How to Be A Dick Passive-Aggressively

Some context:  I received a bad review at work about a month ago.  And by "bad" I mean raped, including some backstabbing from someone I thought was a friend.  I have an epic post queued up to write about it, however the outline just kept getting longer and longer, and between all the extra work I'm doing to rectify my work situation, having a girlfriend I like, and this "band" I'm in, and my new fun activity called "failing to play the $60 Diablo 3 game I purchased because their anti-piracy bullshit," I haven't had time to sit around and write for hours.  Other missed subjects include the AC trip, and some emo musings about shifting life priorities.  And whining about having enough time.  I have so little time I don't even have time to whine about not having it!

Anyway.

Today's topic, though, is somewhat related to the performance review at work.  One of my strongest negatives was ...what I consider honest and clear communication.  Turns out honesty and clarity are actually not good attributes when you are working in a white collar environment, especially when you spend three years developing an acute ability to be especially honest and very, very clear when explaining to other people how they screwed up.  I am currently endeavoring to become the opposite of what I was.  The politics, which I admittedly ignored to my detriment, are just a game like any other, and I believe I can master that game.

Unfortunately, I am getting my ass handed to me by my first opponent.  Based on my analysis of my last performance review, calling people out, directly, for acting like a moron, and spelling out exactly what they did wrong, is no longer a move I can make.  It was my favorite move.  It is gone from my available actions.  Instead we have to play this fuzzy game of passive aggressive bullshit, and wow am I unprepared.  There is a programmer--actually no.  There is a software developer, a guy who epitomizes most of what I hate about the non-programming, business side of "software development," who is a giant dick to people on a regular basis, but in such a way as to appear to be a great guy.  He is the fucking master at this.  And I'm going at him fresh out of the gate, because by some cruel accident I was forced to work with him on something, and, to top it all off, I tried to go above and beyond the ask and improve a piece of our system while doing it.  Never do that.  Ever.  When you are stuck on a shitty task with someone you don't like, you should be getting the shit done as quickly as possible, because the non-programming issues will knock you out.

Anyway, I am watching this guy basically kick my ass and analyzing his moves, the way a novice chess player might analyze how he got creamed by a grand master.  Here are some key components that I've learned:

How to Be A Dick Passive-Aggressively

1.  Lie with your silence.  All of the things you really want to say, especially anything negative, just don't.  Say the bare minimum.  Don't strive for clarity.  The conversation is not a cooperative effort to reach a mutual understanding; it is a sick game of lies and bullshit (like the shitty novel Game of Thrones...Ned Stark dies, FYI).

2.  Your audience is not the person you're talking to but everyone else who might read the conversation, so say just enough to cover your ass, and play to your audience.  Say all the right things.  TOW the party line.  Say things that will sound just a bit off to your adversary, but which aren't incongruous enough for them to comment on, or call you out on without breaking from the cover of their own passive-aggressiveness.

3.  Deliberately misunderstand.  You can't look like an idiot, but, for example when someone answers your question by pointing out something they already told you, just sort of ignore that and repeat yourself maybe.  Or act confused.  Fake humility is the glue that holds this deliberate ignorance together.

4.  Its a chess game.  Know your opponents moves ahead of time, and set up their fall early.

Yeah that's all I learned so far.





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Some other notes (work in general; not about being a dick):

Anything you might say, especially about a giant fucking problem that is screwing the company over, possibly which might be the result of a systemic management failure, can always be flipped to an uber-positive version.  This is actually not sugar coating, or using euphemisms, but instead just being ridiculous.

For example:   "hey this problem that I've been complaining about for years still sucks and is wasting hundreds of hours of developer time" can become "hey if we fix this one specific attribute of this larger problem [that you're ignoring] it will unlock the potential to save hundreds of hours of developer time."   Except you don't say the stuff in []'s.  People hate hearing the first version, and love hearing the second version, even though its all the same.

I think one of my problems is that I have been phrasing everything like that first version, focusing on telling people whats wrong, instead of being a good little boy scout and presenting everything as little solutions wrapped in bows.  Its not something I like, but what I like doesn't matter anymore.  What I like is for bitching to friends I trust who don't work with me over some alcohol, and what I do at work will involve making sure no one knows what I actually like, because as of a month ago, when I'm at work I officially like everything that a happy little brainwashed boy scout software development engineer II likes.  In fact I love it.  Perforce, [the shitty ass source control solution that is constantly broken and sucks at branching and which has grown too large to manage properly and which occasionally causes me to lose an hour or two] is, uh, great.  Great little source control system there.  Ooh, but what about Git?  I hear great things about it.  Lets try it!