First day on the job and related thoughts

Today was my first day at work, which also happened to be release day. So everyone was busy with that, and I just sat around, trying to read up on some of the finer points of this trade, but mostly chatting with Nikki and Nicky - mostly with Nicky. The first thing I had to do was to go through this enormous pile of paperwork. Then I had my picture taken, and had an ID card issued afterwards. I got my own cubicle, and a bunch of cool stuff, such as a genuine ceramic <redacted> coffee mug. Amid all this, I started thinking: I HAD BETTER NOT DERP ON THE JOB. I will flog myself senseless, if I find myself doing so - ideally. The company is putting up with me and paying me because they want me to be of some use to them. The things I shall learn there won't be classroom stuff that one pays to receive: it is I who am being paid. So they naturally expect to be paid back in useful work. I don't think I shall derp on the job once I actually start on it. As always, I just hope that the impression I gave during the interview didn't cause my employers to overestimate my abilities vastly. Sure, you could argue that I've only finished four semesters; but there are others out there who have finished four semesters, and have done more than I could do in ten years. The point is, of what use would people like me be to a company when there are people like them around? Except perhaps as something to fall back on, when their first choice has already been taken. I just hope that I can adapt sufficiently to my job within the next few days not to let my manager feel that it was a mistake giving me the internship. In order to do that I shall have to get over my dislike of the geek stereotype.

Speaking of which, I wouldn't dislike it so much, if there weren't something in it to dislike. Most of them are unimpeachable as people, of course; but I find that I often can't relate to them in terms of interests or views. The main thing that stands out in geeks is their characteristic obliviousness in matters of personal hygiene. That may not always be true; but some people are fain to look upon this anomaly as indicating a total inability to be distracted. Such as Benny from FIITJEE, who started drooling and became weak at the knees the one time she talked about how the kids in the superbatch didn't comb their hair or brush their teeth. "That much willing they are to come here and study," she said, or words to that effect. I am particularly sensitive to the hygiene of people around me, as well as to my own. It's only fortunate that the people I met in college shared my views on the subject, computer science majors though they all were. But I have seen with my own eyes and walked away from with my own feet people who conformed to this bizarre stereotype. This usually came hand-in-hand with the snarky attitude many engineers tend to have toward "lesser" majors - especially liberal arts majors.

That snarky attitude... The prevailing bias in countries like India, and in engineering majors, is against the humanities. People are regarded, on some level, as being inferior in intelligence for not being geniuses at math and science, or otherwise not interested in them. But intelligence can't be measured only in one way. Nowhere is this bias more apparent than in India nowadays, where if you choose a career in something other than engineering (or for the time being medicine) you risk injuring your parents mentally and emotionally, unless they regard your true calling to be that of a housewife, and any career choices you may make before then as meaningless frivolity. Of course, this is not so terribly widespread, so it would be invidious to arraign everyone of holding this opinion, even in India. Let's just end the topic with a superficial analysis of the situation. People in the highest paying jobs will always be regarded as more intelligent than others. I say it's superficial, because it's not always true - a case in point being politics, where, as we know, almost everyone is an imbecile. 

I suppose my main gripe with the geek stereotype is that I can't reconcile their single-minded pursuit of geeky knowledge with my need to temper my intellectual experience with the arts. That and I like depth and complexity more than spending ten hours a day churning out thousands of lines of relatively simple code. Obviously these jobs are more challenging than that. But can't we have math? There's so much math in the world. Theoretical computer science does not often get the respect it deserves from these finger-busting coders. So back to where we started. I might want to get a Master's after graduating, and maybe a PhD after that. Moreover, I might want to be a thereotical computer scientist, if anything. How do I square that with my employers' wish that I come back next year (if I prove competent), and become a full-time employee after that? They are investing money in me now (in principle) because they want to reap the benefits of my being an employee later. If I don't return, the company will have wasted money on me. How do I get myself to work to the best of my ability (whatever that be), knowing that my choices may not accord with their wishes?

EDIT: On a side note, I have now been using this blog for nearly 60 months.