I don't know if I'd go so far as to say "Corporate" can be fun, but definitely working with other people can be fun if they're passionate, motivated, and intell

I don't know if I'd go so far as to say "Corporate" can be fun, but definitely working with other people can be fun if they're passionate, motivated, and intelligent. The corporate world can be a real crap-shoot on that: sometimes you land in an amazing environment, and sometimes you land in one that looks amazing but under the surface there's a bunch of back-stabbing jerks. And sometimes even a single person can turn it from the first category to the second. (story time!) I experienced this third category about 5 or so years ago. This one guy came into a company in a senior position, and almost immediately started trying to get people he didn't like fired. He'd pit people against each other, having them do the same assignment to see which one would do it quicker... he'd call people out in meetings for being terrible coders who should be fired (some of his accusation I happened agreed with by coincidence - but most of them were unfairly leveled, and directed toward competent people that he pictured was in his way). He'd talk to senior management telling them about people who he thought should be fired, and they listened. Admittedly, we lost a couple of bad developers: but we also lost good developers who just happened to rub him the wrong way. That kind of experience isn't just negative, it's scary. He never leveled his gaze at me, but mostly because I realized that he was seeing no negative repercussions for his actions early - and was even being praised for it - and thus tried my best to avoid being in situations where I had to work alongside him. On a side note, I still feel bad about not speaking up about this and trying to fight him and/or get him fired to save those who worth saving. At the time, I had just gotten married and I was the only breadwinner - going up against him felt like it would be suicide. So I kept my mouth shut, and I do still feel bad about that to this day. I'd like to believe that, were this ever to happen again, I would speak up... but honestly I'm not sure. It's hard to stand up when the consequence of failing is that you'd probably be the next one on the chopping block. Anyways, I digress. Corporate can be fun - it can also be hell. If you land in the former category, consider yourself lucky (I do now!). And if someone tries to ruin that, don't be a coward like I was: stand up and fight. Because it's not going to get any better if everyone is too afraid of being fired to keep the culture healthy.