How to succeed in any job

You can’t get through as many jobs as I have without learning a few things. So here I present a list of my five top tips to help you get along wherever you work.

1. Always do the most visible tasks. Nobody cares if that 6 year old server is unmaintainable and probably won’t come back up if the power fails. You’ll actually get more credit for pulling an all-nighter and saving the day when it happens. Meanwhile, you’re much better off tweaking that CSS to turn everything pink and shift it three pixels to the left.
2. You’re not here to think. So why did they hire a graduate then? Simple. To get a degree you had to comply with an arbitrary set of rules for 3 years. You’ve proved you can contain your need to rebel and restrict it to alternating beer and Aftershock for 36 hours over the weekend. Now you can sit at your desk and carry on doing what you’re told.
3. Leave your integrity at the door. Nobody cares about your moral or ethical views. They certainly don’t want to know about the law. What matters is money, end of.
4. Always show gratitude. Never forget that they are doing you a favour by employing you. You need your job more than your job needs you. This is probably the easiest tip to follow, as your employer is quite likely to remind you of it if it looks like you might have forgotten.
5. Remember that your contract is meaningless. It was almost certainly written by somebody who makes a very good living from writing documents that employers feel safe signing. So your normal working week is 37 hours? Lovely. Show me where it defines “normal”.

To any potential employers reading this: if it makes you uncomfortable, then please be honest enough not to offer me a job. I think we both know it’s better that way.

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