SSH in the Wild
A woman observes Gamma shenanigans in the office
I posted a year or more ago about a gamma my husband and I work with who got away with stealing an account my husband was working. Husband followed a very delta strategy of being the reasonable accommodating one while the gamma continued to nurse a spiteful vendetta against my husband. Gamma tried again to squat on another account my husband is actively working.
This time it didn’t fly. One owner, the founders daughter, called him out and they pulled the account from him. Gamma rage quit.. this is awesome. I called the rage quit. Thanks socio-sexual hierarchy
This, in my opinion, is the proper use of the Socio-Sexual Hierarchy. Not for navel-gazing or self-improvement, but for anticipating the actions of others and being ready for the situations that will result from those actions.
While I wouldn’t have followed the Delta strategy, it’s absolutely the correct strategy for someone who is a Delta. Correct self-identification is very useful in determining what strategies will work for you and which will not. The ideal way for Deltas to handle Gamma attacks is to utilize hierarchical jujitsu against the Gamma; the knowledge that you are more competent means that the Delta can afford to wait until the Gamma inevitably overreaches, missteps, and melts down.
The key, however, is to maintain firm resistance. No giving in to stop the meltdowns, the whole objective is to let the Gamma fan his own flames until someone higher up in the organization has to step in and discipline him. More often than not, as the wife correctly anticipated, he’s going to rage-quit.
Well-played. Well-played indeed!
Reminds me of some totally unnecessary office drama that I went through almost twenty years ago, when I had no clue about the SSH. This guy called me one morning at home and told me that the supervisor was going to fire me. Being the naive delta I confronted the supervisor and just asked him straight up what was going on. He was kinda nonplussed and said “no Jimmy gave me an ultimatum, it’s either him or you. Since you have always done a good job I chose you.” So this twat was trying to get me fired and trying to play like he was my friend! Gamma as hell. I saw that he recently viewed my LinkedIn profile, so he is probably still seething 😡. Also he doesn’t list our former employer or the one he had after that. I recall that our employer withheld payment to him because he was contracted to provide services he failed to deliver - being a secret king and performing gamma drama was more important to him.
Here are two recent examples of successfully using the SSH:
Introspective: Realized what my own behaviors tend toward, and did NOT pursue starting my own business in the field I'm in. I'm knowledgeable enough to run most everything myself, or hire specialists for areas that I'm lacking, but I'm not an Alpha.
Extrospective: Got myself assigned to another manager who IS an Alpha, versus the Gamma that I was assigned to.