Being new to office life, I’d like to know some of the lessons you’ve learned about office politics and working in an office environment, especially among professionals. Perhaps even professionals with personalities that don’t fit well together.
Take a 10 minute break, then re-read that spontaneous email you were about to send.
Manage your boss. Don’t think about what you want, think about how what you affects what your boss wants, and how he looks to his boss. Set priorities accordingly.
Your brilliant new idea of how you can totally reorganize your department and the work it does has likely been tried before, or will be a total failure because of reasons you don’t understand yet. Before you tell everyone why it will be better to do it your way, figure out why they do it their way. If you think the reason is that they are all incompetent boobs, you shouldn’t have taken the job. You can learn a lot just by listening.
Under promise and over deliver. Everything will take longer than you think.
Ask questions about stuff you don’t understand. This will be a lot harder to do a year from now. It also makes people realize you exist in meetings. Don’t be afraid to talk in meetings, and offer ideas (but not criticisms.) If you are quiet people assume you have no ideas.
Get a mentor, someone who you can ask questions of, privately, and will tell you if your idea makes sense or not.
I know we all read Dilbert, but start by assuming that management knows what is going on, until proven otherwise. There are indeed idiot managers, but 90% of the ones I know are at least good, and some are great. Treat them like they are idiots and they soon will become bad managers - at least for you.
And if you’re replying to something that has angered you, compose it, save it in drafts, go home and sleep on it, then the next day rewrite/reconsider what you wrote. If anyone higher than you in being copied on your reply, sleep on it for a weekend. More than half the time you’ll realize it’s not worth it.
Don’t dip your pen in company ink.
Beware the rumor mill. But today’s victim will be tomorrow’s nobody.
Get to know people. People will keep around a useless idiot if they like them. And they’ll have no trouble ditching a model employee if they don’t.
Keep quiet for your first few weeks. Don’t jump on board the first clique that befriends you; bide your time and watch the rhythms before you join same. At the same time, don’t tow the company line such that you engender a toadie target.
Learn who does what, know who gets results from outside your own department. Often the fastest way to get something done is not to go through “proper channels” but first ask the person that does the actual work.
Never say bad things about others - you never know where the relationships lay.
+1000. Never, ever, discount an admin b/c of their status as an admin.
- Focus on Project Management as a craft skill that you must learn and live by. Knowing how to scope an issue, break it down into manageable steps, calendar and resource plan for it - and then execute - applies to anything you will ever accomplish in a job. And life. Find classes on it within your company’s training - or look for it outside (there are online courses) and see if the company will pay for it.
Yes. Two of the most powerful postions in the company are the lady at the front desk and the executive admin (or the admin closest to you). They know everybody and everybody knows them.
When the boss wants to get something accomplished internally, who does he ask? His admin. They know how to get things done.
Do NOT ever backstab the admin. In the perfect world, her/his face should light up when you walk in the room.
Neither take sides, nor respond to, an oft referred “Waterloo Event” for which you weren’t present. Listen, laugh appropriately where applicable, but keep your motherfucking mouth shut.
This. And not just because of things getting back to people: people laugh at clever, bitchy comments, but they don’t really like people who make them: they wonder what clever, bitchy comments are being made about them when they are not around.
This. Admins are also a wealth of information.
Don’t bitch to your staff. Don’t bitch in front of your staff (I learned that from Saving Private Ryan).
99% of success in the workplace is relationships. You may build great work, but if you are not building relationships you won’t be successful.
The boss may not always be right, but he’s always the boss.
Yes-men and asskissers get all kinds of benefits and promotions over people who show up on time, do their job and work hard. I hate office politics so I stay away from all that.
Always assume someone is logging your internet usage. Always.
Easiest way to not get fired is to show up on time every day, don’t show up drunk or high, and be on at least friendly speaking terms with everyone you interact with during the day.
I have an even better solution. Use a friend. I have a couple of friends who work in different companies that I can count on to assist with this. If I’m too angry to think clearly I send them the details and the response I want to send. They strip out the emotion and I get to send a timely balanced response. I do the same for them. It’s rarely used but valuable when needed.
Be generous and public with your praise and deal with complaints quietly and privately. If that doesn’t work escalate your complaints but also quietly and privately. The likelyhood of a firing is low so you have to continue to work with this person after you find out how to make them work.
Give credit where it is due. People working for or with you on a task should get credit for the work they contribute to your success. Of course giving this credit will motivate them to work harder for you. A true win/win.
If it takes you more then 30 seconds to type an email, seriously consider whether you’d be better off phoning the person and speaking to them.
The ability to get on with all types of people, including types you don’t like, will take you a long way in business.
+10000. I had a boss, a director at Bell Labs, who always said hello to the admin when he visited a new location. He told me that this got his calls put through. When he took over our Denver factory and I visited him, I did the same for his admin - and thanks to that I wound up in a hotel room when a blizzard shut down Stapledon, not sleeping in the terminal.
Don’t be late to work until you’re well-enough known to be something other than The Guy Who’s Always Late.
Except that if a boss or a project is clearly a mess, don’t pretend everything is great. They’ll think you an idiot. But that doesn’t mean just bitching about it is good, better to admit a problem and look for ways around it.