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How To Behave At a Software Company?
dawilcox writes "I'm a recent grad and am going to begin work at a software company. I want to make a good impression on my boss and coworkers. I know that performance is usually tracked, but there are also innate personality traits of good software developers that bosses just want to have around. What are those personality traits? What should I be trying to do in order to make a good impression on the people at my work?" (Appropriate side question: What behavior traits would you like your co-workers to exhibit?)
Eat lunch by yourself so that you won't be obligated to reveal personal information.
As a branch manager in an IT company this is bad news to me, it tells me employee in question is not a team player shown by their inability to communicate well with others. IT is about the flow of information and team work not about building walls. The best advice I can give anyone just starting a job is to not to form opinions and listen.. Also do not try and show off as this may mark you as being insecure. So on your first day take a note book and use it as this will tell your employer that you are serious about your job. Last but not least "be yourself"
Uh, last software company I worked for and ate by myself... they thought I was anti-social and booted me. I'm like you though, I hate office drama so I avoid it like the plague, unfortunately... in an ironic turn, by not socializing to stay away from drama, you unfortunately can create it and draw attention to yourself.
10+ years in development...
Here's what has helped me:
Learn to be more than a geek. Don't be another one of those guys that just wants to sit in his cube, write code, and be left alone. If you are, pretend you aren't. Learn the business-speak. Don't speak in acronyms all the time. Speak at stake-holders' level, but don't talk down to them.. they're not stupid, they just may not understand what you do.
What I wish I had been told:
Don't be a bitch. In other words, when you make estimates, don't be ridiculously low because you're afraid of what the stake-holder will say. And no, they won't always be nice when you tell them a number they don't want to hear. But stand your ground, intelligently (as opposed to defensively) explaining why it'll take so long/cost so much. This makes you an asset who "tells it like it is". The other way, you become a pansy with a bad rep because you're always so far off.
The best thing about a boolean is even if you are wrong, you are only off by a bit.
Here here, I agree whole heartedly with your modification (and everything else about the OP comment). I worked at a place a few years ago and since most of us didn't make all that much, we usually went out to fairly cheap places for lunch. One day several of us went out to a Mongolian grill over the river from work and on a spur of the moment I decided I could afford to pay for lunch for all of nine (I think) of us (it was about $55 IIRC). I didn't start out the lunch by saying I'd do it, and I insisted that no one pay me back. I was hoping it would help morale (it was generally okay, but not great sometimes as our bosses were slashing jobs left and right, while insisting each one was the last). It worked very well, and people started offering to pay for each other's lunch from time to time. Sometimes small gestures, especially when unexpected, can help relationships, if handled properly. I suppose YMMV of course, especially if you have a bunch of self-entitled people at your work.
Won't this just leave me with a broken spirit gaming the system while working for a know-nothing boss who makes ridiculous requests and sets impossible deadlines in a dead-end job?
The concept of keeping your work separate from your life is BS.
Hear hear! Your coworkers are a part of your life. They are your family at work. Just like your family at home, you weren't allowed to pick them, but you're stuck with them, so you need to learn how to like them.
I've lived and worked in Japan for most of my working life, and I just have to say that most places here get that right. Westerners wonder why Japanese workers are so loyal to the company, and there are a lot of reasons, but one of the strongest emotional/psychological ones is that many places really try to foster a real kinship. You very well might think that Kinoshita-san from 2 desks over is a jackass, but when push comes to shove, he's your jackass. Also, thanks to the boozy parties the company throws (that everyone pays for equally), you've chatted with him over beers and know that he is a super-involved dad who takes his kids out on the skiff to go fishing every weekend. You can't see him as just a jackass anymore; now he's a neat dad who happens to be a jackass at work.
At first, I resisted this culture with all my BS American individualist might, but before long I came to get it. They aren't forcing you to go to the party because they want to see what kind of stupid thing you'll say when you're drunk; they want to hang out together, and if you don't go it'll be a bummer for everyone. It's not a trick. People actually want to get to know each other. They probably won't be BFFs or anything; and the relationship will probably disappear if you transfer to another department or office, but for the time that you work together, you're doing it with people you know, and that makes all the difference in the world. When Sayama-san is going through a tough time with her husband, you cover for her--not because she's having a hard time with her husband, but because she's Sayama-san. And Sayama-san is having a hard time with her husband.
Finally, though, so much of this is predicated on the assumption that you're not going to be fired at the drop of a hat with a simple "oops, we can't afford so many people; bye." But that's another post entirely (and again, not really a socialistic post--one about not handing so much goddamned money to the people at the top so you don't have to panic every time the market changes, because you have money in the bank and tons of wiggle room in the budget).
A little self-respect, and enough spine to refuse to be exploited into giving up your personal life to further your bosses ends. Every time you work long hours, you create expectations that your co-workers should work long hours too, and they will despise you for it.
My first (and last) experience in a cubicle farm was a pretty shocking one. We had three guys doing the work of 10. It was extremely stressful. My co-workers would routinely work 60-70+ hours a week, if not in the office then at home with the laptop dialed in. I mean this job was practically their entire lives, and for what? $35k/year? Fuck that. When 5 o'clock rolled around I rolled out. The boss called me up one Friday evening wanting me to come back in and restart a data conversion process that had failed (due to programmers not having the file structure figured out completely) and I said no. I'd rather stand in the sun and dig ditches all day, regardless of pay, cause at least ditch diggers know when they get to go home and forget about work. They called some other unlucky fool in to do the job and nobody ever said a word to me about it, but I could feel some people didnt like it at all. Fuck them. My life is too valuable to be spent slaving away for someone else's benefit.
Good luck and may the workforce be with you.