1st Month: By the end of the first month you should…

The first month is all about pacing yourself with your coworkers.  Letting them know the pace you can work with and seeing you can meet or exceed their expectations.  Finding out their humor, the feel of the office.  Some offices are church formal, while others look like the 1970’s Atari, by now you’ll know if this is the place for you. If it is the right fit these are some suggestions to make acclimation easier.

Be comfortable in your work place:
– Know the names & positions of your coworkers, the chain of command, and where you fit.
– Know a quiet spot nearby you can go for lunch when you need to clear your head.
– Know the best commute and how it can reduce your stress. Sometimes working an hour late/early can save you half an hour on your commute. Yes, you’ll spend more time at work but you won’t feel like you’re loosing 5 hours a week to traffic. It’s surprising how much that can brighten you day.

Handle your stress:
– Stress is a part of every job and you’ll still be stressed at the end of your first month. You should be stressed at the end of your first month. If you aren’t then either the job isn’t challenging enough for you or you don’t care enough about the job and you need find a job you’re more passionate about.

Get to know your co-workers:
– Everyone is busy, but make the time to get to know those who you interact with daily.
– Each week pick someone and try to take them to lunch. It is a little way to say thank you and to learn more about your co-workers.
– If they can’t make lunch, try a drink after work.  Lunch is preferable because it keeps the focus on work and puts a hard timeline on interaction. But if it isn’t possible, let them pick the place and keep it to an hour.  Don’t put yourself in a position where you could look unprofessional.
– These weekly meetings can continue after you’ve met everyone.  They can allow you to seek help for personal projects, or find out how you can do more for the company.  Keep the rotation up and let everyone know that they have an outlet to voice grievances that are of a more personal nature.  Small complaints like too much cologne are best addressed outside of the work place in a friendlier environment and without everyone hearing it.

Start expanding your role in the company:
– Look for a committee or an extra assignment to take on, lighten everyones’ load. Look for a non-essential job to take over.  It could be as small as picking up the coffee for the in house machine once a week or joining the safety committee.  The safety committee is a great place to learn about the office space and it has many important responsibilities that often get over looked.  It also has the benefit of taking up minimal time.  It is a way to show you care about the company and those who work here.

Expand your profile outside of the company:
– The first month of a new job often requires personal sacrifices as to your personal time. You’ll often have to reduce or eliminate your outside social groups to make the time to learn your new job.  After the first month, hopefully you can start attending those groups again.
– In addition try to find one or two new groups that your co-workers attend.  These groups are key to both building a rapport with coworkers and increasing the brand name of your company.  Don’t fool yourself, that is apart of your job.  You’re a programmer and everywhere you go you will represent the company, do right by them.

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This is a lot to keep in mind on as you finish your first month. Hopefully, most of this will happen naturally.  You will enjoy those who you work with and it won’t take effort to spend time with them.  The one month mark is about where you should know if you are a cultural fit.  It’s still too early to decide if the type of work is right for you, but by now you should know if your are a match for the people.  If you need to leave I’ll address that later under THE GRACEFUL EXIT.

This was the second part of three.
Next, time : 1st year.

I’m not sure if my computer is an exception, but I found myself laughing at an online survey I filled out today.

I visited tvguide.com and it asked me to fill out a survey. I figured, “Hey why not? I always complain that they cancel smart TV.”
Well, in filling out the survey by Qualtrics I found an annoying pop up that ask me to kill the page.  The page was impatient and decided that I was taking too long.  I clicked the “wait” button to indicate that I was still filling out the survey. That wouldn’t have been too bad but it reappeared every 10-15 seconds on a survey that was over 25 pages long and took me 15+ minuets to fill out.
Not many have such dedication for an online survey. How many responses did they loose from those who rightfully gave up rather than deal with that pop up.

When I finished I sent an email to Qualtrics to alert them of their possible problem.  I’m curious if I’ll ever get a response.

I’m really curious if it was a problem on their end or if my environment was just being difficult.  I know I should have taken a screen shot, but if anyone has an opinion please comment.

Establishing goals for the future of my employment:

First Day: I’m terrible with names and I know that all programmers are a drain on productivity on day one, so I can’t expect to contribute a stroke of genius as I walk through the door.  So what can I do on day one?  I can be a positive to the culture of the team!

DBC has trained us through their “Engineering Empathy” to listen first, communicate second, and problem solve third.

That we can’t program as a team until we see ourselves as a team.
Let me say that again… “That we can’t program as a team until we see ourselves as a team!”

The hardest thing for me to overcome at DBC wasn’t a programming challenge. It was my inability to contribute as much to the team as smartest member of our team.  I honestly stressed out over letting my teammates down, because if couldn’t contribute as much to the project as they could I felt like I was failing them.

I think I’ve said it before; we aren’t building code, we are developers. We develop the code. It is more of an art than building a wall by placing brick after brick. I can’t coerce better code by working longer hours or trying to move faster. I can only contribute up to my ability level and stressing out about not contributing enough will only reduce my ability to contribute worthwhile material.

So DAY 1 be a positive effect on culture.
– Be energetic, excited to learn, excited to work on the project no matter what the project
entails.
– Show up ready to learn. Have a system in place to learn names, places, and how things work in this new chapter of your life.  It may be a 3 month contract, it may be your home for the next 5 years, either way you show up ready to absorb everything.  Let it change you, let it make you better.
– Be ready to adapt. You have ways you do things and they may conflict with your new coworkers.  Try their way first. Evaluate it and see if you can make it work.  After learning their way, if you have a legitimate reason to think your way is better, talk to them about why you way is better. A company can get stuck in a rut of how things are done without asking themselves why they are still doing it that way.
– Don’t let you life influence your workplace. It is easy to bring all of your baggage into to work with you. If you had a fight with your wife or your father died. You can’t remove the baggage but you can keep it contained.
Let those who you work with closely know what is going on with you. If they know you are having problems they will be less likely to mistake your mood as being their fault or who you are.  Never displace any of your bad moods on your coworkers. They don’t need it and they didn’t do anything to deserve it. If you can do both of those things your coworkers will be more likely to let you know what is going on their lives and communication will reduce stress and misunderstandings.

In short, you need to make the space a place where people want to come to work. If you come in on a Sunday to work, how likely is it that one of your coworkers will come in to help you.  If you’re a joy to work with, you should get better than even odds.

I’ve been rambling a little and I have other work to do. So I’m going to make this topic three separate entries.  Next, time : 1st month.

I started programing with the intention of gaining a new career.
It was quickly apparent that I would be good at it because I love to solve puzzles & to create.
After finishing DevBootCamp, I see that being a programmer isn’t just a job/career but a lifestyle.

LIFESTYLE CHANGES:

#1
I wouldn’t normally write a blog. I’ve kept journals in the past but I’ve never felt the need to publicize them before. I asked my friends as to why it was important to make a public record of my thoughts and the struggles.

There were two consistent replies:
1) To show employers who you are.
2) To give the community an opportunity to help you though your struggles.

I dislike the first answer.  As I write these entries I don’t want to be worried about how they make me look to employers.  I would censor myself as thus invalidate the ability for other programmers to give me guidance while I struggle.

#2
I normally avoid noisy social media. Previously, I would rarely look at Twitter, Facebook, or Tumblr.  When I use these I often get lost in the sea of noise. I understand that they can be extremely useful to keep in touch with developments in the tech community. Once I have a better focus on what I need to know and who are the right people to follow, I’ll give it another attempt.

#3
There is always something to learn. Let me try again. There is always, ALWAYS something you MUST learn.  The constant development in this field doesn’t allow you to become complacent. The first thing I would tell anyone who wanted to become a developer/programmer, “Be prepared to spend 4 – 12 hours every week outside of your job on self improvement. That you will have to attend conferences, meet-ups, and research just to keep up with the changes in the field.”
If you don’t have the drive to keep moving forward after achieving your goals to ask “How can I do more? How could have I done that better?” Then a career as a developer isn’t for you.

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I love programming. I wake up each day wanting a new problem to deconstruct into little solvable chunks.  Each chunk has a hundred ways to solve it, but can I find the most elegant and efficient way to do it.

Finding a job is that same challenge. It isn’t just finding a solution to unemployment. It is the search for a community that will keep the fire within me burning so that I will want to keep learning more.

The worse thing I could do is take a job that feels like a job. Something that makes me want to escape everyday at 17:00.  I rather than stay until 20:00 because I love the problems I’m solving.