Communication & Collaboration

When someone makes a suggestion, don’t hold back with comments or criticism. But whatever you do, don’t make a concrete counterproposal—otherwise, you’ll be stuck in the mess too.

Avoid proactively updating anyone about progress or obstacles. If it’s important, someone will ask. And if you do encounter obstacles, under no circumstances should you try to resolve them yourself. It’s enough to note in the ticket that there’s an issue—and clearly state that others are to blame if you can’t deliver.

If you’re tasked with handling a specific topic or area, either do it alone or, even better, involve the entire team. Under no circumstances should you assemble a smaller group of knowledgeable experts to work on it independently. You’d risk the team feeling left out, which would almost certainly lead to them undermining the outcome.

Feel free to share details about your family, hobbies, vacations, and even your worries—at least when asked. Positive feedback for your colleagues is also perfectly acceptable. However, under no circumstances should you bring up issues with a colleague’s behavior or work style. Addressing difficult topics or giving constructive feedback might seriously disrupt the team’s harmonious atmosphere.

Always treat your topic as the most important one, without discussing the bigger picture with your colleagues. Even if you notice that a colleague could use your help and it would benefit the company, stick to your own agenda and make sure you hit your target (see also: metrics).

When someone comes to you with a problem, under no circumstances should you engage with the content or offer solutions. Instead, shut it down immediately, citing processes and policies if necessary. This way, you avoid any risk and can easily absolve yourself of responsibility if things go wrong.

Set document permissions as restrictively as possible to ensure that information flow is thoroughly obstructed and collaboration becomes impossible.

Avoid using a professional document management system. Instead, rely on descriptive file names to track the status of your documents, such as: Protokoll-new_v3.2_final_revKerstin_revJohn_revfinal_final-24-7-3.

Always save your files locally. This way, you stay independent of internet outages and avoid any pesky conflicts with colleagues working on the same document.

When it comes to communicating important decisions, avoid spamming employees with info emails, blog posts, or anything of the sort. Rely solely on the hierarchical cascade to pass things down. These decisions should also never be documented anywhere. If someone missed the meeting where it was discussed—well, that’s on them. After all, it’s a great incentive for employees to show up to every meeting, regardless of whether they’re on vacation, sick, or with a client.

If you change existing rules, publish the new version in a different location without deleting the old one. That way, no matter what goes wrong later, you can always refer to some version of the “current” rules—and you’ll never be wrong.

To make sure there’s a fitting version of every rule for every employee and every occasion, copy the documentation to as many different locations as possible. This way, the documents can evolve into wonderfully inconsistent variants—independently and unchecked—ensuring there's always some rule to support whatever needs justifying.

You never get a second chance to make a first impression—so make sure your colleagues know exactly what to expect from you right from the start. Avoid standing out through excessive friendliness, enthusiasm, or proactive questions. If you don’t understand something, just do nothing. After all, it’s the responsibility of the more experienced colleagues to provide you with all the necessary information—and to notice when you’re stuck.

From day one, retreat to your workspace and keep interactions with others to a minimum—you wouldn’t want to distract anyone from their work or disrupt their train of thought.

During your first few months at HELL, a colleague will be assigned to you as a buddy to show you around and explain the rules. Don’t trust them. Assume they see you as a threat. Cancel meetings with them using the excuse that you’re far too busy and don’t have time for kindergarten-level onboarding. This sends a clear message: you’re already well-integrated and in high demand.

If you’re assigned as a buddy for a new employee, make sure you’re unavailable on their first day—and then conveniently leave for a business trip or vacation. The first few weeks are crucial for teaching the newcomer that no one will be there to help them find their way in this new environment. A valuable lesson in independence right from the start.

When you receive a meeting invitation, neither accept nor decline it. This keeps you flexible and avoids the need to explain yourself—perfect for maintaining maximum ambiguity with minimum accountability.

If you attend a meeting, make sure to arrive at least 10 minutes late. Make your entrance count: in an in-person meeting, slam the door, shuffle chairs noisily, and open your laptop with a dramatic sigh. Interrupt the speaker to apologize for being late and explain that you were urgently needed in another important meeting. In an online meeting, unmute yourself immediately upon entry—but leave your camera off. Complain about your bad connection, then type "brb" in the chat and go get a coffee. This way, you effectively demonstrate importance, confidence, and a strong sense of self-care.

During meetings, keep your eyes glued to your phone or type constantly—after all, multitasking is one of the most vital management skills. If you want to climb the career ladder, you need to show that you can handle everything at once. Chime in occasionally, regardless of the topic. Prepare a few go-to phrases like: “Sorry, customer escalation—where are we right now?” “That still feels too vague to me. What exactly are we talking about here?” This keeps you looking attentive, engaged, and strategically important—without the burden of actually following the discussion.

When organizing a meeting, make sure to invite more people than necessary—you have to account for no-shows, after all. The meeting title should be as vague as possible, and don’t include an agenda in the invite. This keeps things flexible regarding what the meeting will actually be about, and avoids setting any misleading expectations about concrete outcomes.

No meeting without PowerPoint. If you’re short on ideas, just borrow from the archive—anything you find in the intranet or scattered across the various storage systems will do. All you need is a fitting title, delete any source references, and add plenty of animations to sufficiently distract from the actual content. Since you can’t assume colleagues are really paying attention, repetition is not only acceptable—it’s encouraged. It’s always helpful to begin each meeting by repeating everything that was already covered in the last one.

To support your career ambitions, feel free to shamelessly reuse the content and ideas of others—just rephrase them slightly and present them under a flashy new name as your own groundbreaking innovation. Using bold buzzwords, catchy acronyms, arbitrary statistics, and lots of visuals will help your presentation gain maximum traction with management.

When someone comes to you with a problem, just solve it yourself—preferably with a sigh and a visibly annoyed expression. Avoid giving any helpful explanations. This way, your colleague learns nothing new and won’t develop beyond you. Plus, it’s quicker, earns you respect, and ensures you remain indispensable—not just to that one person, but to the whole team. Your legendary status as the office hero will spread in no time.

As an engineer, you’re expected to master complexity—which means solving problems with solutions so intricate that even you won’t fully understand them after a while, let alone your colleagues or customers. That’s the clearest way to demonstrate your true expertise.