This week I’ve been given the rare opportunity to see what life would be like if I was without a family and lived in a different state.  My experience is similar to the movie “The Family Man“, but the opposite way.  Instead of giving up the rich life, I’m able to hang with the ultimate of my breed, where the not-quite-peers that I’m hanging with, make more in their bonus than what I make working in a year.  Today I’m going to share my experiences.

Ego is Everything:

I almost titled this line of observation: “Rise of the Uber-geek”, but really it’s just about ego.  The other company’s facility that I’m at also have very smart people working too there too.  The Uber-geeks in my party has no comment bounds.  So they are able to call out and ridicule our hosts for mistakes in a direct, but soft way.  Ironically, our hosts have dropped the ball a few times and the way my company is commenting on their performance, while demeaning, isn’t far from the truth.

The uber-geeks in my party are very open about what they think and don’t hold anything back.  They talk about others in our company without any restrictions.  I believe they do this with everybody they know, it’s very strange.

They live in large houses, make really good money, and have all the technical toys that I can only dream of.  They circumvent the regular rules at my company so they can do what they want when they think it… within reason.

I learned a few things from their lifestyle that I hadn’t realized or seen before that I’m going to describe below.

• They specialize.  They are able to become masters of their core skill, but still pick up and learn other technologies at least at a surface level.  I would guess that they know 80% enough about other technologies to get by, but most likely spend 90% of their day working in the sphere of mastery.
• They are great talkers and especially good with people, and very persuasive in a logical smooth talking way.  So they have mastered both technical, social and with a bit of knowledge about legal skills.  I would guess that the have a mastery of the skills to get them ahead in life.
• They go outside their peer circle and talk to the business owners and schedules time with them, sometimes leaving their peers or subordinates high and dry (at least in my experience).
• The rules don’t apply to them and they do whatever then want first then sell their prototype/ideas to their business partners.  Their business partners are in awe of them and give them special privileges.

All are nice, even though they are arrogant in a polite way. 

I consider myself luck to observe this experience, I’ve never seen this way of living in my line of work before.  It’s been educational to just by watching the individuals that I base my primary observations on.

Although I’m not them, I’m experiencing the same presentation, eating and sitting side by side with them.  Interestingly, for the most part, we are all from different states in the US.

As fascinating as the experience is, I’ll be glad to go back to the pre-glimpse existence.

Bests,

MR