Bully and Victim

There is an interesting thread surfacing at LANL and LLNL. This thread was elucidated quite a while ago by Hugh Gusterson.

The thread is that employees at both places continue to trust their future to managers and organizations that have betrayed them in the past. They trust these managers and organizations with at least half a million dollars per employee even though the employee knows that they will be betrayed.

It turns out that this seemingly contradictory behavior is well known in psychology. In the distant past, it may have been evolutionarily selected. Currently, it is very bad for the employees but is common.

Who knew?

This is brought to the top. It was originally posted on 25 July 2007.