What is a PUA kind of workplace

 

Since leaving conventional employment over 10 years ago, I have been fascinated by modern developments and ideas about how local workplaces have evolved over the years. I will write about something new I have learned about the world of work. 

So, this particularly toxic work culture belonged to a financial institution that has been paying solid dividends into my pocket for quite some time now, and a friend who worked there described how their middle managers are trained to handle their subordinates.

According to my friend, the management culture wants its employees to always be filled with self-doubt. Sometimes, managers criticise their employees' grammar, accusing them of using English worse than a primary school student. Other managers will criticise your approach to work—if you devise some initiative to do something, it will always be wrong, and a better approach will always be shared with you. 

As it turns out, the people from the PRC were the first employees to figure out something was wrong. They said that this is called PUA work culture in China. It is a management philosophy derived from pick-up artist books like The Game by Neil Strauss. In these books, there is a technique used by pick-up artists called negging, where a pick-up artist approaches a woman in a singles bar and then criticises her continuously to lower her self-esteem; the idea is that it's easier to get a one-night stand with a woman who thinks lowly of herself. 

My friend is naturally furious that he is being manipulated by middle managers at work. So, he now asks me whether dividends and passive income can be used to wage war in the office, given that he's no slouch in the passive income department. His idea is to fight back to challenge any middle manager who questions his ability - he is, in my view, correct to believe that any supervisor who is decked head to toe in designer suits and Rolexes is no match to a dividends-earning Uniqlo uncle who is ready to make a case to HR. 

Of course, I was flattered by his suggestion, but I told him to think twice before doing this. The logic is that many Gen X workers may be collecting rent and dividends from multiple sources, and if we are too eager to fight in front of HR, it will create a disincentive for such banks/MNCs to hire a 50-something-year-olds in the future because they might be secretly a landlord. 

This can make ageism worse in Singapore. 

I offer an alternative. 

If you can already identify that someone is deliberately trying to lower your self-esteem, you've won half the battle because you know it's not a performance issue. Secondly, as you can live on your dividends, you can start playing a nefarious game of your own because every month you earn an income is a month you pick up a few victory points and can continue playing this game until the next 360 appraisals. 

The game is simple. 

(1) Challenge yourself to block criticism, preferably with a proper tech tool. The most common criticism is concerning grammar. Would it be possible to pay for a Grammarly subscription and then chain ChatGPT and Grammarly together to write your documentation. A paid version of Grammarly can even teach you a thing or two about Grammar rules. Make your manager fight Grammarly, not you. 

(2) Distract him with a glaring flaw. Sometimes, there is no AI to help refine your work, so there's no way to escape criticism, deliberately make a big glaring flaw and be ready with an amendment. Your manager may be so pleased with himself that he will approve your second draft. 

(3) "Greyrock" your manager. Sometimes, your manager wants to elicit suffering, pain, and drama because they are attention seekers and inspire fear. The defence is to adopt the personality of Grey Rock and be pleasant but bland so that the manager will pick on someone else. 

(4) Be careful and document everything. If the manager makes a contrarian suggestion about how you can do your work better, he will eventually contradict himself. Then you can bring up the contradiction in front of other staff. If you do this in front of your supervisor, you might have to start brushing up your resume. 

Of course, if all else fails, you can invoke HR and fight like my friend suggested, and if you lose the battle, turn to Glassdoor to air your grievances. In this case, he can even attend the AGM as a shareholder. However, you need to ensure that you do not commit defamation while doing that. I think the better winning move is to collect 12 paychecks just to mess up your manager in the next appraisal exercise. 

Techniques like malicious compliance and passive aggression can help you see how long you can play the game with your manager.  You can Google them.

Finally, middle managers should worry about folks quietly accumulating dividends in the background. While passive income is small, the employee is ideal - he will accept a lot of iniquity in the workplace because he still needs a job to get even more dividend income. 

But suddenly, once a threshold is crossed, he can be a living nightmare once there is evidence of employee abuse. 

As such, employees who are always dressed in designer gear and have the best holidays are safe because they are stuck with golden handcuffs and will be obedient in the workplace. However, beware of the guy who eats chai png every day and spends most of his time in libraries. 

You will not know what kind of a monster he can become once he is financially free.