What career advice do you get as an employee of a growing company? Do great work, keep yourself challenged, focus on learning at every step, find mentors, mentor others, crush your OKRs. Every few quarters you go through a performance review that identifies your strengths and weaknesses, and sets you up for learning and growth. Every week you have one on ones with your boss where you get continuous course corrections on your performance.

作为一家成长型公司的员工，你有什么职业建议？努力工作，不断挑战自己，注重每一步的学习，寻找导师，指导他人，完成自己的 OKR。每隔几个季度，你会进行一次绩效评估，帮助你了解自己的优点和不足，并为学习和成长做好准备。每周，你还会和上司进行一对一交流，可以持续纠正工作中的问题。

But it's easy to see it's mostly social fiction. Following the overt mechanisms of advancement is neither sufficient nor necessary. It may even be actively harmful— almost everyone who does great work and takes performance reviews seriously toils in relative obscurity. Look at the people who occupy positions of considerable authority in your organization. Did any of them get there by following some middle manager's feedback?

但很明显这大多是社会虚构。遵循明显的晋升机制既不充分也不必要。甚至可能有害，几乎所有做出卓越工作并认真对待绩效评估的人都在相对默默无闻中辛勤工作。看看在你们组织中担任重要职位的人，他们有谁是靠听从某个中层管理者的反馈才到达今天的位置的吗？

In college I had friends who studied biology, so I hung out in the life sciences building a lot. They had a beautiful little forest nearby. We'd often go on walks there and enjoy the serenity. One time I went with a trained botanist. Over the next hour, as she talked about what she was seeing, the forest transformed from an idyllic little haven to a savage battlefield. Trees would fight their enemies with ruthless efficiency for every square inch of precious access to the sun. Bushes would be relegated to the leftovers, and moss and grass on the forest floor were forced to subsist on even less sunlight than that. Young, light-green plants would tirelessly invade the territory of their older, dark-green rivals, never ceasing the effort to starve them of energy. Seeds and spores would invent ingenious mechanisms to cover a wider and wider area than their opponents.

大学时，我有朋友学的是生物学，所以我经常去生命科学楼玩。那附近有一片美丽的小森林，我们经常在那里散步，享受那里的宁静。有一次，我和一位训练有素的植物学家一起去。在接下来的一个小时内，随着她讲解所见所闻，森林在我眼中从一个世外桃源变成了一场激烈的战场。树木为了争夺每一寸珍贵的阳光，毫不留情地对抗敌人。灌木被迫退居次要位置，地上的苔藓和草更是得不到多少日照。年轻的浅绿色植物不断入侵年长深绿植物的领地，努力让它们缺乏能量。种子和孢子甚至设计出巧妙的方法，试图在覆盖范围上战胜对手。