I've been in such situation. I totally agree with the "as you know..." type. What they were trying consistently on us was to tell us we're not getting a raise because "as we know" the business hasn't been doing so well, we're expensive etc.<p>By giving you 5 arguments to which you nod positively, they then enforce their point as to why (bs reasons) there is no money for you.<p>It takes a few years to read between the lines, hence why so many of those crooks bosses like to hire you straight out of uni.
A different article on the paper from a week ago, which links to the paper: <a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1599914" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1599914</a><p>edit: might as well link it directly -> <a href="https://gsbapps.stanford.edu/researchpapers/library/RP2060%20&%2083.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://gsbapps.stanford.edu/researchpapers/library/RP2060%2...</a>
The article ends on a bit of a depressing note:<p><i>The real winners will be public-relations firms, which now know to coach the boss to hesitate more, swear less and avoid excessive expressions of positive emotion.</i>
Fascinating article.<p>But how can a company possibly stay alive for very long if, rather than confining itself to lying to its rivals to keep ahead in the competitive marketplace, it starts lying to itself and its own?<p>If your company's internal culture develops the practice of deceit - deceit between superiors and subordinates, deceit between superiors, deceit between subordinates and ultimately deceit towards customers - how can you expect the firm to remain fit for purpose for very long?<p>Who would want to live in a Stirnerite environment where everybody routinely bones up on Machiavelli and Nineteen Eighty Four and keeps the knives sharpened while watching for others attampting to stab you in the back all the time?
Given this, it would be interesting to have a program that would predictively tell you if a CFO or CEO was lying. Then you could short companies based on that info.
I think I'm more likely to use these "tells" to know if someone I'm investing in is lying.<p>Though to be fair I work in a small company where I know my boss very well so the point probably don't apply.