Everyone starts from somewhere. Nobody knows what they are supposed to do when they first start to do something at their new jobs. They start from small tasks with little experience to more challenging tasks with better experiences in knowing what they should be doing. Gradually, they become an expert and do their job better. “Sweep the Floor” shows us how developers should lower their expectations when they’re fresh out of college and take on simple tasks rather than picking up experiment ones.
The problem shown in this section is we are pretty much unsure of our place in the new team and the team would not know what to expect from us. This might cause bad consequences due to under-performance and bad communication. The solution for this problem is to willingly take on volunteer work. This does not mean taking on any kind of work but should be the work that improves our understanding of the team, the work, and gain experiences. A great method is to show that we could do a high-quality job even it does not seem to matter in some way. An example of this is one famous for his work as Uncle Bob Martin who volunteered to come into a room and took out the trash. The task seemed unfair and jaw-dropping for such a developer, but this job brought him admiration and devotion. However, acquiring an easy task does not mean that we should skimp on quality which might lead to trouble later.
Another problem is that some people think they are better than others due to their educational background. The hard truth is at the workplace, that does not seem to matter much. Workplace and school are contrasting when it comes to real life. You might do good in school but it does not guarantee you would do as well at your job. Having better education means higher expectations for you on the first day.
Yet, there are consequences for taking on an easy job. We might become the team’s gopher who get assigned the tasks that no one else would do. From that, we are unable to take on more challenging assignments. The better way is to advocate for yourself and look for every opportunity to prove yourself worthy with higher-level work.
After all, we should take on the tasks that everyone complains about, do it and do it well. Because that is the only way to show people that the can-do attitude and exceed people’s expectations.
From the blog CS@Worcester – Hung Nguyen by hpnguyen27 and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.