Is it ethical to outperform your peers?

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It may well be. The thing is, I'm obsessive. I *need* to have soemthign to do or interest me, and since I have this work ethic idea that it's theivery not to work when someone is paying you to do so, I work obsessively. I would do the exact same thing even without peers around....I just wouldn't compete for my favorite tasks. Instead I'd be competeing against myself, to see if I could do it faster or better or more efficiently, etc.

Don't kid yourself, the American workplace *is* competitive. It's just not an overt thing. The best thing you can do is compete against yourself. Hold yourself accountable for achieving excellence. Don't compare yourself to others.

Excellent advice! After all, if we compete with others, then we are limiting our potential to their level. If we compete with ourselves, we have no limits to our potential!

Here is a quote that makes the bulk of my point better than I likely could........


" The only people for me are the mad ones, ............... the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous fo everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue center light pop and everybody goes, AWWWWWWWW ! !! "
- Jack Kerouac, On The Road

There can often be a fine line between fighting for what is " right" or fair and not being able to appriciate anthing one does have that is good. I am afraid "ethics" tends to be(all all too often ) decided by the ole " majority rules mentality. At least in "real" day to day situations.

It is important though to make sure of what your responsabilites figuratively, literally are.
Most jobs come with a written statement, If u want more than to just get by then the only choice is to expand that ideal. The difference does not nessesarily require " ruthless" choices. Most all of the truely geat people, leaders either by innovation or with people directly that I have known or read about, speak ot ultimate /time proven truths like; "You are only as strong as those whom u lead"- unknown name , " Ask not what your teammates can do for u. Ask what u can do for your teammates."- Magic Johnson/ (L.A Lakers B.Ball fans should get this one.)

The" truth "seems to be in the balance, Balance by it's very nature should not dictate that u cannot be the best u can be because someone else just does not really care about themselves or others.

If all else fails, or you cannot be clear as to if u have , all be it unintentionall, stepped on someone elses toes, ( and there is not an issue of life and death involved.) Try backing off. If there are good people involved, they will likely respect getting carried away (a well thought out apology might help in this case also).
If their intentions were insincere, or down right dishonest, u will likly figure that out fairly quickly. If u are like me and the state of boardom very quickly becomes a worse fate than death, at least then u will have some clear priorities to work with.

One last thought, If u come to the conclusion that u have been as fair, considerate, efficiant as is possiable (by at least your own heart, conscience) .......... and u decide to push forward towards a higher standerd, just remember that u may very well someday find yourself in the company of truely great people like Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein........If those men had allowed themselves to get caught up in " the Disease of me"-(from PatRriley's book) or accepted mediocratie just to belong , The world would have missed out on quite alot . I hope those who read this will forgive my poor spelling and possiably grammer as well. I am tring to improve that.

I was diag. w/ AS rather late in life, It was always clear I was different. However, it proved slightly short of impossiable to find a usable solution without having the right "problem" to "calculate" an effective solution. I do not have all the answers by any means, just some very hard learned life experience to work with here. I hope this might help, I would like to hear If It does. rwac86

you should always do best. It is not fair to yourself to hold back to match your coworked. The key if possible is to tell supervisor that you are unconfortable with public praise and you do not want to have your efforts held up to others to follow.
with luck he/she will realize that they have a good employee and will honor your wishes.At worst they ignore you

First post to the forums, so forgive me if I break any rules of these forums (odd saying that on an aspie forum...)...

The place I work at, I had known the manager for 3 years before I started working there. We didn't know each other well, but we had seen lots of each other (I used to go their for lunch every other day - its a pizza place). One day she asked me if I wanted a job, and so me and my friend applied. She told me later I was the only reason she hired him - hoping that the people I hung around might be as good of people as me.

Three days after working their, one of the other staff quit - I had been doing such a good job that by the end of the first week, I was on the ovens (normally takes a month or two to get that far). He simply didn't want to work that hard, but didn't want to get crap from the bosses, so he quit. A few weeks later my friend quit as well, because he wasn't able to work as hard as me.

In the time I've worked their, I've become good friends with the manager, the owners, and the suprevisor (who has since left for a better job offer). But every new kid we hire, quits after a while, expressing allot of anger/resentment towards me. Partly I think its because the bosses let me boss them around (I know what I'm doing, they don't, and sometimes I have a harsh way of putting things), but mostly I think its because none of them want to work as hard as I do.

Is this wrong to do? The owners love me for it, the manager loves me for it. I take the workload off of both of them by working harder, so I make their lives easier. I get priveldges because of it that no other employee has ever gotten (ie, free greek food from their other restaurant, not even the manager has ever gotten that, I choose my shifts pretty much however I want to, to a degree, and I get most of what I eat and drink for free). I get paid slightly better than other people that have worked in the same job, and I receive more tips from customers for the store (split tips). All because I work harder than others.

But also because I work harder than others, I get crap from other employees. Not only at the restaurant I work at, but the other restaurants. The other cooks hate me, because my kitchen is so clean all the time, and all the work is usually done as far as preparation goes. One of the other cooks loves me, because I help him out when I'm done my work, and were pretty good friends. But other than that, most staff hate me. The delivery drivers hate me, because I push them so hard because the orders are ready faster when I cook things. The new kids hate me, becuase they always look slow compared to me (not that they couldn't work like I do, but they choose not to, or in some cases, can't physically keep up).

So in one way I screw myself, yet in another I bring great benefits to myself. I guess its a balance - what is more important, tikcing off some employees and keeping the bosses good friends, or being friends with most employees and having the bosses hate you? I choose to work hard for the manager, because she's a good friend.

Indeed they do. But if the tables were turned and they had the superior abilities, 99% of those same people wouldn't give a rat's ass about you, based on my experience.

I think you're lucky. You could be in the situation I often find myself in: having the manager hate you because you pose a threat to them. This is common in the tech industry. What you are doing is the right thing: working hard, getting rewarded. I've heard a rumor that those things exist, but never before have I seen proof. You are truly blessed!

There is the 'tall poppy' syndrome and if your major strength is that you work hard, you tend to find that it causes a 'rift' in the social network which can unbalance things.

What can happen then is that other employees will slack off so that you end up under too much pressure, or those other employees will collude to sabotage your efforts. The managers usually like to take a back seat on this, to see how things develop, coming down on the side that they find most amusing.

I have been in and out of (mostly menial) jobs for around 25 years and the basic patterns are very much the same. There's the 'official policy' of meritocracy, where hard work brings rewards and so forth, then there is the 'hidden agenda', whereby people are generally conspiring to do as little as possible, find the cosiest position available, all the while sucking up to the boss while stabbing their colleagues in the back. Then you have people forming temporary 'alliances' in order to cement their own position in the social hierarchy or pecking order. It creates a ruthless sense of competition which pleases the bosses, because while people are busily stabbing and hacking at each other (in a manner of speaking), they are not turning their attention against the real architects of their oppression, which are the bosses themselves.

One way of cementing loyalty is to hold out the hope of a managerial or supervisory position to any employee who is deemed 'suitable' or 'appropriate', or some other way of securing privilege or advantage. Something that is rarely questioned or challenged, is just precisely what attributes are considered 'suitable' or 'appropriate'. Many optimists would suggest that loyalty, honesty, integrity, hard work and all those other fine qualities are what make people suitable for promotion and pay increases. I would beg to differ however, as most of what engenders promotion and advancement is the ability to conceal a thoroughly manipulative, calculating and cynical mind-set which makes it possible to gain the ascent in the dog-eat-dog corporate arena. I have never been adept at playing these political, back-stabbing games because it is imposible to keep track of all the variables or to discern the underlying motives of your enemies around you. It is a mistake to think that anybody in the workplace is a 'friend', they are at best temporary allies who momentarily may have a vested interest that is congruant with your own. Oddly enough, it is the sociopath and narcissistic personality disordered people who are actually best at playing these games, as they frequently become quite successful in the corporate world and can rise to quite a prominent position in the hierarchy.

One thing that is interesting is that although there is much that is arguably worth fighting for on a professional career ladder (Law, IT, Accounts, Engineering, Realty (or Estate Agency/Property), etc), even the shabbiest, lowliest types of job attracts this sort of back-stabbing behaviour and political shennanigans. These problems arise wherever there are people. I hope there is a lesson to be learned there.

It has to be remembered that most people are not paid the value of the work they perform and although at some level, many employees have the intelligence to recognise this fact, many also hope that by 'playing the system', they can find a way of closing the gap between the value of what they do and what they get in their pay packet each week or month. The real purpose behind all these social shennanigans is to obscure people's recognition of this central facet of reality.

There really is no such thing as "A fair day's work for a fair day's pay.", it is pure mythology.

Wow. If you write a book on this topic, I promise to buy it! I've never heard it explained better. Thank you for the insight, Adversarial!

In my current job, I don't think anyone is resented for outperforming. The MGT's (assistant managers) use it as a motivator: "Hey, if Kyle can sell that many, then you can too!"

If anyone has a problem with you doing better, that's on them for not trying harder or not being willing to make the extra effort in doing a good job.

Way to go, Fooker!

Adversarial....right on the money


My job, working with 4 guys with DD, it is impossible not to "out preform" many of my co-workers...they have the basic mentality that because the pay is low, the less work they actually do, the more they are getting paid!Problem is, this isnt a factory making widgets...these are human beings who need attention and care!It really frustrates me because co-workers know that if they dont do something I will pick up their slack.Managers reward people based on their doing things for them and not doing things for clients.They actually lead one employee to believe he might become manager if he would come in when ever they called to take clients to DR apts, which was their job...the only "reward I get for doing a good job is that things are more organized so I can function better and the clients really like me....thats a pretty good reward....My co-workers dont resent me for doing more work because the bosses dont give concequences for being lazy.

If you are a slacker withour empathy or compassion...this is a great job for you!

I have worked other "menial" jobs that shared the sentiment that if you work less you are getting paid more,and if you work harder,producing more widgets, then you are messing with the natural order of things and expectations for everyone else will increase, which they resent.However,I hate standing around, and cant slow down without getting bored,so,I will put up with the scorn of peers and do what comes natural to me.

It's not a matter of ethics. It's a matter of superiority. People feel threatened when outperformed. That said, you should do your absolute best in everything in hopes of a promotion/raise, for more money gives you more time for yourself.

The reason I said "ethics" was because ethics describes a code of rules agreed upon by a society based on morality (or, in the business sense, legality). When you break that code, you are being unethical. Based on current social trends, it is becoming less acceptable to achieve. I believe this is largely due to the world's gradual shift towards Socialism.

The code of rules society appears to be agreeing on is to achieve equality in all things, from race to mental capability. Through the power of the media, Socialists have managed to make any distinctions between race, sex, and I.Q. immoral. This is why they hate religion so much, by the way; first, they have to get rid of pre-existing ideas of morality in order to replace it with their own. In the USSA, in particular, schools have successfully put into rules like not keeping score and come up with programs like "outcome-based education", which diminishes the drive to achieve (which is necessary for a person to even begin to accept Socialism in the first place).

I picked the option.

I am now in a position where I only compete with myself, workwise. My boss likes my work ethic; I work hard, get my stuff done on-time (usually early) and the managers of my stores that I visit don't hate me. They hate a lot of merchandisers and vendors because they think the majority of us make stuff harder for them. On the surface, it looks that way. But in the end, the 20 minutes they spend with me once a week, may in reality, save them hours. I say that I don't compete with anyone else because my boss is in another state, and the only other rep for our company in my city is servicing a different sector of the retail business. (I do office electronics and a few clothing stores. They do movies and gaming software. We only have about 5 stores in common, and we're in opposite ends of the store most days!)

When I was a Dilbert sorta person at an airline, I worked my bootay off. I was there for one reason only: to work. It was in my best interest to work. I was not there to socialize. I was not there to get a date, gossip or be a social butterfly. I worked hard, consistently got good reviews, and collected my raises with what my co-workers felt was distressing regularity and unfair generosity on my employer's part. But you see, my primary responsibility was to my well-being and to some extent, my family's. My being employed and well paid was good for my family as they did not have to worry about me. The only thing that I occasionally recieved negative feedback on was my lack of empathy with my co-workers. And since I was not actively disrupting or causing my co-workers distress, this was not commented on in my reviews. It literally had no bearing on my evaluations as a good little Dilbert. Technically speaking, the feedback was not even negative. It was commented on, but it didn't really effect me.

I guess I'm weird, but work is work and play is play. I am not defined by job or what my co-workers think of me. I am paid to work to the best of my ability just as my co-workers are. It is their responsibility to do their job to the best of their ability and it's not my job to make them look good. We rise or fall according to our own work ethic and it would be dishonest for me to work down to another's level. That being said, I don't think I am any better employee than anyone else in general. I work hard, in some cases I work harder than others due to the social requirements of my job ( I don't read body language as well, so interfacing with the people at the stores I service is hard sometimes. I especially get confused when their facial expressions and body language don't match the social niceties of polite speech.) I guess I expect people to work as hard as I do, and I've been told that since I am working harder to hit the same mark as others that I have an unfair expectation of my co-workers. It's probably why I do better now that I have a job where I'm my only competition.

Awesome! You're lucky to have such a job!! !