How do you win at office politics?: originally appeared on Quora: The best answer to any question. Ask a question, get a great answer. Learn from experts and access insider knowledge. You can follow Quora on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.
Answer by Michael O. Church, Functional programmer and machine learning engineer in Baltimore.
There's no easy answer, but the mistake most people make is that they let their guard down. Supposedly "informal" environments are the most dangerous. The politics in these startups are often far worse than in conservative, larger companies. Often, permissions are given to do things that are actually harmful to a person's career. People (even managers) will egg you on up to and beyond the event horizon of a ruined career, because you're allaying their ennui.
- Avoid activities that serve no purpose. I screwed up on this one, by posting on a mailing list ("eng-misc") at Google. The best-case outcome is that you establish that you put a low value on your time. When you're at work, always have a purpose, or appear to have one. The sideshows are for losers, to make existence at the bottom more bearable. Never take part in plebeian bullshit. The worst-case outcome is professional humiliation, because societies and substructures that have no purpose devolve into interpersonal nastiness. If you don't have anything else to do, figure out what you want to do and get better at it. Sit down at your computer and read. You'll probably never get fired for reading machine learning papers on your computer (you'll stay out of trouble, with your head down) but you will get pushed out or demoted (eventually) if you project low status, and putting a visible low value on your time has that effect.