A Critical Look at Salaried Professionals and the Soul-Battering System (2001)

http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/sanjoy/schmidt/archive/social-anarchism.htm

by poppingtonic • 12 years ago

88 24 12 years ago

inference.phy.cam.ac.uk

greenyoda• 12 years ago

Having read Disciplined Minds a while ago, I thought the link at the bottom of page, which leads to the story of Schmidt's legal case against his employer, was more interesting than the review itself:

http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/sanjoy/schmidt/

See also Schmidt's own site, http://disciplinedminds.com.

waterlesscloud2• 12 years ago

The chronology is fascinating and horrifying.

"Physics Today Editor Stephen G. Benka breaks up two conversations between Schmidt and coworker Toni Feder after working hours. Benka bans private conversations in the workplace, saying that all conversations between staff members must be open to monitoring by management. When Schmidt asks Benka why, Benka refers to the organizing activity that took place the previous year and says he doesn't want that to happen again."

Geez, when you're at the point of banning private conversations among your employees, you should really be thinking there's something seriously wrong with what you're doing.

pjc50• 12 years ago

http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/sanjoy/schmidt/responses/...

"While employed at Physics Today, Jeff led a contentious effort to force the magazine to change its long-standing pattern of hiring and training only whites as editors, and to live up to its claim of being an affirmative-action employer. These actions were part of the expression for which Jeff was fired"

Maintaining a physics magazine as a whites-only environment is the kind of thing that requires that level of employee repression. It's all about ethics in physics journalism.

MarkL4• 12 years ago

The book itself is excellent, one of my favorite books. It reads like Foucault if Foucault were a physicist.

shoo• 12 years ago

Having read Disciplined Minds, I'll take that as a strong recommendation to read Foucault!

coverup• 12 years ago

You might start with Discipline and Punish, a history of the western (in particular, the French) penal system, drawing many parallels to educational, military, and medical institutions as they are all facets of an overarching technology of power that has emerged over the past couple of centuries.

Be warned: it will illuminate White Collar Hell like nothing else.

michaelochurch2• 12 years ago

Ah, this. To be fair, I don't think the system is "soul battering" for most people. A large number of people-- more than one would like-- are perfectly happy to trade their autonomy and freedom for a bit of (temporary) security in social status and income. That might be one of the more surprising (and disturbing) realizations about white-collar hell: most people don't perceive it as a hell. They're fine, they're happy, and while they're being drained of the traits that made them interesting people when they were younger, it happens so slowly (boiled frog) that they neither notice nor care.

What I think is a key insight in his work is on the politics of "not getting political". Please correct me if I'm butchering the concept, but part of the process of turning salaried professionals into obedient drones is to convince them that it's undignified to "get political" at the workplace. The problem is that the people in charge can easily define their position as the default, apolitical one and any opposition as "getting involved in politics".

To me, whenever a hiring manager says that there's "no politics" at his company, that's a strong sign of a toxic environment. I'd rather work for someone who's politically aware and can help me navigate what politics exists (there's always a political environment) than one who is delusional enough to think that an organization of 10 or 50 or 200 or 20,000 people can have "no politics". Too often, "there's no politics here" means "I'm in the in-crowd and get my way, so 'political' decisions-- meaning ones that I don't like-- are rarely made".

This is how I feel about Silicon Valley "meritocracy". The only people who believe in it are those who've been in the in-crowd for 20+ years and lost touch with reality. They think that they live in a politics-free zone because they're oblivious to their own privilege.

ryguytilidie• 12 years ago

Your last line reminds me a lot of when PG said that most founders are really nice people who are rarely "mean".

Why in the fuck would a founder even consider being mean to one of the most powerful people in the industry? It just seemed to lack the self awareness that founders probably treat him differently than the average person they interact with.

michaelochurch2• 12 years ago

I'm working on a blog post about this. The people who tend to succeed in the corporate world are (a) not needlessly mean, (b) rarely mean to those in power, but (c) generally avoidant of close personal relationships.

A major element of whether one is selected for invitation into closed, snooty clubs (or promoted into management) is whether there's a suspicion that you'll invite too many (presumably not deserving) friends. People who are "sticky" don't get promoted. People who might tip off their reports about an impending layoff aren't made managers.

You have to be cold, for organizational ascent, but not a dick.

In environments of heterogeneity, warmth is actually an advantage because people who are personable and giving tend to have a wider array of connections, and that means more information, better ideas, and an easier time staying up to date. The old Silicon Valley actually was that way, but for the past 20 years, it's been functioning as one (however postmodern) corporate organization.

I've come to the conclusion that the only way to save Silicon Valley is to pass a law that makes investors liable for certain kinds of founder misconduct, including sexual harassment. For example, a frat boy like Spiegel would actually probably not get promoted in a larger corporation, if his true colors came out, because he's an HR liability. But investors can fund people like him and wash their hands of the cultural issues created by funding frat boys. That's a real problem, and it ought to be fixed. Since founders are middle managers in the VC-funded meta-company that now exists in the Valley, it's only reasonable to acknowledge them as such, and pass liabilities up the chain into the executive ranks (investors).

argonaut2• 12 years ago

No, he's totally aware of the fact that people treat you differently to your face. You're totally not evaluating his argument in good faith (e.g. jumping to the least charitable interpretation).

Here is his response to that: https://twitter.com/paulg/status/538816535930748928/

oldmanjay• 12 years ago

Interesting. Do you have anything other than "feelings" backing this up? It's liberal-leaning and so of course likely to get support from those who see their own personal biases as some sort of reality, but I noticed you gave us nothing but unsupported assertions. I'm not really swayed by that.

Tasboo• 12 years ago

I don't think they were claiming to have sources backing up the claims. I think it was pretty clear that they were providing anecdotal information and personal feelings. You don't have to be swayed by it. If you have other information that you feel provides a different view on the subject you are more than welcome to share it.

kabdib• 12 years ago

I've worked in big companies, small companies, start-ups, and in places with no managers at all.

Basically, any time you have a couple of monkeys and a banana in the same room, you're going to get politics. That's the way humans appear to be wired.

On the other hand, there are degrees of meritocracy, from the soul-crushing bullshit you get as a leaf-node in a high-tech behemouth (that is to say, none), to the hardscrabble and pragmatic existence you might find in a start-up (you can do the job . . . and you're the janitor? "You're fucking hired, here, have a Aeron and a keyboard and a soda, and don't stop typing").

javajosh3• 12 years ago

This is another good data-point for my lay-thesis that the dominant tension of our time is between principle and loyalty. Snowden is the ultimate embodiment of this tension. Most other recent news can be seen through this lens as well, particularly the problems with the US criminal justice system, or the controversy over the release of the recent torture report.

The "loyalists" are ascendant (they usually are), and have terrible, strong defenses; the "principled" are a fairly rag-tag bunch, have inherently smaller organizations, although they do manage to organize themselves to some extent (the EFF and the ACLU being good examples). Indeed, the biggest weapon the principled have is to force the loyalists to actually (ab)use their overwhelming power to the extent that they offend the public (who are only loyalists within their own narrow context) and so swell the ranks of the principled against them.

This paper is about the travails of being principled in a loyalist organization. It is an incredibly uncomfortable position to be in, and comes at great cost. To those looking to minimize their personal stress, adopting the loyalist viewpoint and the requisite willful ignorance of the moral hazards and externalities it entails is the better, more rational option. Most people in that position are principled at great personal cost.

This way of seeing allows us to make better sense an array of current events. And indeed, we can come to realize that everyone has both loyal and principled aspects. To that end everyone should know precisely how far their loyalty goes. What actions could your organization take that so violated your principles that you would take action against it? For example, if you are in the Army or the CIA, would you torture someone if ordered? If you're a police officer, would you stay silent if you saw your department bury acts of police violence that you knew to be illegal? If you're a financial analyst or regulator, would you change your analysis to suit your management? If you're in the NSA, would you give evidence against Americans suspected of drug trafficking to the DEA, knowing they will use "parallel construction" to hide the source?

To hardcore loyalists, the answers to these questions are unequivocal "yes". The reason is a mixture of indoctrination, rationalization, selfishness and simple cowardice. But it's not "us" vs "them": almost everyone is a hard-core loyalist within their particular organization, although this is particularly true where there are no competing employers. It is almost impossible for most people to risk their decades-long career over a matter of principle, no matter how bad it gets. It's not right, but it's human.

What can save the day is that loyalty is limited to personal context; this is good because it allows loyalists in one org to be principled about other organizations' behaviors. In other words, there are CIA employees who are disgusted by wall street's systematic, unchecked fraud, just as there are wall street employees who descry CIA torture and cover-up, and that's good.

Culturally need to revere the people throughout history who've taken the hard path, the one's who've said "no" to unprincipled action, which always comes at great personal cost. If there was ever a "noble warrior" culture, let it honor the ones who served Principle not because it was easy, but because it was right.

Sorry for the long post.

mkal_tsr• 12 years ago

Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

(If you do flush out your thesis, I'd love to read it)

javajosh3• 12 years ago

I have a few essays that analyze certain current events along this axis of tension; not sure if anyone really wants to hear about it in such detail, though. If so, I'd be happy to publish. (I have one on the evils of "Safety First" for law enforcement, an unchallenged assumption that clearly favors loyalty over principle.)

analog312• 12 years ago

>>>> What can save the day is that loyalty is limited to personal context; this is good because it allows loyalists in one org to be principled about other organizations' behaviors. In other words, there are CIA employees who are disgusted by wall street's systematic, unchecked fraud, just as there are wall street employees who descry CIA torture and cover-up, and that's good.

Perhaps, given that loyalty and principle seem to be situational, it would make more sense to describe them as behaviors rather than as traits.

javajosh3• 12 years ago

But it isn't situational. The key quality in that example "cross judgement" is not the injustice-of-the-moment, but rather that the injustice was done by a different organization. That is to say, mainstream workers are not prepared to level accusations at their own employers over matters of principle, but are quite willing to do so at someone else's employer.

A Critical Look at Salaried Professionals and the Soul-Battering System (2001)

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