Thursday, March 13, 2014

The Mel Gibson Career Paradox

Say you are really good at something.

No, actually, say you're the best.

You went to school for whatever it was, graduated top of your class, know your field inside and out, and are so good at what you do you know who your competition is and they number no more than three.

That's how good you are.

Now you try to go into your field and you find out, despite how good you are, you run into various obstacles.  Inept bosses, drama-politicking co-workers, duties that are beneath your ability, corruption, or a constant ramming of heads with management.  None of these things have anything to do with your ability or skill, but they do have a direct effect on your performance and career.

Now say you think that job is a one time fluke and you find another one.  But sure enough you start to run into the exact same problems.  Old fart bosses who can't do Excel, management that turns a blind eye to either huge opportunities or devastating threats.  Co-workers that don't carry their weight or, worse, purposely sabotage you at every corner.  You really aren't doing anything wrong, there's no reason for these roadblocks, it's just that you keep running into incompetent, braindead turkeys that won't let you soar at your eagle capacity. 

You try and try again, but it's the same thing at job after job again.  Mundane duties, never allowed to achieve your best, petty politics and moron managers, constantly ramming heads...

Well son, you unfortunately suffer from the Mel Gibson Career Paradox.

You see, you may be the best in your field.  You may be able to see with 20/20 vision what others can't or won't.  You may be 100% right in everything you do and observe and would indeed make the best CEO in that industry, but alas, there is something about you that makes you completely incompatible with the industry.  It's nothing bad or good, you just have some trait, some characteristic that makes success in that industry an impossibility.

In the case of Mel Gibson and thus the paradox, Mel Gibson is an incredibly talented actor.  He is also an incredibly talented director/producer making one of the few billion dollar grossing film.  He is hands down one of the best in his field, alas his personality and alcohol-induced rants are traits that just do not abide with the leftist Hollywood powers that rule the movie industry.  Forget that he's talented.  Forget he can bring in billions.  And forget that many in Hollywood are bigots, racists, and anti-American themselves.  He just doesn't jibe with the industry. 

Same thing with Peter Schiff, Robert Shiller, and dare I throw myself into the mix.  It was as clear as day to us that the housing market was hyper inflated and bad loans were being made.  Had the government and/or the banking industry merely listened to any one of us, the Great Recession would have never happened.  Alas, where are the three of us now?  I cannot speak personally to Peter Schiff or Dr. Shiller, but I'd imagine much like me, they rammed heads with management in their early career days and never made much head way in the financial services industry.  However, there is no doubt that we are "top men" in our respective industries.  Still be it our personalities, the way we walk, or the fact our intelligence scares the piss out of inept and corrupt banking executives, none of us had successful careers in the finance industry.  We just had that "trait" that made it mutually exclusive.  And thus the lesson to all of you.

Understand that while you may be the best in your field, AND you may be 100% right, various sectors, segments, and industries of society have become so corrupt or so infiltrated with different groups of people, that qualities and traits you have, that have nothing to do with you ability, skill, or the profession, will make it impossible for you to work in those fields.  And whereas in the past this may have meant your skin color, your religion, or your ethnicity, today it can be things as innocuous and petty as "you're too moral," "you're too smart," "you know too much," "you're not corruptible," "you just don't play ball well," "you lack the ability to kiss ass," "you don't dress right," etc. etc. etc.  But while this may be "unjust" or "not right," it is what it is.  You may be the best, but that is irrelevant.  The system and you are not compatible.  You need to find a new career.

Sadly this means many of you will have to give up your dream job or dream career.  You may really want to become a cop, but the police department doesn't want you to.  You may really want to become an accountant, but the CPA firm won't let you.  And you may want to be a nurse, but the medical industry steadfastly refuses you.  The key thing is to realize that it was never possible in the first place.  Your dream job was never to become a cop or an accountant or a nurse, because it was never feasible.   The biggest risk, however, is letting your excellence in the field force you to waste your time pursuing something that is not possible.  Ergo, even if you are the best, if your career is not flowing the way it should, and constantly has bumps in the road, it is time to give up your infeasible passion and find a feasible one. 

14 comments:

leeholsen said...

I can confirm this. I'm not the best in my field, but i'm well above average and in my current company; i have been all but pushed into working in the basement.
I started here and tried to tell project managers what to look for, what to expect and better processes; which went over like a lead ballon; even though i was proven right every time. So, now people keep fumbling everything repeatedly because they're too clueless to think ahead and draw from experience and get blindsided repeatedly; at which point they call me to fix it and then procedd to put me back in the corner until they've screwed everything up all over again because of their ineptness.
My solution was to cut living expenses to extremes, so i can walk anytime i want and never need to work for a company like the one i work for; now every day is a comedy watching my co-workers do a three stooges immitation.

Martel said...

Some of what you describe has been exascerbated by the feminization of the workplace (although obviously this crap has been going on to some extent forever). We now place far more emphasis on "fitting in", often at the expense of excellence.

Masculine men are more likely to work with, promote, and/or listen to people they don't like so long as they RESPECT that other man's abilities. Women are more likely to assume you're a great worker if they like you or that you're awful if they don't.

What you describe has always been a problem (even all-male workplaces are sometimes headed by weak and insecure men), but in the era of "corporate culture" and "teambuilding", it's a bigger problem than ever.

Yet one more way to marginalize the excellent among us.

Anonymous said...

While I'm not the best, I'm up there above most.

Been in corporate world for almost 30 years now. Long ago I had to choose between politics and technical ability. Door number 2 for me. I've been shuttled aside, passed over, and many other things. Once I was frustrated by this, now I have accepted it.

Why? Because I managed to get into a department where I can pretty much do my own thing, work from home full time, and pull down a great salary. But it comes at a cost, wondering what life would have been like if....

The world of velvet handcuffs. The next move will be retirement, ready or not. Gonna milk this one as long as possible.

Anonymous said...

I agree about feminism and the workplace but also add that MBA's contribute to the nonsense.

I am one of two guys on an Advanced Analytics team and the other guy has an MBA while I have a Chartered Enterprise Risk Analyst designation (Society of Actuaries). This other guy is terrible in all fronts but speaks a big game. He cherry picks data to tell a good story for ass-kissing purposes. Plus, he is inefficient from a technical standpoint. He may be the worst Excel user in the analytics world I have come across.

I am proficient in SAS, R, and VBA and I run laps around this guy. What takes the other guy two weeks to do I can finish in a couple of days.

However, again, he tells people what they want to hear and he will continue to be above me as a result.

Anonymous said...

I have to confirm what you are saying. Your ability to brown nose and rubber stamp management will have more to do with how you are treated more than anything else. You can choose the former and you may be better off financially but in the end unless you are starving, a sense of integrity is a very sweet thing to experience. I took the latter route and it has led to much more conflict in my life but it is much more fun. I wonder if the few companies that make it big are able to cut the politics out for the very short parabola until they go public and are a huge success.

Dave said...

Your oil-drilling talents don't matter if I own the Ghawar Field and you own nothing. You will drill my oil on my terms, or I'll hire someone else.

It's the same in banking. The big boys are sitting on a gusher of free money, courtesy of the Fed, so they can afford to hire their idiot nephews instead of you.

After the dollar collapses and the economy reverts to gold, we'll have a much smaller, more Darwinian financial sector. Avoid sidewalks next to tall buildings while this shakeout is unfolding.

Anonymous said...

Don't forget kids, management can and WILL look up your political donations to see if you're on their side. Happened to me.

Internet snooping on your employees: it's not just for facebook anymore.

Anonymous said...

I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you don't remember what Mel Gibson said and did. Before his rant, he was KNOWN in Hollywood as being Republican, Christian, and having the associated political views. He wasn't blacklisted for that. He was blacklisted because he drove drunk, got caught, and when caught started yelling about how the Jews were responsible for all wars and evil in the world (???).
He later said to his ex-girlfriend something along the lines of "I hope you get raped by a pack of niggers."

He was blacklisted for being a mental case. An absolute nutjob with actual racist views. Not the type of pseudo-racist that liberals get their panties in a twist over. Hardcore insane racist views. Honestly, anyone who is stupid enough to believe that the jooooos started all wars is at best a lunatic and at worst a nazi. Nobody likes working with lunatics. To compare his fall to your struggles is completely absurd and foolish.

Anonymous said...

Dude, Peter Schiff may be great on TV but he's not a great investor. Yes, he was against housing, credit to him, but he has missed out on this 5 year bull market.

Even worse, in 2007 he said that everyone should get out of US stocks (great call as market went down more than 50%) but he said that people should instead buy emerging market stocks.

A lot of emerging market stocks are barely up since March 2009 while US indexes are up almost 200% with many stocks under the surface going up 10x or more.

That being said there are a lot of people who turned millions into billions or thousands into millions shorting housing stocks, banks, etc., in 2008. There are also people who did the same feats taking advantage of the opportunities over the last few years.

But those people have no need to start blogs or go on TV. But seriously, if you have an edge on the economy, then you should apply that to the markets.

Anonymous said...

I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you don't remember what Mel Gibson said and did. Before his rant, he was KNOWN in Hollywood as being Republican, Christian, and having the associated political views. He wasn't blacklisted for that. He was blacklisted because he drove drunk, got caught, and when caught started yelling about how the Jews were responsible for all wars and evil in the world (???).
He later said to his ex-girlfriend something along the lines of "I hope you get raped by a pack of niggers."

He was blacklisted for being a mental case. An absolute nutjob with actual racist views. Not the type of pseudo-racist that liberals get their panties in a twist over. Hardcore insane racist views. Honestly, anyone who is stupid enough to believe that the jooooos started all wars is at best a lunatic and at worst a nazi. Nobody likes working with lunatics. To compare his fall to your struggles is completely absurd and foolish.


JDF pls go

Anonymous said...

Yes, he was against housing, credit to him, but he has missed out on this 5 year bull market.

Bull-shit market you mean. There IS no market for value investors since the fundamentals can be changed by Fed fiat at any time.

Besides, IIRC Schiff inherited a crapton of moneys, I doubt he has any reasons to worry.

Anonymous said...

It took me 20 years in the workplace to figure this out. You spend 10% of your job doing your job & 90% of your job managing the relationships that put you in the position to do it (aka ass-kissing). Now I know that is the reality, I have adjusted my actions to fit. With great monetary & career success. Complaining about reality does not change it.

Anonymous said...

"Anonymous said...
It took me 20 years in the workplace to figure this out. You spend 10% of your job doing your job & 90% of your job managing the relationships that put you in the position to do it (aka ass-kissing). Now I know that is the reality, I have adjusted my actions to fit. With great monetary & career success. Complaining about reality does not change it."

And all you had to do was sell your soul! Great plan, Company Man!

(better look over your shoulder-- someone's about to eat you, you corporate chump)

SFG said...

"I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you don't remember what Mel Gibson said and did. Before his rant, he was KNOWN in Hollywood as being Republican, Christian, and having the associated political views. He wasn't blacklisted for that. He was blacklisted because he drove drunk, got caught, and when caught started yelling about how the Jews were responsible for all wars and evil in the world (???).
He later said to his ex-girlfriend something along the lines of "I hope you get raped by a pack of niggers."

He was blacklisted for being a mental case. An absolute nutjob with actual racist views. Not the type of pseudo-racist that liberals get their panties in a twist over. Hardcore insane racist views. Honestly, anyone who is stupid enough to believe that the jooooos started all wars is at best a lunatic and at worst a nazi. Nobody likes working with lunatics. To compare his fall to your struggles is completely absurd and foolish."

Well, there's a point here. Going off about Jews in Hollywood makes about as much sense as going off on women at a cosmetics company, or nerds at a software firm.

I.E., if you hate the people in the industry for whatever reason, what CC is saying holds.