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Adjusting to a new job is tough. It can be the equivalent of finishing "Call of Duty: World at War" on Veteran difficulty -- a painful trial-and-error process that leaves you weeping in frustration. However, gamers actually have an edge on their co-workers; they just don't know it.

All those years of killing Nazis, keeping a party of androgynous spiky-haired mutes at full HP, and weighing the sweet temptation of being evil against treading the road of righteousness pays off once gamers meet their cubicles.

After the jump, we target six key areas where gamers excel at the office. And your mom always said all games do is rot your brain.

1. Strafing Lets You Keep Your Eyes on the Prize


The old standby of first-person shooters can be an immensely helpful skill in the fast-paced modern workplace. Proficiency in moving forward in one direction while looking in another gives gamers a leg-up on their not-so-nimble co-workers.

While those unlucky employees are forced to look straight ahead while strolling down the hallway discussing quarterly results with Hoskins, a gamer can hit it off with the CEO, making all-important eye contact, while circumnavigating employees, chairs and the water cooler. Not as entertaining as circling a 20-foot-tall mutant in "Fallout 3" as you pepper it with automatic fire, but commanding the respect of your peers and boss is worth more than 20 Gamerscore.

2. Eagle Eyes and Iron Ass



Office jobs tend to require employees to sit on their asses, moving little else than their fingers, enduring eye strain from their computer screens, and not knowing the sun's warm embrace for eight hours straight -- in other words, a typical day for a gamer.

While 20-year vet Clark Smedley constantly complains about his sore back, keeps an inflatable donut to sit on in his desk, and rubs his bloodshot eyes beneath thick bifocals, gamers will slink into their chair, pop open an energy drink, and churn out expense reports like they're raiding a "World of Warcraft" dungeon for epic rewards. Better yet, they won't rage-quit just because the quarterly earnings are down year-over-year; gamers are in it to win it, always. If at first you don't succeed, Zerg-rush, Zerg-rush again.

3. So, Your Boss Is an A-hole



Ask anyone who has worked in an office what the worst part is, and most will reply with an obscenity-laden tirade about their boss. Whether it's providing an unreasonable timetable to finish a big project, riding employees over trivial dress-code violations, or holding daily meetings in the conference room that consist of remarkably boring Powerpoint presentations, most bosses are a-holes, plain and simple.

Gamers are accustomed to fighting bosses, which means that no matter how big, tough and disgustingly inhuman an office's head honcho is they will prevail. Even in the face of the menacing mini-boss -- the office brown-noser -- gamers will not falter. And if the daily grind does take its toll, gamers have a perfectly healthy way to deal with the stress: Going home and shooting strangers online while screaming how much of a whore their mothers are in a friendly game of "Call of Duty 4."

4. Multitasking and You

Most jobs require employees to work on multiple projects simultaneously. Gamers are multitasking tanks, capable of capturing flags, watching Japanese tentacle porn, tea-bagging n00bs, snacking and chatting with friends online all at the same time. Translate those abilities to the office and you have the perfect employee: focused, yet flexible enough to handle shifting assignments without losing sight of their goals.

5. Tolerance in the Workplace



An office is usually a melting pot full of people from many walks of life. Gamers are ideal candidates for this type of colorful, diverse atmosphere since they often mingle with multi-limbed aliens, superpowered mutants, vampires, dwarves and elves, to name a few. Thanks to this background they don't have to watch those hammily-acted racial diversity videos or attend tolerance workshops like non-gaming hires. Gamers are already colorblind ... and planet-blind, undead-blind, alien-blind, etc. Sexual harassment wouldn't be a problem either -- gamers are about rescuing the princess, not making crass innuendo about wanting to "crown" the cute new secretary with their "scepters."

6. Inventory Management and Preventing Corporate Theft



Sticklers for maintaining and organizing myriad items, gamers are a boon to any office struggling with internal theft, heated confrontations over mistakenly eaten food, and frustration stemming from an unkempt supply closet.

Years of juggling enormous amounts of potions, elixirs, panaceas and tonics have allowed gamers to be the perfect pack rats. The only downsides are that they are incapable of dealing with items in excess of 99 and can only carry an inventory directly proportionate to their weight and strength. Some visits to the on-site gym, however, would help them level-up, negating the latter issue.