For me, being the competitive person that I am, I work as fast as I can and take little breaks browsing the internet or socializing with other team members. At the studio I'm at, the people are not the most social, so it's easy to stay focused on the task at hand. I spent the first couple of days in my new position transferring all of my preferences and settings of my software--such as Maya, 3DS Max, Photoshop, etc. to be able to make it feel like "home" and so that I am not reteaching myself something I don't know. It is like using the language you are best at instead of trying to use a secondary language to describe the same sentence. You want to use your strengths on a job and make those even stronger. You should be focusing on your weaknesses at home because if your boss finds out you are slow on a particular task, chances are you will not be receiving repeat tasks of that nature.
Another tactic I have been using is to be friendly and outgoing. I have found that in the video game industry, people don't really come to me to offer their friendship. I have to fight for theirs and come to them to be outgoing. I target the major influencers in the company to be able to instantly gain trust with the higher employees and managers, as they already have respect for those rockstar employees and I am respected by association. Also, with them as your friend, they will offer more revealing tips and will want to see you succeed.
A third tactic I use to gain respect at a new studio is to be quiet and observe everyone around me and their demeanor. I don't want to be the one loud person in a quiet office, so I follow the flow and do not want to rock the boat. I have already done some of that in the past, thinking I was going to shake up the whole studio and improve things left-and-right. Employers don't want this type of person. They have the studio setup as comfortably as they could possible manage, so you should be trying to fit in. You wouldn't crash a skateboarding competition with a unicycle, for instance...
The last strategy I use to gain acceptance and likability is for my boss as well as my colleagues. I don't ever, ever want to complain about the type of work that I am doing. Maybe in a fun way to show that I know what I'm doing and not specifically related personally to the boss's choice of giving me a particular task, but more of a "isn't it funny how...." and describe something about a particular piece of the task, but not the task itself. This is only if you don't have anything else to talk about. Other than that, be polite and thankful that you are getting tasks and don't complain early on or in public and especially not in the office, because the lead will think you are selfish and don't understand that all tasks are important and it is a team effort to make the game great. Sure, if you know people well enough and you feel like you are invincible then say anything you want as long as it's work-appropriate. I have seen people get away with it before but I honestly think they must sleep with one eye open. It is hard to be a dick at work and have everyone be okay with you, so don't shoot yourself in the foot--especially early on in your new position. If you are hired at the same time as someone else and you notice them getting better tasks than you, bring it up with your boss--but not immediately. You should wait a couple of weeks to see if it is actually true, then, go into your bosses office and make sure to close the door to show them respect for privacy. Let them know you are concerned that the tasks you are getting are not challenging enough for you and that you would prefer X (the type of task the other person has been doing, but don't make it a complaint and don't insult the other person). The boss should feel social pressure to not want to be mean to you, so you should be able to start getting those tasks to. I have had to resort to this at a couple of studios in the past, because somehow some people just get better tasks, and I believe that it is always because they know tons of people at the studio before they got hired their and they must be talking in secret about wanting to get better work, and they know a producer or someone who can make that happen. It sucks how office politics work, but you have to be ready to deal with them...
I hope that this has helped and if you want more tips check out this great article that highlights even more information, but is a little general in its content (because most people don't work in the video game industry).
http://www.glassdoor.com/blog/impress-job/
-Ken
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