The situation
My office is full of gossip and cliques. People form little alliances, talk about each other behind closed doors, and the ones who flatter the boss seem to get ahead. I don’t want to play the game, but I worry that staying out of it is costing me.
Your situation, reframed
AI interpretationIt is wearing to work somewhere that seems to reward the wrong things, and your frustration is understandable. The Stoic view is that you cannot control the culture, but you can control what you take part in, what you believe, and what you are willing to trade for advancement. Staying out of the game has a cost, but so does playing it, and only one of those costs is paid in your character.
The dichotomy of control
AI interpretationYours to act on
- Whether you repeat gossip or let it stop with you
- How quickly you believe what you hear about colleagues
- Doing good work and making it visible in straightforward ways
- Building honest working relationships across the groups
Not yours
- Who forms alliances with whom
- What others say about you when you are not there
- Whether your manager is swayed by flattery
- The culture of the organisation as a whole
The Stoics said
Verbatim from the source · full citationsMarcus Aurelius, Meditations 3.4
Do not waste the remainder of thy life in thoughts about others, when thou dost not refer thy thoughts to some object of common utility. For thou losest the opportunity of doing something else when thou hast such thoughts as these, What is such a person doing, and why, and what is he saying, and what is he thinking of, and what is he contriving, and whatever else of the kind makes us wander away from the observation of our own ruling power. …
Seneca, On Anger 2.24
Readiness to believe what we hear causes very great mischief; we ought often not even to listen, because in some cases it is better to be deceived than to suspect deceit. We ought to free our minds of suspicion and mistrust, those most untrustworthy causes of anger. “This man’s greeting was far from civil; that one would not receive my kiss; one cut short a story I had begun to tell; another did not ask me to dinner; another seemed to view me with aversion.” Suspicion will never lack grounds: what we want is straightforwardness, and a kindly interpretation of things. …
Epictetus, Enchiridion 25
… For how can a man obtain an equal share with another when he does not visit a man’s doors as that other man does, when he does not attend him when he goes abroad, as the other man does; when he does not praise (flatter) him as another does? You will be unjust then and insatiable, if you do not part with the price, in return for which those things are sold, and if you wish to obtain them for nothing. Well, what is the price of lettuces? An obolus perhaps. …
What this means here
AI interpretationMarcus Aurelius, Meditations 3.4
Marcus lists the very thoughts that office politics breeds: what is this person doing, what are they saying, what are they plotting. He treats them as a waste of a limited life unless they serve some common good. He also sets himself a test worth borrowing: think only what you would be comfortable admitting if someone suddenly asked what was on your mind.
Translation note: Common utility means the common good. The ruling power is your own reasoning mind.
Seneca, On Anger 2.24
Seneca’s list of imagined slights could come from any office: a curt greeting, being interrupted, not being invited to dinner. Gossip feeds on exactly this kind of suspicion, and suspicion always finds evidence. His alternative is to be slow to believe what you hear, to choose the kinder reading where the facts allow it, and to notice how often your suspicions turn out to be groundless.
Epictetus, Enchiridion 25
Epictetus is frank about how favour works: those who flatter and attend on the powerful are paying a price, and they receive what they paid for. If you refuse to pay, you cannot fairly expect the same reward, but you have not come away empty-handed. You have kept the self-respect you declined to sell. That turns a grievance into a choice: each time, you can decide whether the trade is worth making.
Translation note: An obolus was a small coin. To attend someone when he goes abroad means to escort him when he goes out in public, the ancient equivalent of being seen at the right person’s side.
Read together, the passages separate the game from your part in it. Seneca helps you stop feeding on rumour, Marcus helps you stop spending your attention on other people’s schemes, and Epictetus makes plain that refusing to flatter has a price you are choosing to pay, not a penalty imposed on you. What is left is straightforward: do good work, be fair to everyone, including people in other camps, and let your reputation rest on that.
One action for today
AI interpretationPause before you judge · the discipline of assent
For the next week, borrow the test from Marcus’s passage: if someone suddenly asked what you were thinking about a colleague, could you answer openly? Apply the same rule to speech, and say nothing about a colleague that you would not be comfortable saying in front of them. When you hear something troubling about yourself or someone else, hold off acting on it until you have checked it directly with the person concerned or seen the evidence for yourself.
A line to carry
“Suspicion will never lack grounds: what we want is straightforwardness, and a kindly interpretation of things.”
— Seneca, On Anger 2.24