I had a competency based interview last month, I
was nervous, and could not muster my words together, all the stories
I prepared were not good enough, they were not compelling, and I did
not dig deeper to find the goal of the project, the process, and I
just did what I was told to.
Apparently, that’s not good enough. Not at all.
I was combing through what I had done in the past, and I realized I
was just repeating what I did before. Either using the past
experience to solve a problem, or just hard code things to make it
work.
Sometimes, when I look back, I could not dig
deeper, why? Because my knowledge is limited, I was not able to think
outside the box, and obsessed with the details – does
anyone care about the details, when the framework is falling apart or
not there at all?
I need to have something working, and know every
single detail of it, then I could think of an improvement. Blaming it
on the weather or environment is naive, if you want to do it, you
just start doing it, and let the inertia take you there, and improve
from the product.
Why wait for the perfect timing? By the way, when
is the perfect timing? Think about my manager, he’s busy, however,
whenever I bring issues to him, he would always find some slot to
raise a ticket, or to make a note, so that he could take action on
it.
I used to be like that, but what changed? Is it
the mental status, or physical status? Setting up a goal, and
carrying it out, is that so difficult? Every night, you have about 2
hours to spend on the tasks. You can move the needle a little, but
instead what? Spending time on meaningless Youtube videos or X..
Look back on this period, here’s the things I
have started –
-
List all the projects I have worked on, and find
the goal, and the business values it’s driving -
Note down everything
I think is not smooth enough, and find a way to automate -
After automation, make sure a documentation is in
place for future improvement, or reuse -
Started a template with my manager, to list down
all the obstacles I find in the projects, which can help to
streamline the discussion process
Oh right, I also changed the
input method on the cell phone, it’s more smooth to type in, and
the experience is more consistent with all the android phones… see?
It’s not so hard to change. Sometimes,
just giving it a try is good enough to get it started.
Tasks for this period
-
See 137.5 Lbs -
Maintain daily <= 145 Lbs -
Take one online course -
Run one half marathon
-
Review Project management notes
-
Apply for 5 jobs
-
Complete all the new Leetcode SQL problems
Tasks for next period
-
See 135.8 Lbs.
-
Maintain daily <= 142 Lbs.
-
Take one online course
-
Run one 15 km
-
Review Project management notes
-
Apply for 5 jobs
-
Complete all the new Leetcode SQL problems