[adingus]

When you are new, say yes to everything. Stay busy, if you have nothing to do, ask for something. You want to take the load off your team members where you can to contribute & build some clout/respect. Find the most knowledgeable team member and shadow them.

Real jobs are just college group projects that never end.

[Izkata]

> When you are new, say yes to everything.

Anecdote: Back when I was first starting, we were experimenting with different agile styles, and were pulling cases off a backlog whenever we needed something new to do. It wasn't strictly ordered, so you could pull off the top several if there was something you wanted to do more.

The top two items were getting skipped for a long time, so I took one and stumbled around trying to figure it out. Ended up asking a few newbie questions (non-technical, about how the feature was intended to work) that our manager had no answer for, resulting in the case getting officially bumped way down. Then tried the second, and the same thing happened.

Even though I technically didn't get anything done (which did feel kinda bad at the time), I learned a decent amount about how those systems functioned, got rid of some eyesores, and brought it to everyone's attention that the cases hadn't been sufficiently fleshed out. Net positive, I think.

[vbsteven]

While saying yes to everything is an interesting way to learn new things. Keep in mind that saying no is also a skill to be learned.

As a person currently struggling with always-say-yes related burnout symptoms I cannot stress enough how important it is to manage your workload to keep yourself sane. Balance is key

[adingus]

This is true. I should have stressed the "while you're new" part and added "say yes but communicate when you're overloaded". After a while you'll start to see the good projects from bad ones and can stategically keep your mouth shut when someone pitches them.

[wtvanhest]

This is good advice. Saying yes to everything is basically the most important thing. The other thing is to try to tackle headache problems for your team or manager.

You’ll know it when you see it because you will literally get uncomfortable when thinking about completing it.

High output involves completely finishing things. It will be impossible at first, but as you get more experience, in both total and your current company you will be better at it.

[isatty]

> When you are new, say yes to everything.

Maybe, but not if you already know what is being asked of you is boring because you have tried it before and it did not work. Also, don't be afraid of sharing experiences that you may have had - if a particular library/algorithm is sub-optimal and you know it, speak out.

[ergocoder]

> Real jobs are just college group projects that never end.

For a decent company, the differences are:

* The skill set of group members probably suits the tasks (e.g. some good at leading, some good at coordinating, some good at coding)

* The reward is real and can be life-changing. (e.g. becoming millionaires)

* The punishment is real (e.g. being fired)

[lnsru]

Being fired is very normal procedure in current corporate world. You loose game of office politics and you are out. Maybe not immediately, but with next downsizing wave. Shouldn’t happen in decent company, but nobody is perfect.

Becoming millionaire as a salaried employee is a pipe dream. Company owner will become millionaire, salaried employee will get yearly 10% bonus. In decent company maybe 20%.

I agree on skill set, but I saw many different things like electrical engineers writing C# code because manager wanted this.

[ergocoder]

> Becoming millionaire as a salaried employee is a pipe dream. Company owner will become millionaire, salaried employee will get yearly 10% bonus. In decent company maybe 20%.

In a typical FAANG company, you can simply stick to a job for like 4 years to earn a million USD (before tax). If you do well on top of that + stock growth, your compensation will sky-rocket.

There are 10 of thousands of employees reaches $1m in earning. Maybe it probably takes 4-5 years to save $1m. But it's not hard.

[lnsru]

There are many employees at FAANG for sure, but majority will never work there.

[AmericanChopper]

I’d say at least two out of those three points are usually true.

[cube00]

Except there's no recess and the grades count for more.