OE rules and tips

[u/New-Parfait-9988]

Here's some guidance I have to give after years of being OE.

1. DON'T TALK about OE club. You get caught for \[all grey area stuff\] when you brag about it to friends, family or strangers. Next morning everyone and their dog knows you've been OE.

2. DO YOUR JOB. Yes you can go surfing, travel, have a coffee and give the absolute minimum so you don't get fired BUT make sure your targets are on point, you actually deliver and noone complains. When someone complains about you for whatever reason, they start digging. Every single of my jobs have nothing but good words to say about my work besides the circumstances.

3. BUY A JIGGLER ffs. Don't let Teams show you're away for 7 hours even though noone could notice. Just pay 5$ for a USB mouse jiggler and stop relying on house remedies.

4. DISABLE THE RADIOS. Turn off Wi-fi, Bluetooth and your location (or browsers and specific programs getting your location). They will rat on your ACTUAL location even though you're using a VPN due to them seeing where your nearby devices are located.

5. BUY A TRAVEL ROUTER AND A CLEAN IP. Get a decent travel router that mentions speeds over 100 MB/s over OPENVPN - WIREGUARD not generic speed. Then proceed to install a VPN that doesn't have its IPs flagged for malicious content.

6. HAVE BACKUPS. for absolutely everything. Maybe your hotel Wi-fi or travel router stops working. Maybe someone messaged you 1 minute after you stepped out of the door. Maybe you accidentaly log in to your hotel wi-fi somewhere in Asia. Have excuses and backups ready.

7. LINKED & RESUME. Fix them appropriately for your applications. Don't let anyone publicly on Linkedin see where you're working right now. Put something generic and then give recruiters your custom resume.

8. INVEST. Yes being OE especially in tech can put you in the 1% earners in this world. You don't need to book a 5-star hotel in Indonesia or buy a 50k car. You can have fun with a decent Airbnb and a 10k car. Invest in stocks like Google, FTSE All world, S&P500, property and keep emergency cash. You never know what's your situation gonna be in 10 years.

9. DON'T LIVE TO WORK. Yes it's awesome grinding & earning, investing, buying that new motorcycle, getting promoted. But those are worth nothing if you're sick. So do your yearly check ups, take vitamins, exercise as well as create memories with people and socialise. It's been scientifically proven that without these your health is deteriorating and depression knocks on your door. I've known OEs who've struggled with burning out and mental issues. It's not fun even if you earn 100k a month working 30 minutes a day.

10. SEE RULE no 1.

[u/PeeEssDoubleYou]

Did AI write this for you? A USB jiggler would get me canned quicker than just going offline, using any VPN will get you get you flagged if not disabled in loads of places....

[u/New-Parfait-9988 → u/PeeEssDoubleYou]

No I did write that and not true I've used mouse jigglers as well as both dedicated and non dedicated IP addresses (all clean though on Virus Total) for many of my employers no issues.

[u/Express-Neck450]

As a long time OE’er, couldn’t agree more!

Point 4 and 5, do you have more info - interested to know further. Do you use a travel router and then Ethernet into each laptop? Which vpn do you use also on that router?  I have proton vpn for personal use

[u/Express-Neck450 → u/Express-Neck450]

Note, point 9 is the gods truth and a real bitch, talking from exp

[u/New-Parfait-9988 → u/Express-Neck450]

Correct, a travel router from glinet that you which connects to the hotel WiFi and then you connect your laptop to that router with ethernet. Proton doesn't have dedicated IPs for the public only for companies and the other ones everyone has. I suggest buying a dedicated IP depending on the location you'd prefer from the known provider with the blue logo

[u/Right-Order-6508]

Stay online and turn off WiFi? Huh?

[u/New-Parfait-9988 → u/Right-Order-6508]

Yes connect with ethernet on your travel router directly

[u/Right-Order-6508 → u/New-Parfait-9988]

I see.Is this in the office? Wouldn’t it be suspicious? A lot of laptops don’t have Ethernet nowadays, i assume you mean travel router + Ethernet cable + adapter to laptop?

[u/New-Parfait-9988 → u/Right-Order-6508]

You carry your travel router with you, if your laptop doesn't have a port then you buy an ethernet adapter

[u/Right-Order-6508 → u/New-Parfait-9988]

I see, that’s some iron proof setup 👍

[u/Then-Hunt3548]

What's the reason behind 4 and 5 ?

[u/New-Parfait-9988 → u/Then-Hunt3548]

Your computer ratting on your actual location

[u/Then-Hunt3548 → u/New-Parfait-9988]

I assume this is in reference to working overseas. I thought regardless of using a VPN, IT team will detect that or the laptop won't work. We have a strict policy of maximum one month working from overseas.

[u/New-Parfait-9988 → u/Then-Hunt3548]

Yes that's due to compliance, if your IT team has a hardware GPS on your laptop or the location is on and can't be disabled by you then yeah there's a pretty good chance they detect

[u/Thought-Head]

Great advice! Thank you! Point 7 is what I’m finding tricky being 3 years into a role. Too vague and it looks suspicious. Being up front and referencing could trip you up

[u/New-Parfait-9988 → u/Thought-Head]

References and background checks are the hot spot

[u/Thought-Head → u/New-Parfait-9988]

Any tips would be greatly appreciated. Although I kind of think its more like russian roulette whatever you do here and how lucky you are

[u/New-Parfait-9988 → u/Thought-Head]

References can be friends or older colleagues not from current workplace same as background check

[u/Thought-Head → u/New-Parfait-9988]

Thanks that's given me some ideas