Give me some (idiosyncrasy) credit

I only have a couple weeks left at Stratus Solutions, where I have been interning as a Software Engineer. I have greatly enjoyed the experience, and I am extremely grateful that the company has kept me as an intern despite the challenges they have faced handling coronavirus.

In my Theories and Models class with Dr. Goethals, we talked frequently about “idiosyncrasy credit.” It is a measure of a person’s ability to deviate from the norm.

It’s easy to identify the people at Stratus who hold the most idiosyncrasy credit. There are messaging boards that the company uses to keep a sense of community. Some people post very often, almost every day, while others are almost never active. The people who post more often also tend to post quirkier / off-topic related things, like pictures of their gardens, their pets, their music collections, or other unusual items. Idiosyncrasy credit affects how much people deviate from the topic of the message board. I think people gain idiosyncrasy credit by posting normal things and interacting with others on the forum. They then use that idiosyncrasy credit to post things that aren’t necessarily part of the “norm.”

I also see this idiosyncrasy credit come up with the other interns. Most interns only post normal stuff related to work. We simply haven’t been part of the company long to have any idiosyncrasy credit. Some interns on the other hand do post stuff that I think deviates from the norm. There aren’t any consequences from this, but in that situation, I have noticed that the other workers usually don’t interact with that “quirky” post.

I have only worked for this company for a couple months, but I am curious how idiosyncrasy credit was earned / spent before the coronavirus. The company only established these message boards to stay connected during the pandemic. I assume the idiosyncrasy credit was still there, but people simply exchanged it face to face, rather than on the internet. In some of my meetings, I have noticed people deviating from the topic at hand, and other people letting them know they are getting off topic. If I continue to work for this company after I graduate, I will be very interested to see how idiosyncrasy credit affects the work when we are (hopefully) working in person.