Except the incentives are aligned to be a Hobbesian war of all against all. There is no incentive to collaborate or team up at all.
Ever wonder why shows like Survivor and Battle Royale games are so popular? That's how office life is these days. Nobody is ever "in your corner" as you put it. Everyone is always and forever trying to gut everyone else in a neverending zero sum game.
Unless you work in a new/high growth field or something, then collaboration can have benefits, but in most static corporate environments, the only gain you have is from someone else's detriment.
I'm fascinated to see if you just work in bizzare confrontational companies or are just paranoid. Pretty much everywhere I've been I've gotten on well with my coworkers, chatted about videogames, beer, gone to various resturants for lunch, and generally enjoyed myself. To do anything else would seem almost unbearable - and this comes from a 100% introvert.
There are subtle signals that people have to both recognise and/or know how to use in order to use smalltalk succesfully - things like never interrupt someone wearing headphones on both ears, or recognising body language of someone absorbed by thought.
Even if you genuinely don't ever like talking to people, they are bound to get the message soon enough and stop trying. And if for some reason they have the spectacularly bad social skills to not pick that up, usually telling them once or twice (kindly!) that you don't like to chat at work should get them to stop.
I may be paranoid, but I can't grok as much social information as my coworkers can. I've had to memorize what different emotional states look like, and I come from a working-class background where emotional dishonesty is not a valued thing, going to an office environment where it is.
Apologies for the Star Trek reference, but it feels like being a particularly dense Betazoid working in an office of Vulcans.
Maybe there's an argument that if you go full Machiavelli you can rise higher in the corporate world, but what's the point? Sure, I could become the Senior VP of Whatever, but that won't make me happy, and sacrificing my personal values will make me unhappy.
Furthermore, I learned the value of collaboration, even if it helps potential opponents, through the card game Puerto Rico. Trading with others helps them, but it equally helps you. Say you're playing with 4 other people. Trading gives you +1 benefit for both parties. Refusing to trade causes 0.5 harm. The rational strategy is to trade as much as possible (except maybe with the frontrunner), because if you just go around harming everyone else, you'll equally harm yourself. They'll get hurt, but they can just turn around and benefit from trades with other players.
It is possible to get quite far by being a solid person with integrity. And if that appeals to you, you should never sacrifice that.
Finally, it's a big world. My purpose in any job is to learn and grow as much as possible, and then take those skills elsewhere. Meanwhile, those who rise to the top of the heap at some company due to bad politics -- are they actually going anywhere? Or are they stuck in the bed of their own making?
Ever wonder why shows like Survivor and Battle Royale games are so popular? That's how office life is these days. Nobody is ever "in your corner" as you put it. Everyone is always and forever trying to gut everyone else in a neverending zero sum game.
Unless you work in a new/high growth field or something, then collaboration can have benefits, but in most static corporate environments, the only gain you have is from someone else's detriment.