The Art of Lying

So when I hired in to the Shitshow, I was told that the company offers career development. Supposedly, it’s one of the big selling points of the Matrix Management Model. You work directly under your Lead and IPT Lead, who give you your day-to-day assignments. Meanwhile, your Functional Manager evaluates your progress, helps you come up with a career plan, and periodically takes action to ensure you are on track on that career path. Now after several years of voicing my career aspirations to my Functional Management with absolutely zero action being taken on their part, I have finally figured out that there is absolutely zero career development at the Shitshow. But why did it take me so long to figure that out? Well, there are several reasons.

Having once been an altruistic college hire, I actually believed and trusted my management at one time. When management told me they saw leadership potential in me and that I should be primed for leadership position, I took it at face value. I was impressed that the company was taking a proactive approach in developing their employees.

Looking back, I realize now that the company had to tell me those things, to give me hope. What were they supposed to say? “Sorry, we just use engineers by draining the best years out of them and offer zero career development. But one day, decades from now, a leadership opportunity may open up and it will finally be your turn to get it . Wanna come work for us?” They should say that, because it’s the truth, but they don’t.

So instead they lie, and they lie hard. They not only lie to you when you hire in, they have an ongoing propaganda campaign about the value of empowering and developing employees. It's everywhere you look. Whether it be through corporate newsletters, the company website, posters in the hallway, or interviews with the CEO, they can't shut up about the importance of career development and talent retention. The company line is that we value the individual and offer real career development. And this propaganda campaign is simply a method con us for as long as possible, so that we do the grunt work for as long as possible.

Because offering false hope is the corporate strategy, I throw rocks.