I don't get it what is the take away of this story? If I play video games at work I am likely to get fired? If I follow company procedures I will get ahead?
Seriously though work isn't track and field you don't win by being better than who ever came in second. You win by working to the best of your ability.
You clearly haven't worked at a large corporation. You get ahead by kissing up to the boss, holding large meetings, and creating fancy charts and graphs that explain why your project is 6 months behind.
The point of the story is that it's not how well you do your job that counts, it's how well your manager thinks you do it.
It's all about perceptions. If you're a crap coder, but suck up to your boss, wear a smart suit (or whatever the conventional clothing is at your place of work), always arrive at work on time, etc, then you'll do better than if you're a brilliant coder, but wear unconventional clothes, come in on work late, etc.
Your comment deserves to be a direct reply to the orignal posting. The current comments are tipping the scales in favor of Alan either by directly supporting overweight processes/solutions, or by demeaning the total comparative contribution of Charles (which has the same effect).
For people who just cannot make the jump and understand what the author was saying, re-read the article, and instead of Charles playing Space Invaders, have him reading Hacker News instead. I think you'll see it takes on a whole new meaning for you.
Seriously though work isn't track and field you don't win by being better than who ever came in second. You win by working to the best of your ability.