Mom rule

This just shows how utterly sickly job environments are nowadays, when lying and mindless self-promotion are considered "virtues..."

Yeah exactly. To be a "good employee", you need to either harm yourself or just be a shitty person
- At my last job, I fulfilled my contractual obligations as well as I could. That's all I did. I did it as best as I could without wringing myself dry, I didn't pull the social butterfly act to ingratiate myself with my colleagues for social leverage, I just minded my own business and tried being polite and friendly when someone wanted to interact with me.
  I became an essential piece of the process without my wanting to do so, and then everyone started expecting me to work after hours and take on responsibilities which were not even related to my job (I was QA, had to pull PM duties more than I'd care to remember, and that was just a fragment of everything they expected I would do). Same pay, of course. I still don't understand how the hell they didn't see my resignation coming...
  Edit: and, no, I didn't even want a management position, as I'd had one before and it was heartbreaking - I told them both of these things, outright and repeatedly. I just wanted to test apps...
You mean the solution to this problem is not for everyone to become a solipsistic asshole?
It's to fix the system and culture that encourages it?
But then i can't feel justified abusing people around me to take everything i can from them and climb a rung on the socio-econinic ladder.
What do you mean cancer kills the body? That's the brains problem to figure out. Definitely not confused cells being coerced into an ignorant and totally destructive culture.
Snide overload, but you really hit the nail on the head, and I think humans should cooperatively be able to do better than dumb cells. The excuses i see for being solipsistic in freaking and epistemically destructive are both disgusting and disappointing.
- I agree with you 120%
  But how do you change the culture when the rewards for doing that kind of behavior significantly outweigh the cons? The Nash equilibrium ends up at being a con that blows smoke.
- You speak nothing but truth, it is beyond frustrating... And 100% agree, there is no "naturalistic" justification for this bullshit, nothing in this entire Universe is as messed up as the way we've structured our society. This is a pure, grade A, human invention.
That's capitalism, baby!
- Fuck my life, I want off this fucking ride...
  Edit: I don't even want my money back, I just want to quit while I'm behind...
...nowadays...
Oooh boy. I hate to tell you this but as bad as it is now, it is also the best it has ever been.
- Honestly, I kinda' disagree with this. My first job was nowhere near this messed up, nor did anyone have such expectations.
  Started off as QA in a large game producing company 13 years ago. This Agile bullshit was still half a decade away from being adopted as IT's religion, we worked Waterfall. We had at least 2-3 days per build, a team of 20-30 people testing at once, and a couple of months per update. Procedures were clear, we had to pester management if anyone wanted overtime for whatever reason (and always had to justify it with concrete risks), nobody expected anyone else to kill themselves over the job. Hell, you didn't even have to speak to anyone as long as you completed your tasks...
  To add, every single project on which we worked received top ratings, users praised the stability and reliability, the company never had to internally boost app ratings for anything.
  Edit: and this benefitted the Devs as well! They had so much time to work on figuring out bugs and to develop mind-bogglingly complex features which actually worked!
  Hell, I remember being called over by one of the Devs, so that I would repro a nasty math logic bug with them and we could both work on figuring out the cause. My guy was patiently looking for flip-flops on the internet when I got there, and told me to chill, go grab a coffee, smoke a cig, because "this'll be our task for the rest of the day." Sat down with him after 30 minutes of chillin', bug was fixed and the fix deployed to Staging within an hour and a half after that... No pressure, no stress, no anger, just two people calmly working on fixing a problem together.

You'll quickly see the truth when you have abusive parents.

In this world, its kill or be killed. Flowey was right.

No mercy to nazis.

Decency and capital don't mix well

I have come to learn that in corporate America trivial things like physical restraints, functionality, laws of nature, and honestly reality as a whole can be completely ignored. They love this mentality too!

What you actually accomplish and the feasibility of your goals are irrelevant, the only thing that matters is if you can blow enough smoke up the asses of those above you.

Truth and humility simply aren't compatible with american style business which is why silicon valley conmen are so successful, they can fool the ignorant wealthy

Truth and humility simply aren't compatible with american style business...
This is 100% correct. Unfortunately it often works against non-American companies. One of our clients is a very large European company and they drive me crazy sometimes. For example, when we help them with bids on projects we analyze the feasibility of the project while taking into consideration the ability to deliver at the time of delivery. Basically we determine if we will be able to deliver. Our client determines if they can deliver...as in today. Because they don't have the resources necessary to deliver today, they are reluctant to bid because the truth is that they cannot deliver. Our response is always that it's only something to worry about after they have won the bid, but they resist. So their competitor, a ruthless American collection of hustlers comes in, bids even though they have NO resources, win the bid and proceed to hire what they need to deliver...and they do.
To be clear, the European company was the better choice but potential clients want the warm and fussies. They want to feel that if they hire you, they will be taken care of. They DO NOT want to hear about your shortcomings or the challenges of the project. They are well aware. They want you to look them straight in the eyes and tell them "I've got this" so that weight can be off their shoilders.
- "I've got this" today and "sorry we got a 6 month delay in your 2 month project" one week later. Very smart, big brains.

Work is more a play than an actual thing.

I have a friend (using the term loosely for an ex-colleague I am friendly with and have stayed in contact with for 20+ years) who has always said that his work is his entertainment. It is literally his fun.
- I personally hate work, but I understand what they want to see from me so I provide it.

Definitely do not treat your boss the same way you treat your lover.