Poll
Question:
How would you describe the degree of cooperation vs competition you experience in your workplace/career?
Option 1: 91-100% Cooperative
votes: 5
Option 2: 81-90% Cooperative - 10-19% Competitive
votes: 2
Option 3: 71-80% Cooperative - 20-29% Competitive
votes: 3
Option 4: 61-70% Cooperative - 30-39% Competitive
votes: 1
Option 5: 51-60% Cooperative - 40-49% Competitive
votes: 1
Option 6: 50-59% Competitive - 41-50% Cooperative
votes: 1
Option 7: 60-69% Competitive - 31-40% Cooperative
votes: 1
Option 8: 70-79% Competitive - 21-30% Cooperative
votes: 0
Option 9: 80-89% Competitive - 11-20% Cooperative
votes: 0
Option 10: 90-100% Competitive - 0-10% Cooperative
votes: 1
What's split between cooperation and competition with your fellow colleagues do experience within your workplace ?
At one extreme image a job were your lives routinely depends on the cooperation between your colleagues in the job. At the other end of the continuum is a career where succeeding/getting ahead depends entirely on doing better that or beating your workplace rivals.
What percentage breakdown best describes what you encounter ?
I fight myself.
My career is dependent on the bureaucracy/system; not peers.
Quote from: Phillip V on August 28, 2013, 07:42:00 PM
My career is dependent on the bureaucracy/system; not peers.
Which doesn't answer the question.
In my experience, a lot of people in the workplace are neither competing nor cooperating--they're just taking up space and drawing a paycheck. And there are some who deliberately fucking things up, not to compete with anyone, but just for the "fun" of causing problems.
100% competitive. I'm self-employed.
Always depended on the place, Mongers. Different organizational cultures all have their unique dysfunctions.
All the talk about law enforcement as a "brotherhood", where everybody has each others' back, is TV and funeral eulogy bullshit. Between the incompetent and the lazy and the dangerous, there's only a handful of people you can ever rely on--and that includes your supervision--and you just hope they're working that day. And if you're a civilian, doesn't matter about your competencies or your role, you're still a 2nd-class citizen because you don't have the Junior G-Man Secret Decoder Ring. REUTERS WHO IS HE
In the performance-driven environment of my last job, where extra incentives over your target performance bonus were unequally distributed from the same limited bucket of cash given to the department, I'd never seen so much sabotage, passive-aggressiveness and backstabbing in my entire life, it would put high school girls to shame. From August to roughly February, during the ramp up to performance evaluation time and because your extra bonus amount depended on how much less someone elses' was, it was look the fuck out for the kneecapping, even from people who weren't in your lane.
Academia and healthcare didn't seem so bad from the cooperation perspective. As long as you knew your place in the caste system vis à vis academic/professional pedigree, you could always get things done with anybody.
Bail bonds was an entirely different story.
I loved the cubicle cliques. SHUN THE NEXT CUBICLE! UNCLEAN!
Quote from: CountDeMoney on August 28, 2013, 08:46:40 PM
Always depended on the place, Mongers. Different organizational cultures all have their unique dysfunctions.
All the talk about law enforcement as a "brotherhood", where everybody has each others' back, is TV and funeral eulogy bullshit. Between the incompetent and the lazy and the dangerous, there's only a handful of people you can ever rely on--and that includes your supervision--and you just hope they're working that day. And if you're a civilian, doesn't matter about your competencies or your role, you're still a 2nd-class citizen because you don't have the Junior G-Man Secret Decoder Ring. REUTERS WHO IS HE
In the performance-driven environment of my last job, where extra incentives over your target performance bonus were unequally distributed from the same limited bucket of cash given to the department, I'd never seen so much sabotage, passive-aggressiveness and backstabbing in my entire life, it would put high school girls to shame. From August to roughly February, during the ramp up to performance evaluation time and because your extra bonus amount depended on how much less someone elses' was, it was look the fuck out for the kneecapping, even from people who weren't in your lane.
Academia and healthcare didn't seem so bad from the cooperation perspective. As long as you knew your place in the caste system vis à vis academic/professional pedigree, you could always get things done with anybody.
Bail bonds was an entirely different story.
Interesting anecdotes. :cool:
Overwhelmingly cooperative.
How unamerican.
100% cooperative
No reason to be competitive, and lots of benefit to cooperating. One of my favorite things about my place of employment.
Ugh. The workplace should be like the bridge of a Klingon battle cruiser, with the underlings knifing their way to the top. And HR shooting everybody.
Quote from: merithyn on August 28, 2013, 09:16:12 PM
100% cooperative
No reason to be competitive, and lots of benefit to cooperating. One of my favorite things about my place of employment.
You're still relatively new, and your tits aren't threatening enough yet.
I'd say about 80/20 cooperative at my joint.
Whenever there's the possibility of promotion it's impossible to have 100% cooperation.
Quote from: CountDeMoney on August 28, 2013, 09:19:17 PM
Quote from: merithyn on August 28, 2013, 09:16:12 PM
100% cooperative
No reason to be competitive, and lots of benefit to cooperating. One of my favorite things about my place of employment.
You're still relatively new, and your tits aren't threatening enough yet.
Been there a year, and I work with all women. My tits won't threaten any of them. :P
Quote from: Ed Anger on August 28, 2013, 09:17:59 PM
Ugh. The workplace should be like the bridge of a Klingon battle cruiser, with the underlings knifing their way to the top. And HR shooting everybody.
Nowhere to go in my department, so no need to knife anyone. The job is what it is, with no chance at going anywhere within the department. If someone is going to upgrade, they have to go elsewhere, which isn't a threat to anyone on the team.
How...commie. COMMIE!
71-80% cooperative sounds about right for my current company. When I worked in recruiting, I would flip that percentage exactly. That company actively encouraged us to compete against one another. :)
Cal had an edge in the recruiting job, with his centurion outfit.
Human Centurion :x
It's hard to say in my job. We're all very compartamentalized. You have your own individual files and you work on them. I rarely need to rely on my colleagues.
Now on the occasions you do need to rely on colleagues they have been very supportive. BUt it is perhaps because of how infrequently you need to rely on others that we can be so generous.
Quote from: The Brain on August 29, 2013, 09:27:07 AM
Human Centurion :x
Crap. That popped into my mind. :pinch:
I ranted against the bureaucracy this past Monday and warned my supervisor in front of everyone that he was going to "get screwed."
Today, he e-mailed me "You're right, this is sort of a lose-lose situation" and handed in his resignation. :ph34r:
That's... something Philip V.
More details?
Hans was his supervisor.
In my workplace the competitors for promotions etc. are not the people I directly work with but rather say someone in a similar position in a neighboring team or neighboring department. So there is competition, but you don't really know who you compete with and how to convince the decision-makers.
In my daily work it is 90% cooperation and 10% corporate bullshit. The latter is the stuff where you know a better way but you just want to make a point that the other guy didn't follow the process or so. ;)
Quote from: Jacob on August 29, 2013, 11:01:59 AM
That's... something Philip V.
More details?
My promotion was announced tonight. :ph34r:
Quote from: merithyn on August 28, 2013, 09:20:16 PM
Quote from: CountDeMoney on August 28, 2013, 09:19:17 PM
Quote from: merithyn on August 28, 2013, 09:16:12 PM
100% cooperative
No reason to be competitive, and lots of benefit to cooperating. One of my favorite things about my place of employment.
You're still relatively new, and your tits aren't threatening enough yet.
Been there a year, and I work with all women. My tits won't threaten any of them. :P
Then you're really in for it. At some point, somebody's going to do something that somebody doesn't like, and all of the sudden it's passive aggression time.
Chicks are terrible in the workplace.
Quote from: Neil on September 18, 2013, 07:58:15 PM
Then you're really in for it. At some point, somebody's going to do something that somebody doesn't like, and all of the sudden it's passive aggression time.
Chicks are terrible in the workplace.
Just to other chicks. Either guys don't notice, or don't care.
Quote from: Phillip V on September 18, 2013, 07:17:47 PM
Quote from: Jacob on August 29, 2013, 11:01:59 AM
That's... something Philip V.
More details?
My promotion was announced tonight. :ph34r:
Hans is proud of you, young Jedi.
Quote from: Phillip V on September 18, 2013, 07:17:47 PM
My promotion was announced tonight. :ph34r:
Good for you. So how many positions do you get to eliminate as your first order of business?
Quote from: Phillip V on September 18, 2013, 07:17:47 PM
Quote from: Jacob on August 29, 2013, 11:01:59 AM
That's... something Philip V.
More details?
My promotion was announced tonight. :ph34r:
Congrats! I think? :unsure:
If they were going to screw the other guy over, does that mean that now they're going to screw you over?
Quote from: Neil on September 18, 2013, 07:58:15 PM
Then you're really in for it. At some point, somebody's going to do something that somebody doesn't like, and all of the sudden it's passive aggression time.
Chicks are terrible in the workplace.
Not in this department, thankfully. Eight women in the department, all but two of whom are introverted number geeks. We mostly just keep our heads down and get our work done.
Which means that management has decided to "fix" the enrollment side by "integrating" our two departments. The women in enrollment are high maintenance and high drama; the women in billing are about as low maintenance and low drama as possible. To fix the issue in enrollment (which has led to high turnover), they're going to inter-mingle our two departments, moving everyone to different cubicles, so that our "calmer" attitudes will help diffuse their more uptight ones.
Already, this is causing problems, as the bitches from enrollment are trying to push around the billing folks to get the "better" cubicles, and getting bitchy when the billing people don't give so easily. None of us believe that there's a "better" cubicle, but the pushiness grates on the whole team, so they're putting up a stone wall.
Of course... management sees all of this as a big ole' positive! :w00t:
:glare:
I voted 81-90% Cooperative - 10-19% Competitive. My workplace is mostly cooperative, I'd say. There is some competitiveness as in any company when people have differing ideas and push for them but I think mainly that people try and learn more and do more to gain a promotion or just to be better at the job and able to resolve issues. I don't seem to see anything overt from other workers to try and advance at the expense of others or to cause harm. We probably need to be cooperative. There are so many parts of the IT system from hardware to software of all types in a medical setting, serving doctors, nurses and other medical staff. So it seems that people I work with, for the most part, aren't competing with other workers, they're working together to keep the system working properly.
Quote from: CountDeMoney on September 18, 2013, 08:07:12 PM
Quote from: Phillip V on September 18, 2013, 07:17:47 PM
My promotion was announced tonight. :ph34r:
Good for you. So how many positions do you get to eliminate as your first order of business?
I work in and around government. My business is to add and bill as many jobs as I can to the taxpayer.
Quote from: merithyn on September 19, 2013, 08:14:05 AM
Quote from: Phillip V on September 18, 2013, 07:17:47 PM
Quote from: Jacob on August 29, 2013, 11:01:59 AM
That's... something Philip V.
More details?
My promotion was announced tonight. :ph34r:
Congrats! I think? :unsure:
If they were going to screw the other guy over, does that mean that now they're going to screw you over?
Yes. But it is a constant game of screwing them before they screw you.
Hopefully I can semi-retire within 10 years.
Quote from: merithyn on September 19, 2013, 08:21:34 AM
Not in this department, thankfully. Eight women in the department, all but two of whom are introverted number geeks. We mostly just keep our heads down and get our work done.
Which means that management has decided to "fix" the enrollment side by "integrating" our two departments. The women in enrollment are high maintenance and high drama; the women in billing are about as low maintenance and low drama as possible. To fix the issue in enrollment (which has led to high turnover), they're going to inter-mingle our two departments, moving everyone to different cubicles, so that our "calmer" attitudes will help diffuse their more uptight ones.
Already, this is causing problems, as the bitches from enrollment are trying to push around the billing folks to get the "better" cubicles, and getting bitchy when the billing people don't give so easily. None of us believe that there's a "better" cubicle, but the pushiness grates on the whole team, so they're putting up a stone wall.
Of course... management sees all of this as a big ole' positive! :w00t:
My solution would be to decimate the enrollment department. If that doesn't work, then get rid of the rest. :)
Quote from: Caliga on September 23, 2013, 12:54:58 PM
y solution would be to decimate the enrollment department. If that doesn't work, then get rid of the rest. :)
Presumably the company wishes to have new clients though.
They would be replaced. :sleep:
Quote from: Caliga on September 23, 2013, 12:54:58 PM
My solution would be to decimate the enrollment department. If that doesn't work, then get rid of the rest. :)
That's not really necessary. Select one or two of the biggest mouths, and fire them. The rest will panic and shut the hell up. Ta-da!
But that requires real management, something my particular department lacks. How they are works for my team because we don't really need much by way of management. For the rest of the department, however, it's essential. Instead, they hire based on cronyism and nepotism, and then wonder why no one gets anything done and why there's always drama.
No matter. I can keep my head down no matter where I sit. I am: Practiced. :)
We compete for food but cooperate for sex.