Nobody Told Us: The Unwritten Rules of Office Politics

Vimala Pydi[00:00]
Hello everyone, welcome back to Her Career Unplugged. Today we are going to go and speak about something very controversial. Just to set the stage, nobody told us that being excellent at your job is not the same as being seen for it. I want you to think about it. Being excellent at job is not the same as being seen for it. Nobody told us that meeting before the meeting is where the actual decisions happen. Nobody told us that likability and credibility can feel like they're pulling in opposite directions. feel the tension more than anyone. So in this episode we are going to pull back the curtain on those unwritten rules that we have at workplace. The office politics.

Vimala Pydi[00:53]
I think everyone would be thinking about, this is going to be something that I really want to learn. Some feel like it doesn't exist and some feel like, I'm living in it. Both I and Joanne were talking about it before we joined that we wish someone had sat us down on day one of our job and just gave us a rundown on how office politics plays. So with that, Joanne, I'll hand it over to you.

Joanne Skiles[01:20]
And that's the thing, is that when you start a job, every job has a job description, right? And a hopefully, hopefully an onboarding plan, roughly, right? And then sometimes you do have your manager or a mentor or a pairing buddy, but what you don't know is about, you know, theoretical name, Janice at the party planning committee that... Controls the entire system and you just made her upset because you did not like that She was eating a tuna sandwich So it's very important to understand those things and totally not something that happened to me, right? so by

Vimala Pydi[01:57]
Bye!

Joanne Skiles[01:59]
the time that you figure out what is going on and how your job actually works on a human element, you've already made mistakes and Decisions were made about you in rooms. You didn't know in meetings and rooms that you didn't know were meetings, right?

Vimala Pydi[02:18]
the decisions are made in the rooms that you are not present at. For me to understand that key point, it might have taken me at least six or seven years of my early career. So that's a very critical point and want our audience to understand that.

Joanne Skiles[02:35]
Yes, exactly. Decisions are made in rooms that you are not in. It is tough, but it is part of life and be it a physical room or a virtual room in 2026, right?

Vimala Pydi[02:47]
Yes.

Joanne Skiles[02:49]
So, Vimala, the first unwritten rule you learned the hard way was...

Vimala Pydi[02:57]
The first unwritten rule when I was young started at a of a starter culture kind of job where I didn't know that these groups were already made. There are like a group of people who work together or they have their own like a tight-knit group. And if you... say something to one person, you're replacing off the whole group. So that's something I didn't know. I didn't know anything about office dynamics. So that's the area maybe before the virtual times when I first started my job, those groups existed. Hopefully it's getting better now with all the virtual groups, but yes.

Joanne Skiles[03:45]
Yeah, I think that's a tough one. Personally, I kind of hinted at mine, right? My unwritten rule that I learned was don't mess with the party planning committee. They're cutthroat. Even if you think that you can get better cookies somewhere else, just don't tell them that.

Joanne Skiles[04:07]
What actually is office politics, right? When you hear office politics, what do you picture?

Vimala Pydi[04:17]
Yeah, I was really naive, Joanne, and we were kind of like prepping for it just before this talk to you saying that there is no way you can be out of office politics. You learn to kind of navigate through those where you're not involved, but you understand that you're still in someone's conversations. Just... understanding that and mentally being prepared for that is very critical in your career trajectory. have a story here like I'm going to

Joanne Skiles[04:54]
you

Vimala Pydi[04:55]
be very authentic and talk about it back with me and like it was a hurtful feeling to you. In one of the companies I worked with previously In my whole career journey, there was a point where I was working at a company which was highly political. And there were some changes that were made. And we are like, after 2020, see it a lot. Like there are organizational changes that are made without your input, right? So I was working on a I was put into a different team because the person I reported to left the company. And within the team, me coming from an Indian background, like the person I was working or reporting to was Indian, and there were like two others. who were part of that, who were into it. I was pretty much head start doing my work and as a mom at that stage my focus point was to balance out everything like trying to keep up with my family life and work so career was important but I was trying to balance it out and it was not part of office politics but later when I started working in few positions there I found out that people would call like this group as Indian Mafia I'm like what the hell what do you mean?

Joanne Skiles[06:21]
Hahaha

Vimala Pydi[06:22]
It felt like we were a very close-knit group and we are getting, a privilege in getting into the projects we wanted to because we were all part of that group, which is ridiculous. I hated the job. didn't want it to be part of the group. All our decisions were completely opposite. I was like totally tech heavy and the person I was reporting to had a different style of doing business. really ridiculous, I was hurt, was like what the hell does that even mean? When someone later told me about that I think that stuck to me but that's where like you don't want to be part of office politics you are? Yeah.

Joanne Skiles[07:05]
Yeah, but I think that's a great point there because also what I got from that is even though you didn't think you were part of the politics and actually you actually hated the whole group, right? You you just didn't enjoy it at all. Everybody else from the outside saw you involved in the politics. And the reality is, that office politics is something that you don't get to decide if you're part of or not. Like, spoiler, the only way that you can avoid office politics is if you become self-employed or have a business of one person. And then the only politics is yourself. But if you have split personality, maybe there'll still be politics, right?

Vimala Pydi[07:50]
Ha

Joanne Skiles[07:51]
So the point being is like, you were involved in it. Whether or not you liked it, you were part of it. You didn't even enjoy it. what, from the outside, people were looking at as a group that made tough decisions. And I mean, I'm hearing mafia. So I'm thinking like backstabbing, know, know, losing their way to the top and, know, making

Vimala Pydi[08:11]
Okay.

Joanne Skiles[08:16]
sure their group stays together no matter what, which, you know, that's what a lot of people think of for politics, right?

Vimala Pydi[08:22]
Right, and if I kind of think about it, I don't think there were any tough decisions made. was just a highly political workplace to be at.

Joanne Skiles[08:35]
I think it's really exciting because it's the perfect case study, honestly, for what is office politics, right? A lot of people

Vimala Pydi[08:43]
Yeah.

Joanne Skiles[08:43]
think backstabbing, tough group, kind of mean, but we're talking about a group with how decisions were made and a group who carried weight in those decisions, right? That was

Vimala Pydi[08:56]
Right.

Joanne Skiles[08:56]
your group. And really at the end of the day, that's something that everybody, can't just put your head in the sand and ignore. Like you have to understand how decisions are made. You have to understand what structure exists, be it formal or informally at a company. I'll talk about a very short part of it is like, for example, I had a co-founder at a certain company that Open to PR that was 40,000 lines of Okay. Vibed, obviously. Very vibe coded because that's just where we live in. But that was the founder of the company. The politics were a little more in your face, right? Like whether or not you like this, this was going into the code base. Good luck. But that's another thing of understanding how decisions are made. knowing whose opinions carry weight, no matter what you know is good practice or not good practice.

Vimala Pydi[10:01]
And also I think for all listeners, just going through as we were talking and reflecting through that certain example I gave, how I came out strong is still being authentic, doing what I did the best. And creating, I did eventually come out of it, right? That's how I created my own group and someone was kind enough to come and talk to me about what was happening before. just being authentic, I love being in the tech space and doing the best in the tech space. Did my certifications, always had my head up. And I did understand the organization. I did understand what was best for the organization and kind of like align myself to deliver, right? That helped me in that situation. But what would have helped me more is to kind of understand that if I knew that that was what the signal was to everyone else, maybe I would have brought it up to my mentor, right? that's the other area I would have kind of like if I had to go back and work that I would really get a good mentor in those difficult situations and kind of work it through a mentor as well.

Joanne Skiles[11:23]
I think it's a good point. a mentor, mentor that walks you through the dynamics of a group is really helpful. And actually in those places, it's a mentor that I feel is a little more equal footing with you. That's where having the work friend is really helpful. Like I had a mentor once very high up that I would meet with and I loved her as a person, but she was like, Joanne, who cares? Like good work is good work and it's gonna speak for itself, right? Like if you do a good job, they're gonna know. That's not actually true.

Vimala Pydi[12:02]
Yeah.

Joanne Skiles[12:04]
But having someone who's a little bit closer to you goes like, yeah, this is a good idea, but Jim's not going to like it unless you add AI to it somehow. You know, play the game a little bit.

Vimala Pydi[12:16]
Right.

Joanne Skiles[12:20]
having a mentor, I would say a mentor that's not been so removed from the game is really helpful. Someone who can still see, and yeah, I know I'm saying the game in this, but yes, office politics is unfortunately the game. It is something that no matter what, you're gonna have to play.

Vimala Pydi[12:45]
Right, yeah, just being authentic about it, right?

Joanne Skiles[12:48]
Yes, just be authentic. Don't be cutthroat. Don't be that person. Don't be the high school mean girl.

Vimala Pydi[12:52]
Yeah. True, true. Yeah.

Joanne Skiles[12:57]
They still exist, they just run the party planning committee.

Vimala Pydi[13:04]
True,

Joanne Skiles[13:04]
you

Vimala Pydi[13:05]
true. Just understanding those dynamics, acknowledge that it's there and build your strategy on how you're going to navigate through that. I guess that would be the more than a place like a strategy in your career, right? Like that's how you navigate through those.

Joanne Skiles[13:23]
Yes. So let's go back. Let's go back to your story, Vimala, because it is really important and it touches actually on a lot of unwritten rules,

Vimala Pydi[13:37]
Yes.

Joanne Skiles[13:38]
right? For example, your reputation will travel faster than you do, right?

Vimala Pydi[13:49]
percent.

Joanne Skiles[13:50]
People are gonna talk about you in rooms that you're not in. And... That's really tough. It gives that weird FOMO vibe

Vimala Pydi[14:01]
it.

Joanne Skiles[14:02]
of, my God, there is a meeting where they're talking. Actually, it's not even a FOMO vibe. It's just that paranoid vibe. Like, there's

Vimala Pydi[14:06]
Yeah

Joanne Skiles[14:09]
a meeting and they're talking about me, but I don't know what they're saying about me.

Vimala Pydi[14:15]
Yeah. Just being authentic, like I want to give another story just I shared it with the

Joanne Skiles[14:20]
Yeah, give it please.

Vimala Pydi[14:22]
one I was at a totally different city running something for AWS. And there was this gentleman who walked up to me and he was talking about community building. And they were talking about you, Joanne. I was so that was a proud moment for me. They were like saying like there's this amazing woman who builds community. She is a community builder. It's like not even in our city. It's a different city. We were in Fort Lauderdale. They were talking about you. Very proud moment. It's that where you are not in the group. You're authentic. You are trying to build something for our community in Orlando. And you had that vision to kind of bring Florida technologists together. That definitely played a role for everyone else to acknowledge it and speak about you when you're not in the room. You can't just go and try to wrangle that, right? Like you can't just say, hey, I want everyone to talk about me and I'm going to do this, this, this, this. I don't think that's how it works. It's more of being authentic, really put your effort in what you're good at, and it would speak for you when you're not there.

Joanne Skiles[15:37]
Yeah, I mean, I'm glad that someone said something nice about me without

Vimala Pydi[15:41]
They did it.

Joanne Skiles[15:43]
me being there. I've not thought about that. Like to me, that is extremely my passion. Right. So I am very intentional about everything that I do with building that space, because again, my passion is about growing people with growing people's knowledge of cloud computing, not just AWS, just happens to be AWS, right? But teaching people freely and making knowledge accessible for everybody, especially women in tech is very important to me. And that's why I do everything I do. It's like, if you are true to yourself, like you said, authentic and you do what defines you and what you want to do, that will speak to you outside. People are going to talk about you. You can't control how people perceive you and how people perceive you is their choice and how they choose to perceive you and not everybody's gonna like you and that's okay too. Like that's also part

Vimala Pydi[16:52]
Yes.

Joanne Skiles[16:56]
of life.

Vimala Pydi[16:58]
Yeah, yeah, don't be mean to everyone. you always like, I think it's one of the business schools too, like one of the area that we focus on, both the negative stakeholders and positive stakeholders when you're doing a project. It's similar to our own brand and the perception of us. There would be people who may not agree to what you do, and the other party may not believe in what you're believing, whether it's architecture, design, or whatever your passion is. That's okay. You still want to be pursued with what you believe in and what your main area of focus is.

Joanne Skiles[17:38]
you want to be visible. And

Vimala Pydi[17:40]
Yes.

Joanne Skiles[17:41]
being visible doesn't mean being the loudest person in the room. That's not good. That goes back to like your reputation. You're the loudest person in the room. You're just cutting people off. It's about making sure the right people know what you're doing and why you're doing it. And being visible is also asking questions when you don't understand something completely as well. Don't just hide because you don't know something. Because chances are, if you don't know it and you ask the question, someone else is like, thank goodness someone asked that question. So being visible is not just being the smartest person in the room. And actually being the smartest person in the room is not helpful. It doesn't grow. It doesn't grow others.

Vimala Pydi[18:26]
I totally agree, especially now with the AI space, we are accelerating on what we are releasing. There's so many newer solutions, newer tech spaces. I think not just tech, in every vertical that we see, there's something coming in every day. It's okay not to know everything and ask those questions. And as you mentioned, that's how you increase your visibility too, right?

Joanne Skiles[18:56]
Yeah, asking questions is very tough It's a human psychological instinct is like, we don't want to be perceived as weak, know, we're supposed to be

Vimala Pydi[19:05]
Yeah.

Joanne Skiles[19:05]
the person with the biggest stick and all that, right? So it's hard to ask questions and be vulnerable. But, and you guys are almost are gonna get me on another tangent, so I'm just gonna leave it at like a two second clip is just do not... outsource your thinking to AI. Because if you do, because you're confused and you use AI instead to think for you, you're never going to grow. So ask the question and actually learn it. Do not outsource your thinking. so going into it is being comfortable to ask questions means that you've created relationships with people. And you're not, we're not talking about making friends at work. And I know that's tough to hear it that way, but it means having allies at work. Because allies are different than friends and not everybody's going to be your friend at work and that's okay. But you need people that can support you. but more so advocate for you when you're not in the room. Asking questions, that's a person that you're comfortable asking, that mentor, whoever it is at that point, but it has to be people outside of your team.

Vimala Pydi[20:15]
Yes, it can be outside your organization too. I think for me at this level in my career, I'm seriously thinking to have a mentor outside my organization just to understand how to be great.

Joanne Skiles[20:32]
And the best way to get an ally, just the biggest, best way is be an ally.

Vimala Pydi[20:39]
Yes.

Joanne Skiles[20:40]
Be an ally first. Advocate for others. Give credit to other people publicly. Open doors for others when someone asks for help or raise a hand or something. Volunteer in that way because now you've created a relationship and it's better. Everything is better that way. You've helped someone else and, you know, eventually, karma comes back.

Vimala Pydi[21:07]
true. You just put the good into the universe, it comes back for sure. All right, so I have a question for you, Joanne.

Joanne Skiles[21:18]
Okay.

Vimala Pydi[21:18]
What was your moment where you're like, I need to understand this Just a story.

Joanne Skiles[21:23]
I've had moments within my career, And it's not a happy story in a sense. is my first real job, so people can look on LinkedIn and they'll know what I'm talking about. I was very uncomfortable with my boss. My boss was very, very aggressive and I did not like it that much and I wanted to leave. So there was, I'll just name the company. So Lockheed Martin. had a lot of opportunities that you could move to different groups because it's a huge company. So I decided to go to my boss's boss and ask, you know, I don't want to work in this group. What opportunities do I have outside of this group to leave? And what happened was I was instead told that I just, you know, I'm at the end of the project. The last 20 % of the project is the toughest. You're having a problem because it's so tough, not because

Vimala Pydi[22:26]
home.

Joanne Skiles[22:28]
of the group. And it took me, like I took it. I took the feedback and I finished the project and then six months later I just left Lockheed because I couldn't do it anymore. But I think about it now and I wonder why. And it was because my boss was a very, very... successful person. Like, he got results. He was a person who got results. He got it done. And they knew that, I guess the back story that I didn't give you all is that before me, three women left. The other

Vimala Pydi[23:04]
Okay.

Joanne Skiles[23:04]
girl that was working with me was on the verge of leaving. He

Vimala Pydi[23:09]
Okay.

Joanne Skiles[23:11]
made every single woman that worked with him leave. And so that was his black mark. on his career. And

Vimala Pydi[23:22]
Okay.

Joanne Skiles[23:23]
the office politics there was it didn't matter so much about the 22 year old girl that was saying that she wanted to get out. It mattered more about how successful he was perceived within the group.

Vimala Pydi[23:38]
Yeah.

Joanne Skiles[23:38]
And that was something where it didn't matter where I stood, it mattered on what the success was. And really the answer back was understanding the politics is probably should have just trust my gut,

Vimala Pydi[23:53]
you live and learn. That's

Joanne Skiles[23:55]
Yes.

Vimala Pydi[23:56]
a great story for anyone out there listening. and I was at a workplace. I've been like, this is my 12th or 13th company in my career. I was at a place where I had a disagreement with my manager, my direct manager that I was reporting to. But again, I had a good reputation in the company. So I was debating whether to go to my boss's boss because they were really tight-knit. I knew that, like they were really good friends. I just want a different role because I want to kind like feel like that would be a good period for my career and I was able to, I just like built like my whole story when they asked him for other opportunities under his arm because I had the reputation in the dark. didn't want it to leave without me. I wanted to leave on my terms, let's put it that way. So that was helpful, like going to my boss, not talking about the current issues, but showing what I can build. within the org helped me to find another role. But it was not my first job. By then I kind of found a job.

Joanne Skiles[25:10]
Yeah, there's there's so much from the story that I told you guys very much like a snippet of it. And I think that's what's important. There's so much, though, of reflection.

Vimala Pydi[25:21]
Yes.

Joanne Skiles[25:21]
That that I do think about is if I had a mentor, someone to talk with beforehand, they could be like, OK, let's remove the emotion before you go to the meeting. let's think about this logically. I think that's what's really helpful there. the right steps are tough because the right steps aren't always the right steps, right? depends on who you're talking to, how well do you know them, what actually

Vimala Pydi[25:44]
Yeah.

Joanne Skiles[25:45]
speaks to it. Maybe coming in and being extremely vulnerable works, maybe it doesn't work. Yeah. And I mean, and I think that's actually gets to the point of like really wrapping up here is

Vimala Pydi[25:59]
Yes.

Joanne Skiles[26:00]
the politics in itself, we don't have all the answers to it because the first step is figuring out what in the world is your company's politics. You know, where did they stand in this world? Like, what is, what is it that makes them going for versus And not even just a company, like every organization has a different career, different politics within it. And then seeing what works there. And to be fair, sometimes not every battle is worth fighting. Yes.

Vimala Pydi[26:32]
Yes, yeah that is a good point. True and also moving is a good option too. Like if you feel like it's not going anywhere your mental peace is important than anything else. Try to find something on your own terms and then move definitely.

Joanne Skiles[26:50]
Yes, but the biggest advice there is that when you do move, how you leave is super important as well. I'm getting on because I've seen some random videos of people going like, don't give a two weeks notice. Please give at least a two weeks notice. All

Vimala Pydi[27:09]
Always.

Joanne Skiles[27:09]
right, always because you never know who from the last company will know something about it. that reputation travels with you outside of your job as well.

Vimala Pydi[27:23]
Yeah and also having those professional guidance for yourself right like this is what

Joanne Skiles[27:29]
Yes.

Vimala Pydi[27:30]
I would do no matter how terrible that other person is this is how I'm going to be going back to being authentic

Joanne Skiles[27:37]
Yes.

Vimala Pydi[27:37]
and kind of putting those principles in your playbook and saying, okay, I'll leave, but I'll be professional, give the two weeks notice and then move on. Right. Yeah. Totally agree with that.

Vimala Pydi[27:52]
this is a big topic. Maybe we should like do another episode on it, but office

Joanne Skiles[27:56]
Yeah.

Vimala Pydi[27:56]
politics is critical for sure. And getting the mentor helps and also understanding the politics, as you said, like how does it align to your workplace also helps. And hopefully this snippet kind of gives you some true stories that we both have been

Joanne Skiles[28:14]
Yes.

Vimala Pydi[28:14]
through.

Joanne Skiles[28:15]
Yes, because really at the end of the day is we've collected a lot of these hard lessons from spending the time and learning by living in these hard lessons. But hopefully this has helped you and let you know that you are not naive for not knowing this stuff. You just honestly weren't told. Now you have been told politics is everywhere. So if you like this, please subscribe. you're subscribe or follow on whatever podcast platform you are on. If you're on YouTube, please like this podcast because it does actually help the channel. And until next time, stay curious, stay bold, and stay unplugged.