http://www.livescience.com/17378-rats-show-empathy.html

“When the free rat opens the door, he knows exactly what he’s doing — he knows that the trapped rat is going to get free,” Mason said. “It’s deliberate, purposeful, helping behavior.”

Old picture of mine!

Business is “competitive” and it’s cool to be “cutthroat” and you have to be “willing to be a bitch” to get what you want. It’s good to be “good at manipulation.” Whatever that’s supposed to mean.

Look, I get it. We get told this so that we stand up for ourselves and be ambitious despite the vocal minority of incredibly irritating people, so that we know how to act around certain people, so that we work hard and grab fleeting opportunities, and so that we’re successful. Most of the advice that comes out of the people telling you the above catch-phrases are well-meaning and only want to make sure you don’t slack off because they want you to do well. That’s fine. But people have this weird “Tragedy of the Commons” sort of issue with the “business fields” when they’re young that really doesn’t seem to be based on reality. There’s a lot of opportunity for you and your peers, surprise! Some of which can be self-created if we feel up to it. It’s up to you to seize it, but very few people have gotten really far (I guess except in politics. Yay royalty and conquering.) by pulling down the people around them.

You can open the damn cage for the other guy before getting to the chocolate chips, aight?