Oliver Jen
His Work: Software Development Engineer
(within a large software company)
“There isn’t a lot you need from a workspace
if the work that you’re doing is interesting. I think that by far that is the
largest determinant of whether or not you’re productive in your space.”
Oliver Jen has the tools he needs to be successful at his
work including things like the four monitors on the desk, a whiteboard, and
headphones which help to create some background noise and eliminate some of the
inherent distractions of working in cubicles. I curiously ask Mr. Jen about the
details of the story, why he turned down the office and what that decision was
based on. Oliver Jen says “I wish I had a more selfless noble story to tell you
about here, but there are a few different factors. I was new to the team and I
didn’t really know any of these guys.” He was moving to a new project team when
the company offered him a private office but he declined in order to create a
stronger sense of teamwork. “And I just kind of felt like I wouldn’t get to
know them any better if I were in an office somewhere and they were all over
here.” Oliver Jen has been with the company for six years now and space at the
company is limited. Offices are generally distributed to those that have been
with the company the longest. He explains the details of the offer “I would’ve
gotten a pretty crappy office; it could’ve been like next to a bathroom or
something. So The combination of the crappy office that I would get, not
knowing these guys, and I had been working in a cube for awhile, so It didn’t
feel like a big sacrifice to me.” There are advantages and disadvantages to
either location and Mr. Jen is quite used to working in a cubicle.
Oliver Jen tells me “I
feel sort of like I’m eternally in just a transitional state here” and explains
how that is founded on how much the company reorganizes and moves cubes around.
He says “I would say I’m fairly happy, I just remodeled, as it were, recently. So
I’m pretty happy with this configuration.” He tells me how he doesn’t have a
knack for designing his office space and one day a neighboring employee asked
him why he didn’t just move the whiteboard, switch the way the desk was facing,
and organize in a different way. Oliver Jen shares with me “for a long long
time I devoted zero thought into how my space affects my work and I feel like
this is the first time I’ve applied a little bit of conscious effort into it
and I like the results so far.”
Mr. Jen has a degree in computer science and started his
career as a database administrator. He then transitioned into Software Development.
He says “The ability to code and the ability to write what you want something
to do is a kind of freedom.” He says “it’s something that I wanted to do in
terms of empowering myself a little bit.”
When I ask Oliver Jen is he can put his experience with his
work into a few words he says “educational.” He elaborates and says “it’s been
sort of enlightening I think. I think that for the most people the hard part of
work is very rarely the work part of it, it’s sort of finding that right way of
reaching people on the right levels.” He tells me that you have to take
different approaches with different people you work with and that is largely
about “learning to balance yourself to accommodate and to work effectively with
all these different personalities and to be able to switch gears to do that.
That’s something that people don’t talk a lot about but is really kind of
important.” Though the technical aspect can be frustrating or maddening at
times he says that the people who work here are sharp and figure those kinds of
problems out. So what does it take to be successful here if it isn’t just
having the technical knowledge? ”It’s being able to keep an even keel and learn
people’s work styles or learn how to work effectively with people, understand
the lay of the land, that I really think differentiates the people who excel
and everyone raves about from the people who just nobody ever notices.”
