Bad advice. Let me just say that off the bat, before I explain why.<p>One of the most infuriating things about companies is how slow they are when it comes to trusting people. (Actually, they're sluggish around all kinds of decisions. Try selling to the enterprise some time.) While companies <i>do</i> value initiative and curiosity in the abstract, the length of time (even in most startups) one has to spend at them is an order of magnitude longer than makes any sense at all.<p>If you're 6 months old in a company, but your manager only gets to spend 5% of his time with you (which is more than you'll typically get) then, from his perspective, you've been there for 1.3 weeks. You just got there, in his view. This really sucks, because it means a lot of time is wasted on the pokey track by people who feel like they could be advancing a lot faster (and are right).<p>Typically, it takes a couple years before you're allowed to show initiative or curiosity, or have opinions. The dues-paying period is a horrible waste of life, but that's how human organizations are. I don't think anyone has found a cure for it.<p>Being that obnoxious junior programmer is actually a terrible career strategy. Gaining credibility is often more potent than learning; there are a zillion people more capable of doing the top jobs than hold them at a given time, but only a few people acquire the organizational trust. Credibility, not capability, is the limiting factor. Learning general-purpose skills <i>can</i> be more useful than climbing a ladder (it's transferrable to the next job) but you don't have to step on toes to do that; while learning about an organization is less important than having it learn to trust you. (If you fail and get fired; everything you learned about the organization is useless.)<p>Now, the thing is that when a company is running well and there's plenty of work to do, the overperformer who is eagerly seeking work "above his grade" is tolerated. The problem is that, whenever things become a bit more uncertain or it becomes clear that not all peoples' ambitions will be satisfied, they're high-class trophy-fires with giant bulls'-eyes on their asses. They also tend to get flanked by same-rank colleagues; if there's some Little Eichmann out there who can gain managerial approval by showing you up as "distracted", then watch out. Remember that it will have nothing to do with actual performance, but <i>perception</i>, which is ruined by the above-grade work.