 | Added on Wednesday, June 24, 2015 11:31:50 PM

burden rather than a source of power. ======== The Gervais Principle: The Complete Series, with a Bonus Essay on Office Space (Ribbonfarm Roughs) (Venkatesh Rao)

Your Note on Location 1573 | Added on Wednesday, June 24, 2015 11:32:30 PM

unbearable lightess of being ring ======== The Gervais Principle: The Complete Series, with a Bonus Essay on Office Space (Ribbonfarm Roughs) (Venkatesh Rao)

Your Highlight on Location 1572-1573 | Added on Wednesday, June 24, 2015 11:32:31 PM

instead of being viewed as a canvas for creative expression, becomes intolerably meaningless. ========

Bibliography

Rao, Venkatesh. 2009a. “The Gervais Principle, Or The Office According to ``The Office’’.” Ribbonfarm. https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-or-the-office-according-to-the-office/.

———. 2009b. “The Gervais Principle II: Posturetalk, Powertalk, Babytalk and Gametalk.” Ribbonfarm. https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/11/11/the-gervais-principle-ii-posturetalk-powertalk-babytalk-and-gametalk/.

———. 2010a. “The Gervais Principle III: The Curse of Development.” Ribbonfarm. https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2010/04/14/the-gervais-principle-iii-the-curse-of-development/.

———. 2010b. “The Gervais Principle IV: Wonderful Human Beings.” Ribbonfarm. https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2010/10/14/the-gervais-principle-iv-wonderful-human-beings/.

———. 2011. “The Gervais Principle V: Heads I Win, Tails You Lose.” Ribbonfarm. https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2011/10/14/the-gervais-principle-v-heads-i-win-tails-you-lose/.

———. 2013. “The Gervais Principle VI: Children of an Absent God.” Ribbonfarm. https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2013/05/16/the-gervais-principle-vi-children-of-an-absent-god/.

———. n.d. The Gervais Principle: The Complete Series, with a Bonus Essay on Office Space.

Backlinks

MacLeod’s model of hierarchy

Summary¶

Thoughts¶

Notes¶

The Office According to The Office¶

Posturetalk, Powertalk, Babytalk and Gametalk¶

The Curse of Development¶

Wonderful Human Beings¶

Heads I Win, Tails You Lose¶

Children of an Absent God¶

Bibliography¶

Backlinks¶

Summary

Thoughts

Notes

The Office According to The Office

Posturetalk, Powertalk, Babytalk and Gametalk

The Curse of Development

Wonderful Human Beings

Heads I Win, Tails You Lose

Children of an Absent God

Bibliography

Backlinks