There are many skills that I learnt in office which are not a part of the defined responsibilities nor the job-related learning. In fact, no one cares that you learn them though everyone gets affected in a positive or negative way depending on whether you know or don't know such skills. To begin with, you got to learn the secret organizational structure in your office - this is not the one published on the intranet or told to you on your first day of the job. It is something that you discover for yourself. You got to know who/what influences your manager the most and what you need to do in order to get ahead in your office. You will be able to understand the term pseudo-authority once you are able to understand the actual control flow in the management. How indivuduals try to gain advantages that they are not entitled to or how they prevent others from getting benefits that they should have. Life is rarely fair, but then, you are the one who can control your own life! There are many fallacies that you got to avoid at the workplace - make a list of them appropriate to your office environment.
There are many who get wary of office politics. For me, I feel this is all about a mind game. If you look at it from a lighter note and remember that life is not fair, you will understand what Dalai Lama had once said, "Know all the rules well, so that you can break the rules!". And office politics is something that will make you sharper at making critical decisions, if you don't lose your mind. It takes a lot of time for people to make/change opinions about people and many a times, they themselves are not sure of the opinion - its more of a mob-ocracy than demo-cracy! Subroto Bagchi once asked his mentor about tips to improve his image amongst his colleagues - whatever tips he got further worsened his image at office - and to this his mentor just replied, "wait for one more year - people take time to change existing opinions!". Office politics is like the shark in the japanese fish tanks - the fish remain alert (and thus fresh to be eaten by humans) due to the shark's presence. If the shark is removed, fish become lazy in the tank and by the time the ship reaches the coast, they are no more fresh to eat! A bit awry example though, but we all are fishes waiting to be eaten up by the next responsibility awaiting us. Learn how to get ahead of office politics if you don't like it, and be the best office politician if you like it - but the bottomline is, never cry for no one cares anyway!
Office gossip forms an integral part of office politics. There is a section of the public who support gossip as a good method of unwinding the office stress and increase employee interaction. As long as it is taken with a pinch of salt! You should know, by your previous experience in the office, which part of the gossip you heard is likely to be closer to the truth and which is the part that was fabricated purely with the intention of picking on you. You get to know the equations of 'power' in the office through gossip! This is one of the most common form of social networking and you can always leverage it to your advantage. Identify the folks in office who are serious about gossip talk from those who pretend not to be. Although John Austin's book titled 'Cubicle Warfare' might be a bit on the funnier side, it does matter to understand gossip in the correct perspective.
There is a whole lot of more office dynamics when it comes to women, and I would like to make a new post out of it, later!
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