Re: Keeping, and advancing in, your job

[husker]

Even if you are the hardest person in the company to talk to, if you consistantly get what needs to be done faster, cheaper, and more reliably than anyone else, you'll be invaluable.

This is a dangerous generalization. Some corporate cultures will accept a higher level of eccentricity (and anti-socialism) in exchange for higher productivity. Other corporate cultures consider ability to communicate and work as a team as part of the definition of productivity.

In short, if you can't work with others, you put yourself at a large disadvantage. There are very few places where you can get away with being an "island unto yourself", whether that's because you are a boor, a chauvinist, smell bad, are pathologically shy, won't or can't communicate well, or what-have-you. Other co-workers will not be able to trust you, so why would they consider you a teammate or mentor?

And that's not even getting into the "political" ramifications of being non-communicative. Many decisions made by your employer will have other factors besides just your productivity. "Works well with others" is always a positive thing to have on a review.

[Tanktalus]

You're right - I did state that a bit more extreme than I meant to. That said, one of the most uncommunicative contractors we've ever had, was also among our most productive. He would be nearly impossible to talk to, but he'd come back 15 minutes later with the solution implemented. He was amazingly productive. The only reason why he's not here anymore is that our company has a policy of not holding on to a contractor more than 2 years. He was so productive, we had him for 3, fighting for an exemption from the rule. Each additional year takes the fight higher up through management, and is thus that much harder, so 3 was all we could do. Uncommunicative, and extremely productive.

At the time, I had a student working with me who went to the contractor with a problem with the contractor's code (the student was testing it). The student asked a simple question, and the contractor said, "Why do you ask me these things? You might as well ask yourself!" The student left the contractor's office with his tail between his legs. 15 minutes later, the contractor came to our office (the student and I shared an office) and said he had a fixed version put up on the network. Needless to say, it worked. That was seven years ago - we still all laugh about it to this day (the student is now a permanent employee - he was very productive as well, and had the added benefit of better communication skills :-}).