Quote: Original post by Codeka

Quote: Original post by borngamer
I knew a guy I worked with who had a hard time getting along with people. Every time someone came to him with a problem, he called them idiots. Now, how long did you think it took before people found someone else to ask for help?

Hey, that doesn't sound like a bad idea :p

But seriously, I do agree with what you said...

Although you could get more done if people stop bothering you!

Quote: Original post by Journey
As to the irritating remarks, it "could" have been what I said when I was surprised that one of the programmers had been dating a girl from the slums some years ago, which was very odd to me. Also when I expressed my amazement that a certain car cost a lot more than it should (a Volkswagen Fox), to which I expressed as being a "piece of crap", only to learn later that that was the car the guy owned.

LOL. That sounds to me like they being cool people and you being a jerk.

[Co-worker]- Hey do you know the Volkswagen Fox?...[Journey]  - Yeah, what a piece of crap![Co-worker]- ... I bough one yesterday![Journey]  -Uhm, ah, doh... Congratulations![Co-worker]- I knew a girl from the slums once ...[Journey]  - WTF! Those girls are all sluts and black![Co-worker]- ... we got married, she is now my wife.[Journey]  -Uhm, ah, doh... Congratulations![Journey]  - What's this matrix stuff you got here?[Co-worker]- ...

So... it's complicated. I got let go form a previous position for "performance" reasons, which is kind of hilarious since they didn't have nearly enough for me to do. Whatever.

At my current position, though, I recently caused us to miss a major deadline with a client. It's not pretty, but one of the things I did that really calmed everyone down - I was off at GDC at the time, which makes things a bit worse because I'm sure some people felt that I was having a "vacation" while they were scrambling to meet the deadline (ha! I was working remotely, at one point going nearly 40 hours without sleep) - was to send an email to the team and take responsibility.

That changed the entire tone of the discussion. Now my superiors don't feel like they have to confront me or explain the consequences to me, and my fellow team members feel like they can rely on me to give everything I've got. (It probably helped that I came back on Saturday and went straight to the office, not going home until Sunday evening when nearly everything was in a stable condition - and then I continued to provide support and assistance via email.)

Working with people is about more than just the work: it's about relationships, it's about communication, it's about not necessarily stating your opinion on everything, it's about accommodating other people's attitudes and ignorance and biases. Ultimately, though, not only is it necessary but worth it. You're never going to deliver on anything truly amazing in a team unless you get those basic interaction mechanics sorted out.


Whenever I experience a situational change, I like to reflect on the immediate past - a sort of post mortem to see what went right and what went wrong - and then take the lesson and focus on the future. Take the lessons from your experience at face value; don't try to justify yourself, but rather see if you can be less stubborn, more communicative and friendlier going forward. It sucks that you lost this dream job, but hopefully you'll get another chance - you clearly have the hard tech skills, now develop the "soft" people skills to complement them.

Quote: Original post by owl
LOL. That sounds to me like they being cool people and you being a jerk.

Sounds like he expressed his honest opinion. (It's an art to decide to whom to be that honest, however)

To comment on what Oluseyi said, I've often found that admitting it when I screw up is a very powerful tool in avoiding blame and minimising the bad consequences. Not just in work either... I don't know if I'm just good at showing humility or if it would work for anyone though.

Thanks guys, your support has meant a lot to me. It's a hard lesson to learn, but hopefully I will prevail. It's going to be hard though, I've constantly had problems with people since I was little, saying the wrong things and such.

I do deserve the chance that is for sure. I've always wanted to work at a company like Bioware or Bethesda, and this job was going to be my ticket there. I'll probably have to work on Flash webpages now, since there are no more companies like this in the country, and the only local game company being fully staffed currently, which is hard to swallow (I hope I can get a job doing Flash games over the web, hopefully getting payed in dollars :) ).

If you guys have any more advice, you are more than welcome to give it. I know I will need everything I can get. I would like to be sure about the "document everything" thing, since a poster advised against it.

It is entirely possible you have mild autism or something similar. It would be worth knowing so that you can attempt to pick up on visual and auditory cues people are giving you to get how they are feeling when you make a brash, but honest remark. The type of unfiltered judgments you are passing and the belief that there was "no indication" that you were a bad fit for the job indicates a possibility of some underlying disorder, or alternatively you are just not a very perceptive individual. I can -guarantee- there were several warning signs of your impending lay off you missed completely.

You can read stuff like this if you are in-tune with emotional responses to things you do/say. If you suck at coding you'd see disgust when talking to other programmers. If you offend people, anger. If they dislike you and think they are right, contempt. Watch for this type of thing in your interaction with people.

This type of post I just made, if it sounds like something you would say to someone is the type of thing that would get you fired in a working environment... Just for example. Build up friendship and you can get away with a few more frank conversations, but you are not in a position to judge people's girlfriends, cars, etc. That isn't polite let alone acceptable workplace type discussion.

Many great points in this thread. Here's what I'd do:

1) Try to be in contact with some of your peers there. Ask them for honest evaluations of what you did well and what you did poorly while working.

2) Do the same thing but now ask about the social aspect. Companies hire for abilities and for personality as well. They want to keep the company's culture vibrant, effective and friendly. Someone that causes too much strife, or isn't seen as being an active part of the company's culture could be seen as more expendable.

3) If you're on good terms with any of your bosses, talk with them. All companies are different. Some are very open and would be okay with you (at least on some level) talking with your old bosses and trying to get more advice and information to improve yourself. Other companies are not.

4) Take any of the negatives that they pointed out in your exit interview and build on them. Make yourself a stronger, more capable worker. Work on being more social and also fine tune how you collaborate with people. It's such a big part of working in a team environment. The way you say something to someone can make a great difference so learn and practice how to resolve conflicts when they happen (even if they're just differences in points of view).

If you're an emotional person, then work on that. We have some people here where I work that are emotional firecrackers. Nobody likes to deliver bad news to them. However at the same time we have people who are problem solvers which will look for viable solutions, even when they're annoyed, mad or tired. They keep themselves in check.

5) Get back up, dust yourself off and get another job. :) Take all of the good and bad things you learned and experienced at this other job and use them to your advantage.

I hope that helps out some,

Nate

Another thing to consider:

I see some folks say "this is the dream job" and they feel like if they lose that one job, they've lost their dream. Nonsense. Sure some jobs are "dream jobs" but there are enough paths to other dream jobs out there, especially with new and upcoming talent that it isn't like this was your one solitary path to reaching your dreams.

You obviously did something right to make the company take a risk on you, to hire you. Now this job didn't work out. Learn from that. Grow from that. Take the added experience and knowledge you've gained and apply for more jobs. It's a slight of a tangent but I always consider this when I'm looking at a new audio position. I did enough right to land an in-house position with FUNimation. I did enough right to land another in-house position with NetDevil. Now I have been and am still gathering up enough experience, knowledge and credentials to at least get a call back for even better positions. Take that attitude towards this situation. Don't treat it like this was your one and only shot. It may feel that way, but it isn't. It may take some time, alot of work and effort but you can get another shot at this dream. And when you get that second chance you'll be better equipped to know what to do and what not to do to give yourself the best odds of being a dependable part of the team.

Thanks,

Nate

Wait, some kid wasn't kept on after the three month evaluation, and people are talking about legal action? They didn't give him any feedback! Okay!

Journey: Did you learn anything whilst you were there? If you did, then it's sort of like reverse university, where they pay you to come. That's pretty neat, if you ask me. You can use that in the next job you look for.