Based on my 10 months of work experience, I have come to some conclusions of my own, which I think the readers will find helpful especially those who are working or those who'd soon be working.
1. Grab the prized seat.
Agreed that you might be having the most strategically positioned workplace i.e. which is out of the range of unsolicited enquiries like, ‘are you doing some work?’ (I’ll come to this point later) and where you can listen to uninterrupted music and quietly do your work, but it is still naivety. As the saying goes, never underestimate the power of the chair or position, I would add to that that never underestimate the geographical location of your workplace as well. No matter what is your position in your company, try very hard to get that seat in the corner, right next or maybe next to next to your team lead or project lead, whichever the case might be and at the first opportunity. This might give you some nightmares over a day or two but eventually you will thank your stars for this arrangement. The reason being that you might be putting 15 hours a day in your work from that old and cherished position, but still nobody knows about that and doesn’t care also. When you sit close to your boss, even your eight hours of work works wonders and moreover if your boss is playing a flash game on his computer, so you can and he wouldn’t mind that also.
2. Over-dramatize the complexity of the project.
You have been given a very complex project to handle. The good news is that it’s not as complex as you thought it would be and you are sure that you can handle it, even single-handedly. So, you go to your hole and start working on it and deliver the project on time. If this is the way you have been doing your work, you are a FOOL. It’s time to have a rethink on your work ethics, if there ever were any. That is, make your PL aware of the complexity of the project. Ask him to assign you more resources (read team members) for the timely delivery of the project. For every glitch you face, definitely tell it to your PL and of course, with all the garnishing that you can add and never ever without a solution. Even if the glitch was very simple but since you came up with the solution as well, your PL will be impressed. Forget about the solution part if you happen to be a girl. The job is still incomplete i.e., you have to do this for even the easiest of the projects.
3. Salute the egotistical snobs.
Every company has a particular breed of employees, ranging from one to many depending on the size of the company, who are there just for the sake of being there and more often than not they happen to be at positions from where they can wreak havoc at your career. You know that you have spotted one in your company when s/he happens to be a textbook manager, s/he asks to convene a team meeting at least 5 times a day even when s/he has absolutely no idea about the project, s/he demands to be e-mailed every hour about the progress in the project so that s/he is never caught off-guard when asked about the same by his/her superiors and s/he is often found meddling into others’ affairs when they are silently working. And s/he is often spotted leaving the office premises at six in the evening. The only way to deal with such uncompromisingly honest and atrociously finicky managers is to say ‘YES’, to whatever they ask or demand from you. They can be made supremely happy if you mail them 10 times a day and have a word with them every time you pass by their cubby holes.
4. Look like someone lost in a zoo.
Yes, you have read it right. You might be someone with a happy-go-lucky nature and having an easy and composed disposition, but you are STUPID if you also portray yourself to be like that. That is, look like someone lost in the Jurassic Park. The reason is, with a natural tendency to behave and act like someone described above, you have a 100% probability to be misunderstood by your immediate seniors. According to their heightened and refined yet ruinously ridiculous senses, either you are not doing your work altogether or you have gotten the easiest project in the entire company that you are able to keep your cool. The trick is to give rise to the actor within. Parry the comments like, ‘you have a carefree attitude’, by contorting your face into the saddest face imaginable in the world. Make your face discernible i.e. let everyone read also that you are the most over-worked employee in the company. The saying goes like no matter how troubled you are, if you are able to keep your cool everything’s going to be fine. The mantra to remember at your workplace is, no matter how cool you are look like someone lost in the zoo and that too a zoo, which is full of the most ferocious animals and that too all set free.
5. Never ever answer in an affirmative.
‘By the way, are you doing some work now?’ you will often be asked this question at your workplace. Being an honest and a hard-working employee that you are, even if you were in the middle of some important work, your first tendency would be to say, ‘no, not really’ and you will take up the extra work though reluctantly. Every time you do this, you are under the impression that you are increasing your credibility and getting into the good books of your immediate seniors. This is where your thinking is skewed and exactly opposite is happening. When in fact, your seniors will be under the impression that you are sitting idle every time and so load him with all the extra and often boring work. Learn to say ‘NO’. See, the point is if there really is a lot of work in the company, and it is becoming hard to handle all that by the concerned persons, primarily due to the constraint of time, the work IS eventually going to come to you. So, why take chances?
6. Get a sex change.
You can simply ignore the above five points if you happen to be a female.
Au revoir
