There's a lot more world out there than just who you work with.

Even if you work overtime in an office like I do I always mark my way across dark streets with an eye to where nature shows other animals are for what I can't see and always carry a police baton. Always. Any trouble & it's out faster than you can stop me. Soft kevlar slash-resistant jacket too.

The amazing thing about literature is that YOU can interpret it.

You can choose to take "destroy" as literally destroy. Or you can adapt it to a more appropriate form e.g. your outperform interpretation.

Thank you, this is exactly what I though of after reading the post title. "There is no more loyal friend than an ex-enemy". This post is garbage, just grateful this was the top comment.

Want to crush your enemies in a modern workplace? Avoid common mistakes.

Here's some tedious advice from an old guy who has fired people and been fired by people for making stupid mistakes.

1. Don't fall for the "everybody does it" fallacy. I shared an office with a guy who looked like a total goof off. He played video games, surfed the web, and spent more than half his day making personal phone calls. He got away with it, so I thought I could get away with it. I couldn't. There was a double standard at work because this guy had been there for 10 years and was super productive in the 4 hours a day he did work. When it comes time for your performance review, nobody is going to give a fuck what other people get away with. The world is full of double standards like this. Other people can get away with shit that you can't. It's not right. It's not fair. And it's not going to change.

2. Take your ear buds out. If you're starting your career and not just working a bullshit job, the first step is concentrating on what you're doing. The first step to concentrating is to close Spotify and do your damn work.

3. Stop surfing Reddit, stop using Facebook, turn off Twitter. The IT department is watching everything you do in the office. The guy sitting behind you is watching everything you do and is snitching to the boss about how lazy you are to make himself look better. Don't leave your weakness exposed. Shut the time wasting shit down and do your work. If there's not enough work, ask for more. If nobody knows what to give you, start looking for more. If you can't think of anything to do, use your dead time to take online training courses. Let the IT Department report THAT to your boss. And if you can't motivate yourself to learn more about your workplace, you're in the wrong job and you need to change careers.

4. Don't be late. Ever. Never use all your vacation. Never use all your sick leave. Ever. Everybody knows sick days are bullshit. If you find yourself using enough sick leave to get noticed, you've either got a serious medical condition or you're taking "mental health days" because you hate your job. If you hate your job, find another one. Don't fuck around and make somebody fire you.

I know what you're thinking. What kind of bullshit is this? Everybody in the office listens to music and spends all day on Facebook. Why should I do all this boring shit while everybody else is slacking off?

Because you're not just trying to be another beta office drone, you're trying to gain status, power and money. Doing good work, ignoring distractions is the price you pay in the office, just like pain, sweat and sore muscles is the price that you pay at the gym.

Stop being an Office Beta and start taking responsibility for your performance.

If you are speaking from your own experience, I would take from the insinuations in your post that you're an older guy that has never been (or currently is not) in a position of power but has had to struggle through many of the pitfalls of the modern workplace without the freedom to exercise power. You have learnt to be useful and invisible, but that means you make nothing but a great tool for your boss. You won't be the boss because you're too good at surviving, you've learnt to survive, but not to conquer. I never thought I'd be finding myself upvoting a comment which bags on the 48 laws at the end, but there we have it. Although I disagree with the assertion it's a bad book, the rest of your comment was solid. In spite of that, what you say is relevant only to a peon within a workplace setting, it's not correct within all contexts and it is poor advice for a leader or person with power.

For example, if you are a business owner and you have competition, crushing that other business by ruining its reputation or acquiring it and adding it to your own portfolio is wiser/better than "outperforming them." Why have half the market share when you can have all of it? You see, the 48 laws are like anything, not all laws apply to every situation and every person, some laws like this one are better suited to people in high positions of power, other laws like "don't outshine the master" are better suited to people at lower power levels (but apply, to an extent, to people at higher power levels too.) In fact some of the laws contradict each other, try to apply law 1 and law 15 at the same time to the workplace and see how that mindfucks you. What you've done here is say "fuck law 15, use law 1" but because you don't like the book or haven't read it, don't realise that's what you have advised.

Thus it is so that the book is only as useful as one is able to interpret, understand and apply the maxims to their own issues. Do not blame the book, the book is quite intelligent and useful, blame those who know not how to use the knowledge in the book effectively.

48 laws is to a large extent directed at leaders/masters and people who wish to attain those positions. His other book Mastery is about using mentors to speed that process up and even replace people with power through the mentor-apprentice relationship. As a manager or CEO of your workplace for instance you will crush anybody who creates too many problems, as you actually point out yourself here:

Modern workplaces will react to isolate and extinguish any source of drama. Don't be that guy. Just be the quiet, effective guy who gets shits done.

Trying to crush people when you're a worker peon, as you say, will make your life harder as you will be on the receiving end of power, rather than the end dealing out punishment.

Context is everything. This law is for people who have the power advantage/resources to necessitate getting away with crushing their enemy. This law is about preserving your power, it is power maintenance, for people without power it is, as you say, a stupid idea to adhere to. Everyone else must do what you have advised, be a wolf in sheep's clothing and blend in. That's law 38, too.

TLDR: If you are in a workplace with no power, law 1 + law 38 guarantee your survival. Ignore Law 15. Do law 38 well enough by mirroring your bosses preferences and you'll get promoted "I see myself in him."

This well-known Conan line is actually a paraphrase of a real statement made by Temujin, aka Genghis Khan , the Mongolian conqueror:

"The greatest pleasure is to vanquish your enemies and chase them before you, to rob them of their wealth and see those dear to them bathed in tears, to ride their horses and clasp to your bosom their wives and daughters."

Use of machiavellianism would be helpful in this instance. It can take what seems like forever to reach your end goal of ridding your enemy this way but you should be prepared for that before going into it. Although, like you said it depends on the particular situation.

This is very true. Having DT traits isn't something that's glamorous. That being said it's still good to learn things from books like "The 48 Laws of Power" or "The 33 Strategies of War" or "The Prince" to name a few. Learning the types of things found in books like these can help you in many different aspects of your life, especially your career. It's definitely helped me.

Here's the thing - in your life, you have to be at least a little machiavellian, because like TRP, you can't choose not to play, so you might as well know the rules.

Do unto others, or they shall do unto you.

Actually alphas are the more combative and competitive type. Betas are the ones who want to make friends with everyone else. High testosterone makes one competitive and combative. Alphas have the highest testosterone.