Being frustrated with your coworkers from time-to-time is not unique to any single occupation or person. Everyone has days where they want to severely hurt the person in the next cube. The question that begs to be answered: What drives us to these feelings?

The obvious answer that everyone would like to shout at the top of their lungs is – The Other Person Is Being An Idiot!!!. Although this maybe the case, why does it bother you so much? Why not chuckle at the poor fool and move along with your day? It is my belief that there are 3 core reasons why, but the last one you might not be ready to hear…

They Have A Passionate Personality

A lot of people I know are insanely passionate about what they do to a fault (this includes myself). As a common result, communication with insanely passionate folks tend take on a feeling of almost arguing. As the saying goes:

…this is good, now that we are arguing we are finally talking…

Unfortunately, both passionate and lesser passionate coworkers will always perceive the other person as being blunt, stubborn, or even a verbal bully. Your understanding of this personality type might ease the pain when having to deal with them as you can concentrate more on what they are attempting to say rather than how they are saying it.

Everyone Takes Personal Pride

Even including the most apathetic people that did sloppy work, I have never found someone that did not take some amount of personal pride in their work. This is especially true for our occupation since developers have a sense of “creation” in their work.

Where pride comes into play is not so much “who” you are talking with but more “what” the topic is about. If you are discussing a found bug, is there friction in the conversation because it occurred in your code? Is the other person being defensive because it happened in their code? Are you both being combative because you disagree on the solution?

You do not need to be a developer to have personal or professional pride in your work; however, this rub point occurs a lot in our occupation considering every conversation we have deals with the intellectual creation of another.

You Don’t Get Along With Yourself

Here is the one you are not ready to hear. You can’t stand yourself. Trust me, it’s true.

If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn’t part of ourselves doesn’t disturb us. – Hermann Hesse

Like personal types tend not to work well together. Believe it or not, you do need a good balance of personality types and ideas. However, this is a tough pill to swallow because we all suffer from the same delusion that a bunch of clones of yourself would work faster and more efficient than any other group of people.

Being in a frustrating situation with coworkers is only natural; however, how frustrated you get is directly related to how well you understand the situation. If you keep your cool and give yourself some time to really analyze the situation, I bet you will find a very predictable human reaction behind it.

This month’s Developer Faceoff highlights two developers that contributed to the Writer’s Block Contest: Sergio Pereira vs. Angelo Anolin.

Sergio Pereira has been developing software professionally since the mid 90’s. After a short period of desktop application development, he changed his focus to web development and never looked back. Addicted to learning, he constantly looks at 3-month old code and wonders how could he produce such atrocity. Sergio often contributes to devlicio.us and twitter.

Angelo Anolin started his computer career back in 1996 as a Civil Engineer, but got involved with programming around 2004 initially with Sybase Powerbuilder. He now develops in .NET for an oil and gas exploration company in Brunei. Angelo is a knowledge hungry developer that believes there is not only room for improvement but for also accumulating knowledge. Angelo can be found at his blog and twitter.

Here we go!

	Sergio Pereira	Angelo Anolin
1. How long have you been developing?	Yikes, I’ve been paid to do this for 12 years.	Humanly – Since Birth. Professionally – 5 Years.
2. What is your favorite language to date?	Ruby, it still has that new car smell to me.	VB.Net
3. What is your favorite pattern/architecture?	I like anything that contributes to the removal of dependencies. I’ll say the Template Method pattern because it’s simple and often shows someone starting to grok OO design.	Architecture that works best for the project I am involved in.
4. Is formal academic education necessary for development?	Not necessary. It’s still a new field and people can get by being self-taught.	It helps, but the factor is still you – the student.
5. Are software developers – engineers or artists?	Craftsmen. Code should not be subject to personal interpretations – it’s not Art, we don’t have time for that.	Engineer (I am an engineer myself).
6. Do you blog? If so how long and how many subscribers?	I finally started blogging last year. According to feedburner, 3.5K subscribers.	Just started one late last year. No statistics yet.
7. If you could read only one blog, which one would you pick?	Kathy Sierra’s – Creating Passionate Users (even if just the archives)	www.noop.nl
8. What is the biggest mistake you made along the way?	Assumed everyone that works with me cares as much about the software as I do.	Overlooking life beyond the keyboard and monitor.
9. Anyone in the software community you are star struck around?	Anders Hejlsberg. I wish all the great contributors of our industry were as well-spoken and coherent as him.	Jurgen Appelo
10. What is the secret of your success, expressed in one word?	Sincerity	Perseverance

In this fast paced and economically burdened society, it is only natural for the majority of us to ask ourselves how can we fortify our careers. Do we solidify our current positions? Or should we diversify our experience and resume?

A number of people have asked me this question lately all with the same concerns – they feel their current skill set does not provide them with all the job opportunities they need in order to feel comfortable.

The truth is it is completely possible to land a job without knowing anything at all about the technology or domain for which you are applying for. The only thing you need to prove is your ability to quickly learn and adapt (however, I hope that it is obvious that the less you know the more convincing you will have to be).

Many people are fearful of even applying for positions where they do not meet (or exceed) the requirements of the job description. Pffft I say.

Remember in Star Wars how C-3PO talked himself into the graces of Uncle Owen?

Uncle Owen: You, I suppose you’re programmed for etiquette and protocol.
C-3PO: Protocol? Why, it’s my primary function, sir. I am well-versed in all the customs–
Uncle Owen: I have no need for a protocol droid.
C-3PO: Of course you haven’t, sir. Not in an environment such as this. That is why I have been programmed in–
Uncle Owen: What I really need is a droid who understands the binary language of moisture vaporators.
C-3PO: Vaporators? Sir, my first job was programing binary load lifters very similar to your vaporators in most respects.”
Uncle Owen: Can you speak Bocce?
C-3PO: Of course I can, sir. It’s like a second language to me. I’m a–
Uncle Owen: yeah, alright. Shut up. I’ll take this one.
C-3PO: Shutting up, sir.

There are three simple rules to remember. Master these and you will never be scared of unemployment again.

1. You will never fit the job description 100%

Don’t even get me started on this topic because for some stupid reason employers ask for job skills that even most astronauts don’t possess. Getting hung up in the fact that you don’t fully qualify all the skills is the first stumbling block.

Even if you aren’t their picture perfect candidate, you might be the best for the job out of everyone that applied.

2. Find and flaunt parallel skills

C-3PO didn’t know binary vaporators, but he did know binary load lifters. Don’t know Java? The last 4 years of C# just might be enough to prove you understand it enough.

You would be amazed at how many parallel skills you can draw with what skills are being asked. Really ask yourself, are they asking for an Exchange Server expert or are they asking if I am a capable email administrator that can handle an Exchange server?

3. Shut up

When they decide they like you – shut up. Don’t give up any more information than you need to as it will only hurt you. Just like C-3PO, you might find yourself getting jettisoned if you ramble on.

It is always better to gain new experience and skills; however, do not worry about lacking the knowledge of everything the universe has to offer. Proving that you know how to learn, unlearn, and relearn is the greatest thing you can offer an employer.