Can you elaborate what The Game actually is?
The game is about presenting an image that doesn’t actually exist. It’s about not acknowledging your manager is a toxic piece of shit and your company is completely broken and will likely be bankrupt in a few years while execs milk every ounce from it. It’s about faking positivity and that you’re so excited to join the company because it’s so amazing and definitely not because your previous employer is horrible. It’s about lying about past accomplishments because everyone does this in interviews so you need to stand out and seem just as good or better.
It’s about knowing that the other side is doing this too and you’re not the only one lying. You get lied to during interviews, you get lied to during onboarding, you get lied to during 1:1s, you get lied to during performance reviews, and you get lied to when leaving the company. You get lied to about why you’re building the product you are. You get lied to about why we chose an architecture. You get lied to about why you didn’t get something but someone else did. (But better - you don’t ask. You play the game. You lie about knowing)
It’s about acknowledging that work involved a heavy amount of lying from all sides and being honest - while noble - will not get you far in this industry. Especially in SV where lying is king. Where lying is renamed as “aspirational” speaking. Etc.
My experience is small privately held businesses that offer physical product are the most pragmatic and 'honest.' The closer you are to the source of income, the less everything but the money matters. I like being only 1-2 steps from the money, because it means no one gives a flying fuck about anything other than the almighty dollar at all costs. At least that's a game I understand. More than 2 levels from the source of money and you're shit-deep into authoritarian politics land, where the name of the game is to buy social capital in the authoritarian structure of a corporation, with little direct ties and influence on the source of corporate persuasion (income).
That is, when you're too far from the source of money, such as middle management or lower in a large corporation, your only real way to gain power is to become the most cunning psychopath rather than maximize profit. As an engineer, I've 'engineered' my personal solution by only taking jobs where I report directly to CEO/CTO/President so that politics dissolve into "make money or die." I much prefer it that way.
Maybe it works different in the physical goods space but as far as software goes - I see no difference no matter how close you are to the source of revenue.
This cannot be accomplished in a largecap company. Too many politic layers. Cant be done in a startup that is professionally backed - too much window dressing for investors.
However, small privates are the sweet spot for honest workers. Get stuff done, or make sales, and ownership doesnt care if your hair is blue or your style is brash. In fact, most savvy owners will hire exactly that "rough" worker precisely because what they see is what they get.
That worker is not an apiring manager, but an artisan, with no patience for nonsense, and ready to call out BS when they see it.
That is management-repellant
You are right of course; words like "Truthfulness", "Trust", "Honesty", "Integrity" are liberally sprinkled everywhere but don't mean anything anymore at all. Everybody knows this but still we are all forced to play The Game.
To get through to management, you'll probably have to kick it up a notch for every promotion.
If there's more drama that than, you're working at a poorly managed organization. Move on at the first opportunity, life is too short.
The 'game' is that what works at the free-market business level (maximize profit) doesn't work at the authoritarian non-free-market employee level (i.e. you win by making those with social capital look good and winning this social capital).
It extends beyond the workplace into politics as well. Hell, anywhere humans interact.
So you might write the best code, be the best at developing others, most productive. But none of that matters, what matters is what people believe.
Simple.
1. Be good at your job.
2. Don't be an asshole.