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[hariseldon]

In all seriousness, the best way is to find ways to make yourself indispensable and impossible to replace.

Aside from your normal workload, offer to do something on the side that no one else will do and don't tell anyone how you do it.

Never this. Being indispensable is a one way ticket to a heart attack.

 

[Kadayi]

The key in any business is to build positive rapport with those around you, through your daily interactions with them.

A lot of people if they've made a mistake will look for a scapegoat/excuse, don't be that person. Take full ownership of your mistakes (yours though not anyone else's). Everyone makes them, but if you're honest about yours, management/your peers they will respect you, and their trust/faith in you will increase accordingly. It also means that people will feel easier acknowledging their own mistakes with you as well, which is productive (Parking your ego is a big part of navigating the office environment).

Similarly, if you don't understand something, be honest about your confusion, even if you're in a room full of people.

Don't be afraid to ask people for help/advice/opinion occasionally (though only if they are in a position to assist, I.E not busy themselves). If people help you out, make sure to thank them personally or with a quick email if they are remote. This makes them feel positive towards you.

Make the effort to engage with people when appropriate (coffee breaks, lunchtimes etc) Ask them whether they had a good weekend, or what their plans are, or where they got that doohickey on their desk. Make the conversation about them. The more you learn about people, the more you can engage and the greater your rapport with them.

Try not to moan/bitch/be negative. It's just venting and largely gets you nowhere.

Treat everyone with respect equally whether it be the CEO or the Office Cleaner. Everyones there to do a job. So respect the hustle no matter how humble a position it may be, because no one's there to take shit off anyone.

Do the work, and look for ways to optimise always.

 

[Taxexemption]

This is terrible advice that earns me 6 figures over 2 decades. In NYC.

The places I work cannot risk firing me because I bring intangibles.
Even when I tried once to quit, I was offered a raise I could not refuse.
Right now, they want to make me a manager, but I don't want that stress.

The point IS that management doesn't know. You convince them of what they need and prove it.

I don't think your experience is typical. There are plenty of hard working people that are unappreciated and will be fired simply because others are willing to work for less, or because employees that work hard and gain experience in a company ask for raises on occasion. Or just cause they honestly raised their concerns they had about the direction a project was going.


There are plenty of employers out there that do not care about you and will get rid of you even if they need you for petty reasons. I don't think most of the employers I've had valued hard work or technical skills as much as they valued a "yes man" that followed the same sports as them.

 

[SLoWMoTIoN]

Kiss ass. Anybody that says otherwise is lying.

 

[Phase]

Two things I think are very important are to treat everyone with respect regardless of what they do or how they act towards you, and number two never gossip. The second one I've really started to embrace outside of work as well.

 

[Mossybrew]

Workplace cultures and expectations vary so wildly from place to place that this is a very difficult question to answer.

 

[hariseldon]

Best advice I can offer on career progression is as follows:

-You will move between companies so be strategic in those moves. Eg I took a job only paying 1k more than the one I was in to move from PHP programming to Java, going from a senior role to a junior one because I had zero experience of the language. I did so because I knew it would be a better path long term. Currently I earn double what a good PHP dev would earn.
- Avoid being the sole custodian of any skill or knowledge. I am the only person left at my company who knows how the old legacy tool works and I'm trying to get the replacement built. I've built a team for that job but the legacy crap holds me up a lot. It's great for pay negotiations but terrible for blood pressure.
- Negotiate hard. It's business, nothing personal. They're not friends, they are people you do business with. They want to pay the minimum price.
- Get good. Doesn't work for all jobs but in software development it really is a meritocracy. In other jobs consider becoming a black disabled trans lesbian midget.
- Seriously, get good. Invest time and energy in your own time to get better. I'm reaping the rewards for that but I'm not stopping. The rewards are worth it.

 

[#Phonepunk#]

 

[Windle Poons]

It's shocking to me how many people get away with both of these and keep their jobs.

Yeah, frequently people at my place.