Office politics - don't let it get into you

There are a few things you learn when you work with people of varied level of maturity and experience. This unfortunately is common in just about any industry - especially in the software industry.

Today, one of the guys in my department placed in an order for 4 new books on the companies book budget. If you remember I wrote about how I spend some time on a book I bought and had to share my acquired knowledge with the team. Well, this guy thought he would go one better and ordered four and a Sennheiser headphone just to allow him to zone out while coding.

Ok, I know he's entitled to place an order for something that he thinks will benefit the company, but I don't see how a Sennheiser Headphone will benefit anyone other than himself. Come to think of it, there are even cheaper ones out there, so why spend that huge amount on headphones.

What really made my day was to later hear that although the book will be bought, headphones as well as other gadgets are not something the company would like to spend its money on. Meaning that eventually, he would either stay without one and put up other people's noise or spend his own money on one.

It will be nice to see the look on his face tomorrow.