Slashdot Mirror
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?)
YES! I know I'm trolling, but i had to.
It's an absolute travesty that you need to point out things like "have good hygiene". Everyone should have good hygiene. If you don't, you should probably kill yourself.
From Eric S. Raymond's Slashdot Hangover:
It was dark in the Holland, Michigan office nestled deep within Slashdot's Geek Compound. Shifting and moaning, ESR laid sprawled over his filthy desk. Dried spittle stuck several Post-It notes to his cheek. His PC, running Linux, silently printed swap error after swap error to the screen, lighting ESR's sickly form. As he burped several times he attempted to recall the night before that had led to this stupor. Holding his head in his hands, he was interrupted by lights and doors slamming. Someone was in the office!
As Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda walked past ESR, he noticed the several empty bottles of Jägermeister and what appeared to be fecal stains on the floor and walls surrounding the recovering ESR nothing new. He also noticed the some semen bubbling in the cracks of ESR's chafed lips.
"Another all-night office orgy, Eric?" Rob asked coyly.
Tilting his head gingerly toward Rob and raising his eyebrows slowly, ESR spoke softly. "Oh shit. Is that what happened last night? I believe I blacked out at some point, I can't remember anything. Who was here last night?"
"Well, CowboyNeil got there a little late last night, but he said that by the time he got there that Alan, Emad, Jamie, Michael, and Signal 11 were already pretty drunk," Rob said just a little too loudly for ESR's tender head.
Closing and opening his eyes gently, ESR muttered to himself about having not invited Signal 11. He also started sniffing the air and licking his lips. "I can smell dried feces on a dick a mile away. Just where were you last night, Robbie? You get a piece of ass last night and decide to ditch my party?"
"What's it to you? Your breath smells like semen and you don't hear me asking whose it is," Malda shot back.
ESR smiled and swiveled with a gleam in his eyes. "Ah, but you see, this is my own sperm!"
"And it must taste specfuckingtacular!" Rob shot back.
Eric interjected before Rob could go on. "Ah yes. You see, I like to add a shot of Jäger to it to give it a little kick."
"No," Rob replied with anger rising in his voice, "You fucking raging alcoholic. Your semen tastes like old motor oil. I think you may have ruptured both of your testicles and now your colon is shooting diarrhea out of your cock-hole."
"What!? You little fudge-packing piece of shit!" ESR threatened, "Ditch one of my office parties because Hemos calls up and says he's lonely, will you? I bet that's what happened. Well, guess who I'll be recommending we lay off at the next LNUX board meeting? How do you like that, Taco?"
"Whatever, Eric. You don't scare anyone except your parents," Rob said as he stormed out of ESR's office, his green plaid flannel whipping in the wake behind him. "You would be nothing without Slashdot."
ESR stammered and shook. Ever since the LNUX stock had plummeted, things were so tense around the office. Relations were falling apart between he and the Slashdot admins. Last night, Michael and Jamie had pounded each other exclusively, ignoring ESR's crooked, erect penis, and Eric had to convince Emad and Alan to restrain CowboyNeil before he could engage in homosexual intercourse with him.
With a flick of his wrist, ESR popped a dozen extra-strength Bayers down his stinking gullet and washed them down with some Jäger from the bottle he had woken up holding. Depressed, aching, and on the verge of vomiting up the entirety of last night's semen binge, ESR cried silently and went back to sleep at this desk, ignoring the pile of work that sullied the landscape of his desktop.
Clapping twice to darken his office, ESR curled into fetal position as best he could and rested, preparing to do it all over again later that night.
Ah ... the leave your soul at the front door approach. Nice.
WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
I've worked at a handful of software shops in 8 states and 3 countries, so I've got the ritual down. I find it works best to get together after work for a happy hour, that's the best way to get the lowdown. Some nice cold ones away from the office and you'll learn a lot about your coworkers, managers, the company in general. Then I like to have a circle jerk. Nothing like watching your coworkers masturbating to bond the team together. You can even try jacking each other off, if they're into it. Butt fucking and rimming each other sounds like fun (and it is!), but some people find it a little awkward, so better to keep it one-on-one rather than trying to do a group thing.
My god... Even that smells horrendous! If you ever lived in a small town you'd know. Getting launched into the sun might be a better alternative.
Or choosing to fly Qantas?
http://michaelsmith.id.au
nah.. we should kill you....
niggers
Who said that I was going to use it against them later? Sure, it helps me understand what's going on, but if I leverage the information outright then I become a loudmouth and lose their trust.
Perhaps I wasn't very clear - All I'm interested in is getting the job done and helping others get the job done. I do them favors, they do me favors, and never at the expense of a third party. Period. As paranoid as my original post seemed to all of you, your projections of me are doubly paranoid. I'm not a scheming career climber looking for recognition. I'm about getting the job done right, not about schmoozing and bullshit. How hard is that to understand?
You know its a pretty a bad day when you can't even accept that an employee should show up.
In this recession I think finding such a quality wont be a problem. All those who had those problems were probably the first to be shit-canned and will not repeat the same mistake.
http://saveie6.com/
I prefer antiperspirant to avoid developing smells in the first place rather than simply trying to mask them..
Too bad antiperspirant actually has the effect of gluing dying skin cells to your armpits in a way that is difficult to remove even with soap, causing you to smell like rotting flesh covered up with perfume. You can't smell the attar of death because you're acclimated to it.
I have never smelled better than I do now since I stopped using any product, and simply wash myself and put on clean clothes every morning. Sometimes I shave my armpits in the middle of summer, because I have a lot of hair, and I sweat a lot.
Not sweating is not healthy.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The correct way to approach this is to help people clean up their messes, just as long as they are willing to watch and listen open-mindedly as you patiently explain where they went wrong.
Though my original intent was a little tongue in cheek, this one actually is important. Cleaning up after people once, is a great way to make sure that person never needs to be responsible for their own mistakes.
When people respect you, then they will listen to your advice.
This is 100% correct, but people don't respect their tools, and by cleaning up after someone, you are just acting like a tool to be used. Most people will respect you more if they have to be in your shoes and understand the work that you do. By make people responsible for their own actions, such as the action of not listening to the advice they are given, before they make a mistake, they are more likely to respect your future decisions. By cleaning up after them instead of making them clean up their own mess, the only thing they learn is that they can keep making messes and someone will clean them up.
If you want to be successful, do good quality work, and do not get stepped on. If your boss can't take it when you stand up for yourself, the worst thing they can do is force you to take the opportunity to find a better boss.
It was weird, in America they have this whole thing about individualism and being an individual. Turns out that means something completely different from what it sounds like. It comes with an evaluation of how much (WTF!) of an individual you are. The view seems to be that since everyone has opportunity to make a lot of money or excel in some other way, we should honor those who do so because they are the true individuals, giving the word individualism a whole new meaning. It follows that those who do not excel need to recognize that and pay deference to those who do excel. This is where leadership comes in. In America leadership means conforming to your place in society. So a follower displays leadership when recognizing that he is expected to follow and then doing everything possible to please the (actual) leader. So American individualism and leadership actually means top-down hero worship. I was completely confused by how they were using the word leadership until I figured out what it really means. This isn't how Americans like to explain these terms, but from my outside perspective it is what they are talking about when they use them, and that is why I figured you were serious. :)