Rise of the Bastard

I still haven't figured out how nasty people rise above the good people.

I'm not talking about the Peters Principle--that incompetence rises to its own level. I'm talking instead about people who, regardless of how good or bad they are at their job, are simply snake-mean. And manage to get promoted, again and again.

A man I very much admire has an excellent reputation for sales. He had a superior hired into the company after him--let's just call him "Joe Bossman"--who very much resented him for it. Like the aging athlete who sees only his own legacy, the man simply resented the fact that he was no longer in sales, and his underling was somehow better at it than he had ever been.

"New policy," Bossman said one day. "The higher-ups have said we're discounting too much. So...until further notice, there are to be no more discounts of any kind. Company policy."

My friend took the hit and rolled with it. "Sorry guys," he told the customers, "I just can't do it. My hands are tied, but hang in there." And because he's just a hell of a nice guy, most of his clientele said, "We understand," and went along with it.

Continuing to do well was a thorn in Bossman's side. "I'm reassigning districts," he said. "There's too much overlap." Out from under my friend went most of his client base. Park Place and Boardwalk went to Bossman Jr. and a Mister Toadying Crony, both of whom had clearly earned it. He got a dog-eared Baltic, and in a generous move, half of St. Charles Place. One performance review later, and the bar had been lowered--on my friend's head. "Why aren't you making your quotas anymore? These numbers aren't anything like what they were when I came on board!"

What would you do? Well, if "Stand up to the guy," is your answer, you might want to go ahead and draw those savings out of the bank right now, because you're gonna need 'em while you're looking for a new job. Still--at this point my friend had to know that the writing was on the wall. Like any good worker, he asked his co-workers how they dealt with the problem.

Turns out they didn't have his problem. Discounts cancelled? No--who told you that? He did? Oh! That explains why every other co-worker has been laughing at you for the past year! Sam Slytherin over in the Marvin Gardens division kept telling me you were just incompetent, like Bossman says. Or was that impotent? I forget, it might have been both...

He's unemployed now--turns out he had really horrible performance. And low numbers. Oddly enough, I forsee his old stomping grounds changing its name, once all the good people are gone: BastardCo might be open.