>>10935703Every human endeavor has politics, anon. I work in an engineering firm, and these are some examples of it:
- Artificially adjusting technical requirements to favor one specific provider (e.g. demanding a higher isolation rating or a shorter arc extinction time than necessary if that means the others will fall short).
- Controlling the flow of information to subcontractors and final clients.
- Assigning priorities and allocating resources to projects based on long time strategies. Some clients can wait longer than others.
- Getting to know the hierarchy of the corporations your firm is working for: there might be power struggles or different departments competing for funding. If that's the case, simple things like who you consult first or whose suggestions you incorporate into the design might have ramifications down the lane.
- Sharing technical information/solutions/doing favors to colleagues in competing firms.
Of course, there are internal politics as well. If you are an engineer assigned to two projects with different leaders, planning your working hours to keep them both happy, or favoring one while bullshitting the other is basic office politics. You might come to learn that one of them is planning to retire soon, or that he's eyeing a new job, and play your cards accordingly.
I have no experience with gender politics or whatever other insanity you seemed to have gathered from my earlier post, and I'm sorry if that's what you have to deal with. Not being from an anglo country probably helps. The few women I work with are there based on merit and they get no free lunches.
