Lessons I learnt…
by Royston Olivera on Feb.17, 2010, under Miscellaneous
Now with two years into professional life, things have been really awesome, thanks to my 1st company that I was working with till late last month. I have now moved on to see how a change would make a difference to my career and life. Change is difficult(and this change was indeed difficult), but it is said that if you look back at life, the most rewarding experiences were when you were open to change. So as I look forward to my future rewards, I thought of doing some retrospection and putting down the lessons I learnt till date in my professional life. These are the lessons I learnt from my colleagues, by making mistakes and by watching others make mistakes.
Small Company vs Big Company…
The above comparison shouldn’t bother you, what should bother you is the WORK you get at the company. It could happen that you get the best and most challenging job at an small-mid size company while a mere documentation or QC job at an big company.
Stay Hungry…
Set targets not limits to the work that your doing. Be restless to learn what your colleague knows and you do not. Having and doing loads of work is good as it helps keep the fire burning within us.
Be on the right side of the rotten apple…
You may have that arrogant creative guy or lethargic technical lead in your team, but remember that they hold that position because they have some talent. Isolating yourself from them is a loss to your growth. Be on the right side of the rotten apple, learn what makes that other guy a good tech. lead or creative person and try to become a non-lethargic non-arrogant creative tech. lead. 
Get into complexity before your pushed into it…
I have seen a lot of this happening, when a team is asked to pick up their own tasks there a major set of people that pick the simpler one’s first and leave the complex tasks to that small set of people who always do it and love to do it. If you belong to that major set, its high time that you move to the smaller set. Coz the day when you do not have that small set of people around you and your manager assigns the task to you, that complex task may seem to be an impossible task.
Don’t Expect Training…
I have seen a lot of freshers ask this question as they join their first company ’Do we get training here?’ referring to 3-6 months of training that most of the Indian IT companies provide to freshers. My question to them has always been, What have you done in the past 3-4 years? Isn’t 4 years enough of time to train yourself? If you couldn’t train yourself in 4years, are you expecting some kind of miracle in the 3 months of training. I am not against training but there is a different kind of a joy in molding yourself than being molded by others, coz in the former you get to choose what you like, which mostly is not possible in the later. I have always looked at my career as one big training class and that has helped me big time.
Give back…
Remember it is your seniors who helped you when you were a junior and now its your responsibility to help your juniors. And this would help you too to revise your basics. I realized that I had forgot the basics and history of PHP when I was preparing slides for a PHP talk to be given at a college Techfest.
Measure of Success…
Before you party on your weekend, look back at the week gone by and see have learned enough? Was your week fruitful? Are you tired? If you have a positive answer to all these questions then go ahead party/relax else, get back to work. The best way to measure your success at the end of the year is not by checking the CTC you draw, but by counting the number of weekends you partied/relaxed and your achievements for the year. Your CTC will always be proportional to your professional achievements, so strive to achieve more.
Network…
One of the biggest mistake in the first 2 years of my career was to be an introvert and confining my network to just friends and office colleagues. If you go beyond this, you will find that there are a hell lot of amazing and like minded people out there to connect with and learn from. Facebook, LinkedIn and other forums were mainly built to facilitate this connect( not play silly games) and these channels have truly helped me meet and connect with some really good people in the past 6 months. Infact, some of the job offers that I got were via LinkedIn
These are some of the lessons that I have learnt from my professional life so far. Some people may differ from my thoughts and without doubt they have every right to do so.
What lessons have you learnt? Share it with me in the comments :)
February 17th, 2010 on 11:43 PM
Well written post straight from the mind! One of my observations over several years of working has been “How much information (knowledge) is shared by a person?”. The ability to share brings out several traits of a person like ability to express, explain, share information, common good, lifting the level of people around you, etc.
Once again, a great post.
Cheers….. Romin.
February 19th, 2010 on 11:37 PM
agreed … and yes the ability to explain stuff is really important. Even if we look at it from a personal growth point of view, I as an individual must have done the most complex stuff in the world but if i cannot explain it during a PI its as good as not doing it.
February 18th, 2010 on 2:13 AM
Straight from the heart
:)
But. def. a thoughtful read..
February 18th, 2010 on 2:37 AM
MIND MIND … never HEART
February 18th, 2010 on 3:51 AM
lol…..I actually missed out the title of this post
February 18th, 2010 on 7:39 AM
Very nice Roy.These are basics points & very important to grow as well.One thing that I have learnt is don’t expect people around you to be professional,even if they are not, you atleast be sure that you are…
Your writeup is a true refresher.Thanks….Nooriyaa
February 18th, 2010 on 8:39 AM
Good job Royston.. well written..
My 2 bits
* Never be afraid to ask for help. Only those who ask shall receive.
* Talk to anyone in the language they best understand. This is your KEY propeller in the IT world. Dont tell your customer about the stack over flow error..
*Watch what you talk, this is BUSINESS.
February 19th, 2010 on 12:31 AM
Thanks Dhaval!
Just would like to add to your 1st point … Ask for help only after you have done your best to help yourself.
February 18th, 2010 on 12:51 PM
Hey Roy,
Very well written post. What ever you have mentioned in this post are facts that every individual should understand.
Cheers — Prashant Thakkar
February 18th, 2010 on 5:12 PM
Enjoying what one does is one the biggest trait to master. If you do not enjoy and happily do the same things after business hours / weekend, then dont bother to be in the job in the first place.
February 19th, 2010 on 12:03 AM
The thoughts put down is really great. But would deffinetly differ on the training part. With my observation of working from several years there has been a vast difference between what we have learnt through books and whats being practised in reality. Therefore your managers keep on saying leave behind what you have read and come into the reality world….. and thumbs up to your thoughts
February 19th, 2010 on 12:22 AM
thanks! Actually I am not against training …. i just hate the mindset of some people who believe that exclusive training is the only means of learning.
February 19th, 2010 on 10:09 AM
worth reading … nicely written
February 20th, 2010 on 4:33 PM
Good one! People still don’t understand the importance of n/w and giving back. It’s is infact every one’s duty to make people realize that. Lovd ‘being on the right side of rotten apple’ - true and pragmatic approach towards teamwork.
I don’t quite agree with ‘don’t expect training’ - “No expectations” is always the best policy but IMHO it is a right of developer and duty of the manager to arrange for the best possible training. That’s the least one can expect apart from salary :-).
February 23rd, 2010 on 2:03 AM
Very well written…
March 1st, 2010 on 7:14 AM
I think i am the last one to comment on your post. To add to all the facts that you mentioned, its also important that we identify the opportunity as and when we get one. It could be a small thing, but small things give u a lot of confidence, enough for one to be a part of something big.
Another important thing that I have learnt is that being just right is not always enough. It is very important to be “Politically” correct. Well u know what i exactly mean.
I liked the point you mentioned about the rotten apples. It is impossible to not have couple of rotten apples around you. They may or may not have any talents. What matters is that you do not let the rotten apples make you like them.
March 15th, 2010 on 2:32 AM
nice work! liked your point about the rotten apple. interesting to learn where you got that
March 15th, 2010 on 2:41 AM
The rotten apple theory has been coined by *yours truly* ….. lesson learnt from sheer experience