Differences
OK, it's not that these things totally aren't applicable; often it's more the case that they're not applicable to the same extent that they are to a conscript within the SAF.Effort Counts For Very Little
Not everybody is a born soldier. Moreso for those that didn't choose to be here, but were drafted. You're going to get a huge variety of recruits - ranging from the ultra-fit, top-performing and super-patriotic types to the dysfunctional types who should never be put behind the business end of a firearm. This is not a complaint by any means, just a statement of fact. A fact that most sensible officers are conscious of. So if you were a conscript, you could get away with failure as long as it wasn't failure due to negligence or insubordination. As long as you were seen putting in a reasonable amount of effort, even if you failed miserably, your superiors wouldn't get on your case... too much. In fact, the fact that you were putting in effort despite being due to leave in a couple years' time, probably put you ahead of most conscripts who were just clocking their time and waiting, dying even, to leave.I was a long way from being the perfect soldier. Average height, average build, perhaps just a tad physically fitter than average... but also a slow learner and a painfully clumsy fuck. (If you think being clumsy doesn't sound like such a big deal, try being clumsy on the rolling deck of a warship.) But nobody ever accused me of not trying hard enough. When I had to take over somebody's watch, nobody ever had to wake me up - I would be out of my bunk doing my 5BX and eating a bowl of cereal twenty minutes before I was due to take over. Now, I wasn't all buddy-buddy with my crew mates and some of them just didn't like me (boo fucking hoo, bitches), but everyone wanted me to be the one taking over them. Go figure.
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| No quarter given. |
Out of the military, you're not cut as much slack. It doesn't matter how often you stay back after office hours, how many weekends you burn and how many times you go the extra mile. If you don't deliver, if you can't deliver, none of that matters. Effort is the excuse of the incompetent, and the refuge of the weak. The client doesn't care about the effort you put in, but the results. He only cares that the web application he paid for, is up and running on schedule, as promised. If you screw up, prepare to be held accountable. Nobody is going to say give the dude a break, he didn't choose to be here and he's doing the best he can. No, in a corporate environment, you damn well chose to be here - in fact, you applied for the goddamn job!
Seaman's Clothes Aren't Appropriate Corporate Wear
The crew cut and the workboots were two things I took out of the military. Having the wind rush through my scalp and the reassuring feel of thick steel caps around my toes were comforts I wasn't willing to give up, years after I left. As a result, I often looked more like a construction worker than a web developer, looked more at home in a shipyard than in an office.And sometimes, in offices where people preferred freshly ironed shirts, pleated pants and dress shoes, I was out of place. Not that I ever got much grief for it, though people have expressed their astonishment that someone who dresses like me actually has a degree... and three diplomas.
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| I love boots. |
I'll cop to a fair bit of arrogance on my part. Dressing the way I did was pretty much my way of declaring, I'm a no-nonsense tech - fuck your faggy dress code. Which was, in retrospect... pretty juvenile, but we're all young once.
Although, it has to be said, a lot of this depends on context. I was recently part of a start-up where the engineers wandered in day in, day out, in shorts and slippers. These days, I go with the shirts, trousers and nice shoes. Why fight it, right?
Your Superiors Don't Share Your Principles
When a rifle was put in our hands, one of the first lessons we were taught was not to point it at anyone unless we were prepared to fire - even if we were sure that the weapon wasn't loaded. This may seem meaningless to those who haven't served, but the reasoning is simple. A rifle is a weapon. An instrument of death. And it has been put in your grubby little hands. You have been charged with an awesome responsibility. |
| This is not a toy. |
Respect the weapon. Respect yourself. Don't point it at anyone frivolously. It becomes a habit. And habits like these are insulting to those who have died from such accidents.
Your superiors understood these principles as well. You would not, for instance, catch a Colonel pointing a rifle at a recruit for fun, or ordering someone to do so for less than completely serious purposes. Every high-ranking officer was once a recruit and underwent the same training. Without exception.
Now look at the jungle that is the corporate world. Developers are pressured to abuse their skills almost constantly. Cut corners to meet deadlines. Engage in practices harmful to the product. Spend less time maintaining existing features and more time building shiny new ones, thus increasing technical debt, compromising the integrity of your project structure and exposing the product to future failure. Salespeople urging you to help falsify consolidated data. Why? Because those in authority don't understand software development. They're businessmen, not software architects. They understand time and money. They'll want to overclock the servers, overload the databases, and pay as little as possible for maintenance. The things they want you to do almost always violate some principle of software development or other.
No, it's not that I blame them. It is what it is. They're laypeople. Asking us to do stupid shit is practically part of the job description.
Finally...
While I've had the dubious privilege of digging shell scrapes, I've never written a shell script in my life... I think. Do xcopy batch files count? Still, I thought it was a clever title. Got your attention though, didn't it?
Keep soldiering on,
T___T
T___T
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