The software engineer’s guide to asserting dominance in the workplace

_posts/2024-06-11-the-software-engineers-guide-to-asserting-dominance-in-the-workplace.md

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+---
+layout: post
+title: The software engineer’s guide to asserting dominance in the workplace
+category: Dev
+---
+
+Exported
+from https://medium.com/feature-creep/the-software-engineer-s-guide-to-asserting-office-dominance-ddea7b598df7#.rezim5fbs
+which was posted on 22 Jan 2016 by [Daniel Wu](https://medium.com/@dangwu)
+
+As a software engineer, changing jobs is a way of life. Every day, beautiful recruiters from top tech companies reach
+out to you on LinkedIn with new opportunities, and each new job equals higher pay and an opportunity to reinvent
+yourself for the better — as long as you know _how_ to. Here is a handy first-week guide to becoming the alpha of your
+new workplace.
+
+## Monday
+
+On your first day of work, your focus should be entirely on Physical Establishment of Dominance in the Office. Humans
+are hard-wired to follow the biggest and strongest. Once you have proven yourself with the PEDO principle, you will
+command the respect and admiration of your team, and every other aspect of becoming the alpha naturally falls into
+place.
+
+Wake up early on Monday, hit the weights and dehydrate yourself for enhanced vascularity. Take a shower afterwards, but
+put your tight-fitting, sweaty Under Armour gym clothes back on. You’ll arrive at work looking swole, focused, and ready
+to get shit done.
+
+After arriving at work, your number one priority is picking your desk. If you can get a standing desk, get one. Being at
+higher ground is a position of power. This advantage is especially important in open-office environments. People need to
+look up to you — even if only literally. Always pick a corner desk when available, and position it with your back to the
+corner so you are overlooking your coworkers. Angle your monitors so that one is only visible by you. Needless to say,
+this is your dedicated Facebook monitor. For your other monitor, keep code and a terminal on full display at all times.
+
+
+Optimize lunch time by mixing protein shakes and doing body weight exercises.
+
+After lunch, bring a ten pound tub of whey protein powder to your desk and slam it down. Ten pounds is the largest size
+of the powder that is currently sold. If larger sizes are sold in the future, you should obviously switch to that. And
+don’t wait until you finish your current tub either. Immediately purchase the larger size and display it in a prominent
+position on your desk.
+
+The brand of the protein powder must be Optimum Nutrition, as it is the gold standard of whey. You are the gold standard
+of software engineering. You’ll need at least two Blender bottles as well, with three to four being the most optimal
+number. Leave them around the office as a form of territorial marking.
+
+Spend the rest of the day meeting your teammates and noting their weaknesses. At night, prepare ten hard-boiled eggs for
+Tuesday.
+
+## Tuesday
+
+After Monday’s display of physicality, you need to spend Tuesday getting your development environment set up. Checkout
+your team’s code from the git repo and start ramping up. If your new team doesn’t use git, announce your resignation
+immediately and walk out.
+
+Eat your hard-boiled eggs sporadically throughout the day, but save one. Do not take any breaks except to mix protein
+shakes. Remember that you should be consuming one gram of protein per pound of body weight, or per line of code
+written — whichever is greater.
+
+Spend the rest of the day familiarizing yourself with the team’s codebase. Every five to ten minutes, let out a deep
+sigh and write something down on a notepad. Maintain a demeanor of mild disgust on your face that gets increasingly more
+annoyed as you browse through more and more of the code. Mumble words like “refactor” and “rewrite” under your breath.
+Start drawing random complex architectural diagrams on your whiteboard. By 3 PM you should be visibly angry. Eat some
+chili peppers to force yourself to sweat. At 4 PM, allow your rage to boil over and throw your last egg at the wall in a
+fit of rage. Slam your laptop closed and head home early.
+
+## Wednesday
+
+Wednesday is time to institute your technical sovereignty. Be the first one at your daily stand-up, and run it like the
+Scrum master you know you are. If someone talks for more than ten seconds, immediately interrupt them and tell them to
+take it offline. Bring a notepad and take notes with a black pen. Keep a second red pen in your pocket.
+
+When it’s your turn to speak, go on a long rant about all the horrible design patterns you’ve discovered in the code on
+Tuesday. Announce that you have already started designing the architecture of the inevitable re-write. Name-drop as many
+of the latest software frameworks and technologies as possible throughout your rant. Use words like big data, cloud, and
+scalability. Mention test-driven development at least three to four times.
+
+As you are speaking, lock eye-contact with the person to your left, and do not break until they look away. At this
+point, lock eye-contact with the person to their left, and do the same. By the time you are finished speaking, you will
+have gone full circle and sent a clear alpha signal to each of them. Perform this ritual at every stand-up.
+
+If someone tells _you_ to take it offline while you are speaking, brush it off. Inform them that what are you saying is
+the most important thing that has ever been spoken at this company. Then, pull the red pen out of your pocket and
+scribble their name down.
+
+## Thursday
+
+By Thursday, you have demonstrated that you are the strongest, smartest, and most passionate engineer on your team. When
+you get to your desk, rip your standard-issue keyboard out and slide it off your desk. Plug in your own mechanical
+keyboard with Cherry MX Green or Blue switches. Your typing will now be a constant audible reminder to your teammates
+that you aren’t fucking around.
+
+Log into your team’s bug-tracking software and look around for some low-hanging fruit to fix. Spend the rest of the day
+working and fixing them, but don’t send any code reviews out.
+
+As you are working, make sure to look extra pissed off at all times, like you can’t believe how your teammates managed
+to write such crappy code. Type more and more furiously as the day progresses. Do not eat lunch. Do not take breaks.
+Only leave your desk when you are the last man in the office.
+
+At around 10 PM, remote in from home and send your first CR out to your team. In an hour, send another CR out. You
+should have fixed enough bugs during the day to do this for the next four to five hours. You are one hard-working,
+dedicated, bad-ass motherfucker.
+
+## Friday
+
+It’s the last day of your first week, and if you followed this guide perfectly you are now undoubtedly the alpha of your
+new team. Send a working-from-home e-mail out and take the day off. You deserve it.