Oh Meritocracy! What cup are you under? Is it in "big tech" or "big pharma"? How about "big finance" and government?
It's funny when I see people talking about they only believe in Meritocracy in regards to Diversity, Equity, Inclusion (DEI) related efforts. It's basically the "ALL LIVES MATTER" deaf and blindness garbage to "BLACK LIVES MATTER".
Why wouldn't any particular company or group extol the virtues of Meritocracy? It sounds wholly idealistic, a UPTOPIA! If I'm a recruiter looking to make myself stand out or a company looking to "hire the best" then why not put my best foot forward. Telling you that "if you work hard then you will reach the American Dream" repeatedly and then inducting you into a company that extols egalitarian values and beliefs, well why wouldn't you believe it?
All those seniors, principals, managers, directors obviously got to where they are because they are smarter than you right? Only the smart survive and the ineffective and corrupt are weeded out. 🤣 To the many who've paid attention to corporate structure, this makes you naive, young and stupid.
So you believe that companies are inherently meritocratic because they say they are. Do you have any evidence that any company is meritocratic beyond what you've heard or experienced?
- Why do you assume that any particular industry has meritocratic culture based companies or people for that matter? Is it not possible in your mind that your social experiences in school translate over to companies, where people form cliques and favor one over the other regardless of who you are?
- What groups are there to advocate for your merit or work at a company? Especially when money is not particularly measured in your merit.
- How do you go about evaluating unbiased merit? Who's to say one work is more important than another especially if the impact touches users more than making money? You might believe your work is more important than another work.
- The CEO believed that one particular work was incredibly necessary and you poured all of your time and energy into that work and it didn't have the impact projected or the CEO changed his mind about the work. Where will you get your medal for rising to the "challenge"? Who will promote you for the work you did?
- What if the behavior shown by the CEO made people frown on where you worked? What if the CEO had no care for your work or your involvement in the work (for whatever reason) even though it provably had impact.
- Oh, that guy was promoted to your level and you weren't promoted even though you did most of the work? Sheesh, talk about a meritocracy. You found out that that guy was the CEO's son? Well damn, what are you gonna do about it? Work even harder?
- Your manager doesn't know how to manage you or the team? They are still there managing you until their next promotion. Dang, you see your manager hanging out with the CEO and his executive team at lunches. No wonder he doesn't care for you.
Corporate politics is often cited as a reason for people having low morale and quitting their jobs. Should politics be a way for people to advance in a meritocratic culture? Clearly the person who can play the best politics should be able to advance regardless of the work they put into the work they were hired for.
If you still believe in a corporate or government meritocracy after reading all of that, you've abdicated all reason. I understand why you do and it is up to you to stop bullshitting about it early on. You can try to act meritocratic all you want, but there are people you won't like inherently and you will value their work less than the people you like.
If you are against DEI related initiatives and your objection is some BS story about meritocratic values not being applied here then yes for sure I believe you are a piece of shit.
You won't have the same objection if it were age related initiatives such as bringing in younger talent. It's obvious why you won't. You've been trained to hear that younger people bring fresh ideas and perspectives and given you've been younger, why not hire younger people and have them prove themselves. Surely, it is meritocratic!
The stories against DEI tend to fall in the HR system isn't working (nonsense where HR is protecting a "protected class" worker). It's pretty obvious TO YOU, the complainer, that your
company is shit and you don't believe in it, so get out. You aren't out
because you don't believe in the BS you spout and you know there isn't
some massive problem related to your hiring and firing system. The
problem is with you and your beliefs which are in fact against a
meritocracy, so perform a self ejection immediately. You have no idea what a meritocratic system is else you'd outperform yourself into a role you want instead of bitching about others. Instead you are weeded out like the rest of the weaklings especially during layoffs.
Meritocracy doesn't exist, so stop trying to act like it exists. It's a fantasy like pure socialism and pure capitalism. They sound great when put on paper, but in reality they will always be perverted in some way so people can take advantage. Just shut the fuck up about your meritocratic society bs.
DEI is here to stay, your outrage anecdotes are bs and companies who employ DEI know it. I will continue laughing at anecdotes how HR is powerless to weed out "weak" "diverse" candidates but somehow powerful to put you on PIP. LOL!