Is the cultural picture as grim as I'm thinking?

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I don't want to spend much time on preamble with my story - it's probably not all that interesting, just that I can say from 26 to 38 I've been bounced around and have made enough where technically I could have sustenance living if I had to live on my own (if my jobs were stable on top of that) but other than that it's been sort of the white collar medium-to-high-skill-but-broke circuit. I finally have a high enough skilled position that it may demand living wages but I still have a fair amount of anxiety that I could still be saying something like that in two or three years.

The thing that I've gotten a sense of about people and the work world increasingly is that it's not a place where people are necessarily trying to get things done efficiently and has really much more to do with people just protecting their food and laying down gauntlets. Part of what I see is people need things done but can't give directions, hate to communicate critical details, so they'll always and ever give 1/3-baked instructions where 25% of the effort to get it done is the thing that actually needs getting done and the other 75% is mystery and crap communication tax. What really gets me too is how some of the guys in my office who deal with clients have some who seem truly worthless and I have to say - I can't even begin to fathom would it would be like to do f' all and get paid for it; my experience has been closer to feeling like running full speed isn't fast enough to survive.

On my more cynical days I've really asked myself - do people truthfully and actually hate each other, want to see each other ruined, and the consequence is a rats nest of booby traps connected by oblique mumbling? I mean, they'll be wonderfully capricious with things that are very high liability in terms of who needs it for what, people just fly by the seat of their pants, live on luck, and if you wipe out no worries - that'll just cost you your head.

My thoughts here - I probably can survive it, I'm conscientious enough to do whatever I have to dodge the razors, but I deeply worry sometimes what I have to do will do to me psychologically and even spiritually. I've had concerns that I could be slowly turning into something akin to Daniel Day Lewis's character in There Will Be Blood, I don't want to get that misanthropic but so much evidence seems to go in favor of this being an evolutionary ape-rape game that it's really tough to deny the likelihood that I'm reading it correctly.

I'm sure this topics been beaten to death in this folder but I'm curious as to what kinds of insights have been arrived at as to why even the professional world is such a chaotic, terrifying, and too often breathtakingly irresponsible mess. Is it really sort of a soft Hunger Games type thing going on, is this low-functioning (but marriageable!) people at their best, or it some mix of both?

Early on in my career, a coworker made similar observations.

He created a course to help sick workplaces, because they were blind to the dysfunction. They had high levels of workers quitting, always out sick, getting injured, and stressed. Learning better communication skills,etc led to healthier and more productive employees.

Also he helped coach people who were literally being made sick from that kind environment ( home, work). Made a lot of money from that.

You are seeing the big picture as obvious, that they really cannot see. They really need help and are willing to pay since it costs them lost productivity. If you can see what they cannot, and have a way to market a solution to them, then you become invaluable.

The "normal" world is not doing that well. Took me a long time to realize I don't want to follow their path. I may be a lousy communicator, but they are too. Just in other ways. And they are starting to acknowledge the value of putting together neurodiverse teams.
Temple Grandin pointed out that Fukishima would not have happened if they had an engineer with her type of brain developing the safety plans. That scenario would have been obvious. Companies are starting to see the advantage of multiple brain types to look at problems. Each type has blindnesses and strengths.

So not grim, but full of opportunity. That seeking out a niche to fill at work, allows me more leeway to be weird and becomes job security. It does eat a lot of energy and resources to not to let work dysfunction ruin my health and well being. Sonetimes they like it dysfunctional. I am very purposeful about making it not my stress.
Negative emotions wreck my health and I have enough other stresses. I refuse to let others negativity and dysfunction take out my health and wellbeing.

At the same time heading towards minimalism and self sufficiency with growing food just in case. No job is secure.

I’ve been able to be weird for quite a long time on my job. Because I was rather indispensable.

Nowadays, though, I’m given a little less leeway because I’m a little less indispensable.

Luckily, I’m retiring in 4 years, 7 months.

I’m not as cerebral as you guys

Most work places are full of drama and chaos. Schools seem to be especially full of it. Myself and some of my family members have worked in different types of school settings from daycare to public school to private school. We have noticed that there are some co-workers that have to always create drama because they can't function without it and many supervisors, principals, and daycare owners are ineffective leaders. Communication tends to be poor as people seem to expect you to read their minds and they are not clear about what they want. The kids needs tend not to be a priority. Classroom teachers, instructional assistants, and aftercare teachers are often not treated with respect by students, parents, and administration.

One of the guys I do martial arts with is an assistant principle and he's said something similar - ie. that the teachers have a more prickly set of egos to deal with than the kids.

That's a good reminder. I all too quickly, maybe just out of 1990's ASD-related psychotherapy, hard knocks, or both, tend to see myself as the aberrance and problem - that is the great god Conformitas is an old testament Yahweh type to be worshiped with fear and trembling, and any failure to conform in the most arbitrary ways easily gets handled as two and a half strikes against one's right to exist.

Work is like The Hunger Games. You guard your job at all times.

90% bullsh!! That's what you get to hear all day.

wish I knew how to start one of these consulting companies. you get to be your own boss. And because they pay $500,000 just for your advice, they listen. The more you charge, the more they listen.

They are blinded and trapped by the conformity that they learned to have in school. Instead of encouraging thought, they teach conformity. They got a A for conformity, popularity, and praise. They literally mark off especially in math, for getting a right answer through a different logical process. Has to be thought through just like the teacher taught.

Schools are the worst. I got bullied as the parent because I would not attend the social events or agree that 5th graders need one on one dating instruction through school. ( immune by now so they went after my kid, other kids fine. it was the adults). My kid now does online school.
Teachers are much better. They are in the background to interact online. No extra nonsense. It is free through the district and they can do clubs, gym in person or not. No drama.

I just had a month and half worth of work dished on me for two weeks, and the last I checked I finally got one peace of information that I needed - compared to half a dozen - from my client contact and what he gave me back is almost as difficult to make sense of as what I got before.

If there's anything I could wish its that I didn't feel like my funeral was a month away several times a year. Feeling like you're future is going to evaporate in disgrace and death that often really does bizarre things to quality of life and even what you can do - obviously having a family at some future date is out of the question when things are that destabilized/chaotic. It's like I'm given the task to do the impossible, if I fail the Caesar says my services are no longer required (historical euphemism), and everyone would get weirded out by me if I'm perfectly chipper and cheerful every moment of the day.

I really have to wonder what this is doing to NT's, it can't be much better.

I literally lived in a travel trailer in the desert and was much happier but I let myself get sucked into finishing my degree and getting a career to make a good life for my child and I after my divorce. I fell head first into the debt trap...student loan, mortgage, car payment...and now I'm forced to work no matter how bad the circumstances.

The work culture out there is absolutely horrible. It's unnecessarily hostile. My one manager yelled (with cursing) at our team so loud that everyone in the building heard her. There were so many times I should have quit but I couldn't afford to. Both jobs I've had in my new career ended with my closest co-workers throwing me under the bus, but I know it's because they were pressed by management to do it to save their own necks. I just don't seem to have the ability or desire to play these ruthless games so I lose. It didn't used to be like this. I remember staying in touch with former co-workers, now you're just cut off. You don't exist any longer.

I'm out of work again and staring into the abyss of what if the money runs out before I find something else. Even if I get in somewhere I feel it's only a matter of time before my head will be on the block again. I have given serious thought to selling my house, paying off my debts with the equity and going back out into the wilderness again. The stress of being "normal" with a normal job and normal lifestyle just isn't worth it. And, as I think someone else eluded to, I'm not sure I like what a "normal" existence is doing to my child either.

oh.... so you've taken the red pill....

In short; yes, human society is precisely Hunger Games-lite... humanity gave rise to the story, after all.

Now for ideas about how to survive it..... for those of you who enjoy reading...

I work in middle-management type roles. After finding my arts degree useless in obtaining a job (no surprises there...), being broke led me to take on practical work (machine operation and engineering), moving upward into supervisory positions very quickly. This was not my intention: I am a technical rather than people-oriented person, but I had an ability to make things happen that automatically shunted me into this position. I am wondering if my broad studies in science, philosophy, anthropology, religion, animal behaviour and mechanics finally coalesced somehow into a general understanding of systems, including human systems. I have always been a focus-less geek, with no specific passion, but interested in learning almost any topic that I came across.

Middle management is a tricky place to be; on one side are capricious bosses and 'extroverted' (aka slippery) salespeople; on the other side, manual labourers with a limited skill set and variable motivation. A typical worker will do the absolute minimum required for their salary, collect as many perks as possible and check out their facebook whenever they think the boss isn't watching. A proportion of workers even deliberately sabotage the workplace, for entertainment or just... a bad habit?
Generally, people are unaware of their own behaviour, and, well... unaware in general (that's the blessing of the blue pill).

In the past, these behaviours would frustrate me to the point of rage. I viewed their behaviour as unethical, lazy and in some cases, borderline criminal... all of which which was true. I spent countless hours trying to figure out WHY people were so awful and useless. They just seemed so random; I couldn't figure it out.
Now, I have realised that co-workers are merely representative of the human population in general, and that human beings are fundamentally, uh.... apes with tech.... mostly blue-pill people.... something like that. Their worlds are VERY SMALL, very ego-based, and mostly unconscious: (me, what I want, what I look like, hanging with friends/family, what's for lunch, TV, sex, sleep). I don't state that from a position of superiority; just an observation of regular human drives and human behaviour. I came to the conclusion that it didn't matter WHY people behaved as they did; it was no more relevant than asking WHY a dog behaves like a dog, or a frog behaves like a frog, or a tree behaves like a tree. It just is one.
Humans weren't random at all; in fact they were quite predictable in their actions and reactions.

The new question was HOW I was going to exist in the world of blue-pill people.

Work involves repeated, compulsory exposure to the same group of people in the workplace; people who I would never choose to associate with, outside of work.
Given that they will not (or would not) change their behaviour, I had to develop strategies to deal with these people.
Given that I need an income, and being an entrepreneur isn't practical for everybody.....

My method for staying sane at work (or anywhere else) aka what I wish I had known aged 20:

1. In the first year of employment anywhere, develop in-depth knowledge of the field along with applied skills and grasp of company function inside and out. This allows me to move upward quickly and change jobs more easily. I don't mean "try hard to impress", or "fit in", I mean learn, observe and act. This includes observation and understanding of people.

2. Understanding that the majority of workers do NOT prioritise their work above other activities. Primarily a job is to earn money to fund their lifestyle. Learning from this: I need to be energy-efficient in the workplace and not waste time complaining to myself or others about their behaviour. They simply value different things. If I find myself churning excessively over a work situation, I should look at making changes as points 4 and onward.

3. Becoming a better person/worker myself: communicating effectively with subordinate workers, giving clear instructions and developing compassion and respect toward people I am supervising. Protecting them from other bosses who are unscrupulous or hostile, by anticipating issues and solving them before the workers are involved; such that their work is continually effective. They are often getting paid very little and appreciate a decent boss. Output increases (therefore other bosses keep off my back and get to take the credit) and many allies in the workforce are won in this way, both superiors and subordinates. Most people just want the day to pass as painlessly as possible (there's that blue pill again).

4. Protecting my attention/mind in this way: I concentrate on doing my job, focussing my time and attention on meeting the needs of my subordinates, rather than my superiors. I realise that this seems counter-intuitive, but it achieves results (as above) and keeps my attention/mind under my authority (red pill again). I don't ignore or defy my superiors in the hierarchy - the purpose of directing my attention is to divert my mind from injustices such as co-workers who are slacking, or incompetent bosses who are undeserving of their position. This is a common occurrence in workplaces, and requires a strategy to deal with... as it is not sensible to ditch a job every time I come across an incompetent boss or co-worker.

5. Identifying and avoiding interaction with destructive co-workers or bosses whenever possible. Being VERY careful with written communication in particular, as it is easily taken out of context and used as "evidence" by malicious co-workers. Toxic people in a workplace are like the agents of the matrix; it is important to keep hidden that you are a red-pill person (I am not talking about hiding ASD/spectrum here by the way, I am talking about hiding the fact that you know they are a toxic person) By toxic person I mean people whose behaviour is deliberately nasty, not just unkind or thoughtless.
Identifying entrenched (long term employee) toxic co-workers, putting a time limit on how long I can tolerate their behaviour and whether they are likely to leave the company prior to the expiration of my deadline. Keep time exposed to entrenched toxic co-workers to 6 months or less. I have a policy of no conflict or complaint regarding entrenched toxic co-workers. I just leave.

6. Identifying beneficial and morally upright co-workers, and cultivating strong work relationships with them (other red-pill people, or agreeable blue-pill people). It appears that 4-10 members are required (proportional to the size of the company), to reduce bullying by toxic co-workers, or being over-run by incompetent ones. Having one or two red-pill friends will likely be insufficient to sustain energy at work in the long term (interestingly, the same numbers work in highschool...)
Blue-pill people must also be in the group, to avoid an "us vs them" mentality. However, I do not recommend attempting to "convert" blue pill people to red pills. They are likely to be quite content as they are. When joining a new company, closely observe the behaviour of all staff members over the course of 1 year to determine if there are sufficient numbers to establish myself. If there are not, consider moving jobs within 3 years as per points 7 and 8.

7. Moving into a company with more top-bottom hierarchy, and less of the open-plan office "team" (prone to attracting a group of equally lazy, equally self-serving, equally ineffectual "team players"). Top-bottom hierarchy has more clearly defined roles and offers opportunities for expanding moral leadership in the workplace as point 3 and 4 above). The group of beneficial co-workers in point 6 above, are best located throughout the hierarchy, rather than on one level. Consider moving out of the corporate "bubble", which is removed from practical tasks and tangible objects. Also, consider moving from work that deals with vague objectives and external clients toward work which requires directing a group to achieve concrete outcomes.

8. Moving sideways into a different field (from engineering I moved into plant propagation and wholesale business/logistics), because different fields attract different "types" of people, who could have more integrity and gentler social ways, higher levels of co-operation vs competition and so on.

9. when considering each change in employment direction above, consider other factors that will be influencing thoughts and decision making, such as: health and fitness levels, suitable diet and sleep, relationships... what else is going on in life that is colouring views of the situation?

10. Throughout your life, study your own consciousness. I don't mean pop psychology and horoscopes; I mean biology, social psychology, cultural symbols, anthropology, history, religion, cosmology... and also ecology and plant and animal systems. These fields give deeper understanding of human behaviour than social etiquette class does.... because we know that people don't generally behave as they "ought". These fields also open the door for greater connection of yourself to worlds much larger than human society, and ways to create meaning in a world where there isn't any.

damn that red pill, hey.....

ManBrain, I agree with you about you said about coworkers and bosses. I think it is very important to be able to identify toxic coworkers and bosses so you can limit your interaction with them and watch what you say around them. Many people will do the bare minimum at their jobs. There are some people that will try to sabotage their coworkers and bosses. I have learned to observe how everybody interacts with each other on the job and watch out for alliances. I am careful about what I say to people and who I say things to.

Well to the guy who wrote what looks a mini dissertation for a doctorate degree on human work pathologies, great job but you are not any different. You're at your job to collect a paycheck too.

I don't think it's as simple as dividing people into colored pills. And if we do, isn't it natural that we automatically chose ourselves as belonging to the favored color?

I may not be overly fond of my coworkers but I can't demonize them so I can feel better about myself. They are just like me in that they are there to do a job and get paid. We are not volunteers. Is it toxic at times to me as an autistic person who doesn't need to play games? Yes it is.

Learning systems and people only does so much unless you have the requisite social skills to make the best use of it. Almost being a sociopath would be a possible benefit for a person to rise up. To an extent you need to be able to manipulate people. Do it in such a way that nobody even notices.

manBrain - very good thoughts.

I'm actually liking what I hear from Bret Weinstein increasingly because he seems to do a good job of putting these things, maybe less directly workplace but sociology and politics writ large, effectively in an evolutionary psychology lens.

As far as getting to know myself - I have got nuts on that already. I went as far actually as studying for several years with some Golden Dawn diaspora Qabalistic and tarot symbolism and study related orders. I've also got an anthology of Nietzche that I'm trying to work into when I find available time (for the moment I'm glutted so its tough) and Franz Kafka's The Castle is also on my night stand to-read list. Often enough when I wasn't reading Manly P Hall or something like that I was listening to Sam Harris, Jordan Peterson, or anyone who I could find of that caliber of conversation.

I think with what you said about the inherent unconsciousness of other people, part of why it's so tough to relate is my life has been the polar opposite (and I think it's true of many of us) - nothing came easy and I had to be excruciatingly self aware to even survive. To live in such a different circumstance has secondary and tertiary consequences that other people can hardly imagine much like just living in the flow and hardly needing to try is something that has similar secondary and tertiary consequences I could hardly begin to imagine. In fact I think most of my remaining 'social skills deficits' from my 20's onward have been much less about lacking social common sense and much more with just being on a different development path and most things coming out of my mouth being on topic but not the exact thing everyone else would think of - which people consider jarring if you're constantly novel or different in your reactions.

Also, with the doing the minimum or hating to learn new things - I think this is where I do outstrip other people. Part of that, I'm sure, is having a so-called disability and needing to pull in any advantage I possibly can just to survive. The good news right now is I'm programming and new tasks are something I can build an increasing pool of resources for that don't liquidate from task to task. I think over time things will get better here but it's always that first year or two that's terrifying because it seems like all it takes is for people to find you a bit odd or to doubt you because they can't understand you and a job can either terminate prematurely or you end up having a temp to hire end without hire.

Hm, interesting interpretations there....

Regarding the idea that "red pill" is a preferred colour; that is not my point at all.
In fact, many times in my life I wished I was part of the "blue pill" majority, whose lives seemed much easier, happier and more successful. They just seemed so... together... both in themselves and with each other.

There are many reasons why the "red" aspect of human consciousness awakens, and not all of those awakenings occur as a choice: sometimes life events remove the blue lenses from our eyes. Sometimes people are born with a red-style brain/mind/consciousness. I also think that people with certain brain injuries, unusual sensory processing, high IQ (or especially a combination thereof), are likely to have "red pill" lives. Those lives are not always enviable.

Significantly, "blue pill" people seek to induce "red pill" consciousness when they take psychoactive drugs, and/or enter a trance state. They experience the transience and fluidity of so-called reality. It's called a trip. A journey. But they like to come back, and talk about how amaaazing it was. Not so amazing, to be stuck there forever....

I would also point out that psychopaths fall within the red pill category, as they too have realised that there is NO inherent meaning, morality or structure in the world, and this frees them from pesky blue-pill ideas like laws, decency, or consequences. Having first-hand experience of psychopaths (real ones, that is, not pop-psych narcissists), I have no hesitation in describing them as demons, in human form; I also know the difference between them and lazy co-workers, who I do not "demonize".

So clearly, red and blue pills are not a value-based system of categorising people, but a metaphor for aspects of human consciousness. Any communication automatically involves a NOT function (when I say "up", I mean NOT "down"). It is impossible to communicate, without categories.

The OP was essentially a question regarding how to deal with the realisation that human existence (macrocosm) represented by a professional office job (microcosm), is a "chaotic, terrifying, and too often breathtakingly irresponsible mess"... and the effect that this may have on psychological and spiritual wellbeing.

The core issue is: if an individual has red-pill realisation, or their developmental path has coalesced into a red-vision, it is important to establish some kind of order/structure, to limit the travel into the "rabbit hole" of infinite consciousness, as this journey is one of disconnect, fragmentation and ultimately, loss of sanity (think bad trip ad infinitum).
Another way of looking at the situation: it is not the corporate culture per se that poses the greatest danger to psychological and spiritual wellbeing, but an un-regulated flood of red-pill realisation.
It is also a crossroads of sorts: whereas blue-pill people can be "nice" or "mean", red pill people can use their consciousness for good or evil (yep, categories again!).

For these reasons, I recommend developing relationships with decent blue-pill people, to keep structure and attachment to society. Limiting exposure to toxic enviroments i.e the forces of chaos (including red-pill people of the unwholesome kind) is also important to maintain a balanced mentality.