| I understand the negative perception around the importance of playing "office politics", but realistically when people are working as a team it's important people can be cooperative, and office politics is mostly just the exercise of being a cooperative member of the team. 99% of the time people are not getting promoted or retained simply because they're more friendly with people at the top, but because they're broadly respected, cooperative, and have some adequate level of competency. The anti-social 10x developer who sits in the corner of the office grunting at people with his headphones on might spit out a lot of code, but does so while causing friction and problems within the wider team. They might think highly of themselves, but they fail to see how a company full of these people cannot operate efficiently. Doing "real work" + making effort to be liked and cooperative with those around you is the right strategy. Over indexing on just being like or just doing real work isn't going to get you very far. You said, "they don't like me" and if that's true I do think you should try harder to be liked. You can still raise objections to things and have your own input, but learning how to do that in a way that doesn't irritate people or derail the team is an important skill to have. I empathise though because I struggle with this myself – I'm autistic so I find it hard to be likeable and communicate with nuance. I have lost jobs and promotions because of my inability to play well in teams in the past. Even today it's hard, but it's better now I at least try my best. |
I funded my studies working as intern at the university, it was sometimes rough, but very competitive work environment. There were some intrigues regarding lab funding and permanent positions, but it was fine after all. What I found later working for smaller and bigger companies is too bizarre. The amount of people who are ready to slit colleague’s throats for 200€ pre-tax monthly salary increase is shocking high.
Working in a team is nice unless the team is not functional. One can bake much bigger cake in a team. But… it appears there are too many people who will take team’s result and present as their own. Or just ignore their work packages. Or managers not resistant to a* licking.
I have good relationship with colleagues on my level and with my direct manager. Production guys come to me with technical problems, because they’re afraid of other hardware developer. The thing is that it’s ok to be not liked by everybody. I don’t like uneducated general manager assigned to this company by the new owner. I don’t like the bozo explosion happening here. The production guys don’t like other hardware developer. My manager does not like interim HR manager. But it’s fine as long as it does not lead to psycho relationships and toxic behavior.