Has anyone here NOT experienced "Office Politics" in their professional experience?

It depends on the level of office politics. I've worked in places where I've been insulated from the politics, and by being polite and just seeing what people are saying, I can dodge brickbats coming my way. Mainly situational awareness, knowledge of the real org chart (for example, Karen down in HR may not be high ranking, but she can get people fired because she is the nexus of the rumor mill, and won't hesitate to cast shadows about claiming that someone was looking too fondly at someone's kid during bring-your-child-to-work day.) Just watching out, and gathering documentation/evidence for when the bully wants a showdown is critical. There have been two places where I've actually encountered real cutthroat politics: * A small public sector organization. After getting permission, I showed them Ansible and other CM tools. First, they really thought it was cool. Then, they realized the hundreds of man-hours they spent SSH-ing into each Linux box would be over, and they would have to account for time. Then the daggers came out. * Any big company where you land in an established division. I've mentioned this in other posts, but you wind up with three options, trying to get knowledge from people's silos, trying to go it alone and hopefully not run into a bomb or booby trap, or do nothing and wind up canned. Trying to get some type of niche is going to be hard because anyone who has been there less than 3-5 years is going to almost certainly be flushed out with the next round of layoffs. The smaller groups that actually are growing and making stuff are different, but the older applications that are on maintenance mode? Good luck.