Nova Daily - 6 June 2025: Workplace envy
Hi!
Today I spent about an hour and a half on a call with a friend who's abroad. She's encountering a specific problem within their current field of work.
Workplace envy
My friend is ambitious and has some great business ideas for the work that she does. She loves to come up with new projects and gets things done. On the surface she seems like an ideal colleague and employee: she's upbeat, ambitious, eager to work, and gets results.
And that's the one thing that her business school has never taught her. This is the one thing that Robert Greene acknowledged, the thing that set off his career. Because as it is, she does everything right.
Only gods and the dead can seem perfect with impunity.
- Robert Greene, The 48 Laws of Power, "Law 46: Never Appear Too Perfect"
In an earlier call with her, she shared with me that she was astonished to realise that people around her were not as eager to learn and open to new influences as she had expected. This is a typical form of projection: because she is eager and open to new influences, she mistakenly thought that those qualities are universal. People tend to be more rigid and cling to their old beliefs and systems much more. You can easily find this out for yourself if you go to a different place and try to get your own ideas across.
Today my friend complained to me that she was going through a rough time at her work because she has increasing difficulties getting her ideas across. She's being overloaded with work, to the point that just getting up and walking around for two minutes is already too much wasted time. It takes a toll on her mental health, and the work that others should do for her sometimes don't get done.
The horrible truth that I can't shield her from is that she's dealing with workplace envy. People in the workplace also want to get things done. They feel entitled to great things, promotions, recognition. No-one wants to feel like they are inferior. What I think is happening there is that envy has taken root. People within her job are setting her up to fail and trying to provoke her into making a mistake so they can get rid of her.
Hardly anyone will ever admit to this, but this is what can happen if people feel outflanked. And envy is a very hard thing to circumnavigate, especially when it has already been growing inside the people that you have to deal with.
Today's game
I did have thoughts on today's rapid game, but I couldn't bring myself to put them into words. I decided to give myself a break and play bullet. And in the very first bullet game I played, I had to face off against a streamer that I've respected for such a long time: WIM Svitlana Demchenko, whom I even mentioned her in my blog on youth players.
I quite simply forgot my opening prep and had to fight a tough battle. Good stuff, and my opponent played well. Tomorrow I'll be looking into the matter further.
