In the business world, tech workers seem to be placed on the extreme ends a spectrum from unskilled keypuncher to practitioner of black magic that mere mortals can never understand though the truth lies somewhere in between. Facing those misconceptions can be difficult enough on their own, but for the countless developers working for companies in businesses other than software there are a variety of different problem domains to master, budgets to be justified, Senior Executive Assistant Vice Presidents to present to, and TPS reports to be filed. How can you satisfy the requirements of the work environment while keeping your skills sharp, learning new languages, getting ahead, or sometimes dodging enough restructuring efforts to simply stay employed? Good news! Other devs who have gone before have found some useful patterns and definite antipatterns for navigating the swirling waters of the corporate world and will make sure you get another copy of that memo.