Re: Keeping, and advancing in, your job

[johndageek]

One additional point is attitude.

Be positive! Everyone likes to work with an upbeat person. (ok ok I accept the whipping for the generalization for saying everyone). You can still pick holes in plans, just be sure to offer options. Remember to play by the "rules" e.g. If the team, group or gang agrees to select a solution by majority, and your idea is not selected, YOU USE THE TEAM SOLUTION, it doesn't matter how much better you think your solution is. "b...b...but whhhhyyyyyyyy?" the new (hire, grad, contractor) asks, lower lip atremble.

PAY ATTENTION HERE - because many times the old guys with their old slow to change mentality understand the system they have been working with MUCH better than you do, so they understand things like ramifications of a given change. Learn from them - professional paranoia can be taught in school, but the lesson rarely hits home until a production system you were entrusted with craps out because of a quick fix

I lied, there is a second point. ROI (return on investment). A company, your company, exists to make a profit. Remember if they do not profit, you do not profit. So, how does that affect me? If this question makes sense to you - Read on, please.

You are an investment. (don't trust me, speak with a couple of people to find out what you cost, just to hire. Records set up , payroll and government reporting, corporate portion of your taxes etc. accounts set up. Oh yeah, remember to factor in benefits). Most new hires do not result in a gain for six months to a year. "But I am writing code right away, so I must be creating profit for the company!", new hire comment. "Ahh grasshopper, you also need guidance and advice (please note the word need, get the guidance and advice this is part of the corporate investment in you) which uses your time as well as the time of some of the most experienced people we have for non-direct gain. After six months to a year, you will be sufficiently versed in your company's systems to be able to start making better decisions with less dependence on others, in other words you will, hopefully, be close to pulling your own weight and improving.

Sorry, I was going to discuss ROI. Return on investment is simple. For the money (as used as a measure of time, resources, effort and so on) I invest, how long will it be before I recoup my investment, and begin to see a return beyond that. A good rule of thumb for management - if your roi is a year or less, it is a no brainer, go ahead and do it, 1 to 2 years, the long term gains must be carefully evaluated, and longer than 3 years the potential gains must be huge and carefully investigated.

A simple example:
We have 2 employees a secretary (pay is $10 per hour) and a programmer (pay is $20 per hour). Rough rule of thumb, employee cost is approximately double their hourly pay.

Situation:
The secretary spends 2 hours per week doing a repetitive boring task. The programmer sees that they can automate the process so it will only take the secretary 1 hour a week, and it will only take 80 hours to program (we will leave the art of estimating time for another discussion).

Oh, oh, math time.

Cost of secretary to do the job as it is now per year: $20 per hour times 2 hours per week times 52 weeks in a year = $2080 per year.

Cost of programming time for the gain: $40 times 80 hours = $3200.

Value of secretaries time to be saved (about half) = $20 times one hour per week times 52 weeks in a year = $1040

ROI = Cost of programming $3200 divided by $1040 annual gain for the investment = 3.08 years

This project will be scrapped. The rational is as follows: You - our programmer investment can be put on projects with a MUCH higher rate of return than this. We can continue to pay the secretary to do the work, while the programmer works on a project with higher returns.

Now let's take a slightly different view - what if there are ten secretaries that do this task at the same frequency and duration, all other variable stay the same.

Value of secretaries time to be saved (about half) = $20 times one hour per week times 52 weeks in a year TIMES 10 secretaries = $10,400

ROI - Cost of programming $3200 divided by $10,400 annual gain for the investment = .308 years

This project will likely be approved, because after four months, this project will have paid itself back and start to earn money for the company.

It sure sounds like it is all about the money, doesn't it? Remember, money is only our agreed upon medium of exchange, so as long as the company makes more, presumably it will pay you more and so on.

[samizdat]

Rats, you beat me to it. I can't agree more, John. The days of coding geniuses who are jerks being tolerated are vanishing rapidly, especially in broader organizations. Being a misanthrope or a 'hole is a mistake in today's world.

There are many programs available for those who want to improve their attitudes. I recommend the Landmark Forum, although I will agree with many that their self-congratulatory feed-us-more-students attitude gets old. I got a huge boost from the Forum back in 1985, and I'm much better for it. There are other programs with similar self-improvement foci, such as Darshan Shanti's <plug: a personal friend>.

The key to all of them is that you are in charge of your attitude, and your attitude is the filter through which the world and its other denizens shows up for you. Computers are much easier to debug than ourselves, but the task is worth doing! For yourself, for your cow-orkers, and for your coding productivity and creativity.

[Jenda]

Be positive! Everyone likes to work with an upbeat person.

But make sure you do not exagerate. If you move from the states to the old continent, calm down! If you move to one of the ex-socialistic countries calm down even further. It's OK to be positive, just don't make too much fuss about it. Even if you are the boss, calm down. We've acquired alergy to the prophets of bright future, your boasts about the company's profit and future will not go down well.