site banner
PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   2599 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for June 30, 2024

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

1
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

There is a "game" and you'll learn how to play it. Take these with a grain of salt:

  • Whatever your job is, your job is to make your manager happy
  • Figure out how your manager (and others who have power over you and your career) are rating you, and optimize for that.
  • On the above, it may not matter how your coworkers rate you, so you may not need to optimize for their opinions.
  • It is easier for others to judge superficial details than deep ones, so that's what they'll do.
  • You are always "busy". You help others by "squeezing in" the work between X and Y.
  • The helpful guy who always accepts extra work will inevitability end up with lots of extra work. This is okay if this work counts towards something (e.g. promotion), but otherwise can be harmful if it prevents you from doing higher impact work, so act accordingly.
  • Do visible, high impact work. If you do something, and nobody knows about it, did you really do anything?
  • Go to the social events, build relationships. Relationships outside your local team can be particularly valuable.

Maybe these are obvious, but I have seen people who don't get it. To be clear, I am not saying don't work hard, but work hard on things that matter, and there is a skill in figuring what what matters.

I think that this is heavily dependent on what field you work in. I have worked in corporate IT for almost 20 years now, and in a healthy environment it's nothing like what you describe. It may be different for other fields of course.

I've worked in IT/dev for about 10 years, and I've found these things to all be true both in functional and dysfunctional workplaces, although they are more important in the latter. If you have a fantastic, altruistic manager, you might be able to ignore some of these, but even then it's probably unwise.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats