Here are some tips for dealing with office politics:

1) Think before you act (or speak) - Be diplomatic, lie and dissimulate. Suppress your true feelings at all cost.

2) Nurture the stakeholders - Flatter, suck up, wheedle your way into the hearts of both the important and the merely useful. Gather ye brownie points while ye may.

3) Keep your enemies close - In other words, apply rules 1 and 2 to those whom you despise the most. It is interesting that this is one of the most cherished mottoes of the Cosa Nostra.

4) Imitate the successful - Ignore your own instincts and conform. Do not be original. Copy. Monkey see, monkey do, monkey get raise. Corporations are like Hollywood producers: they always feel most comfortable with a remake.

5) Play the game - learn how to gossip, how to back-bite, and how to get even.

Seriously though, the above remarks are just my own cynical take on some very necessary survival tactics. Visit the link below for more of the same with a straighter face.

"5 tips for the office" from The Indianapolis Star