In the universe of “disappointing truths,” in a work context, your client or boss will always judge you in relation to who you hang out with, socially talk to, sound like, and even look like.
Let’s take a very hypothetical example. Imagine there’s a small pharma company in which the CEO hires you to help figure out their growth strategy. The company is run by an MBA savvy business guy, and his business-y lieutenants are those closest to him. Great guys, so don’t negatively interpret that.
After these 10 guys at the top, there are then 90 scientists. PhDs, often geniuses, each one more of a scientist stereotype than the next. They dress in the same clothing for days on-end, showering in the French style, each focused on thinking about that one scientific problem and little else. Each of them also has worse social skills than the one before.
Of course, the MBAs each make 30x what the scientists do.
This is a very typical company configuration, one without a “middle class” layer in-between. This is particularly common in over-grown small companies, as well as in companies in which the revenue is derived from selling hours of time of those with low salaries.
Now, imagine you appear in this situation. The outside consultant, helping them with some angle of what they’re trying to do.
You, being you, aren’t one of the scientists, but you’re also not hired as the VP of Product. You’re just a freelancer, an outside consultant, trying to help them out, doing what you can.
Here’s the thing. If you become BFFs with all the scientists (they all go to lunch together every day, and you go to lunch with all of them; they all share memes on the company WhatsApp chat, and you share memes just like the others; they all make fun of idiosyncrasies A, B, and C at the company) then how will “Management” view you? Over time, you’ll just be one of them. No matter how great your work is, you’ll just be one of them.
The problem with being one of them is, in this type of company, you’ll be treated exactly like one of them in every way—including keeping your salary to the lowest possible level. And who wants that?
This is just one possible hypothetical type of company, and one type of arrangement. But this general situation is very common, and you should challenge your own imagination to try to envision other types of scenarios in which this may or may not apply to you and your situation. The more general framing is: by dint of being new at a job or being an outside consultant, you are an outsider. If you aspire to be an insider, the reality is that there are various sub-groups of insiders, in recursive circles all the way down to the “individual” levels. So, the question really is: which group of insiders do you want to be like? And there’s no right or wrong answer to that, it depends on your objectives in this project. If a few rich guys run a company of minimum wage Portuguese teachers all of whom teach classes while hanging out on Leblon, and you’re a 21-year-old recent college graduate, hired as a graphic designer, but you really just want to have fun and party on the beach—then have fun hanging out with the teachers and not the managers. In fact, that’s precisely what I would do if I were in your situation, and what I have done in many comparable situations.
