If you liked the move “Office Space”, and would like to work in a job environment like that, I suggest HPE’s job openings. The recent specialty of the house is what I would call “impractical humor”, because it makes it impractical to actually get your job done efficiently. This applies ESPECIALLY if you are new to a work group! It involves some very funny circular logic. You have no credibility, because you are (new and therefor) slow. Your lead engineers and management will make you double-prove and try to triple-prove that your work is correct, because you have no credibility (while those group veterans with credibility 0.5-prove or single-prove their work, at best). Because you have to triple-prove your work, you will be slow. Because you are slow, you will have no credibility! And round and round she goes… Quite funny, actually! … Oh, yes, and funny jokes from many-many engineers, directed at many-many other engineers, about their lack of tech skills, abound! A funny thing about these funny things, though, was I rarely hear any laughs, and the ones I do hear, are nervous or forced. But humor abounds, there at HPE, if you like that kind of humor!
The down side of all this is, those who do not play these humor games, or do not play them well, or start to play them only after they have gotten a “D” on their report card, get laid off. And that’s not quite so funny any more… Certainly not to the ones that get laid off. The jokers who make these kinds of jokes, and do it well? They keep on laughing all of the way to the bank. It does not even matter, by the way, after you have gotten that “D”, that you work tons of over-time, and give up your vacation time, and deliver good performance on projects just as hard, or harder than, that which the jokers are working on. You will get laid off. “D” on report card says “Done for”; they have lined you up ahead of time, with their forced-distribution ranking schemes, for the next round of layoffs. After your “D”, it would not matter if you have invented anti-gravity or artificial consciousness, because The Management Has Spoken; They have rubber-stamped your competitor “team-mates” sarcastic jokes about your tech skills! Once Management Has Spoken, they will NOT change their minds, no matter how hard you work, or what you do. And if you try to “bid out” of one HP group to join another, post “D”… No matter how many good grades you have gotten, in how many previous years… You are toast! The potential new manager will snoop on your LAST grade… And ONLY your last grade… And KNOW that Management Has Spoken, and no HP manager (in the minds of other HP managers) ever makes any kinds of mistakes in judgment. So post “D” on your report card, do not work harder or longer… Take it easy! If you work harder, you just make it easier for HPE to continue to carry on their jokes…
PS, also beware of this: HPE will sometimes give you a job-grade increase, without any increase in pay, just to “set you up” to be able to give you a bad grade. Now that you have been promoted to Vice President (of sarcastic jokes or whatever), you are expected to create room-temperature super-conductivity with your hands tied behind your back, you know. Didn’t do that? “D” for you! So if you get a job grade increase, try to turn it down, if they will let you… Or, bail out to another job with a lower job grade, they will let you do that… But in your new group, beware of the circular-logic trap that is set out for newbies!!!