Build Your Own Path

Peeking through the window on the door. Waving to the people at the table and asking them to let me in. Some of them pretend that they don’t see me. Others make eye contact, then look around to see if anyone else will open the door first. Since no one else pays me no mind, they go about their business. A middle-aged lady walks by and bumps into me. She opens the door but closes it in my face and locks it. I was so close! That door opens to a room that I wanted to be in so bad. The room of opportunity and growth. The room to feel included. The room where I have a seat at the table.

I guess I thought that life would be great there. I thought that I would be happy and fulfilled in life. I thought that would mean that I have “made it”. However, just because I have a seat at the table doesn’t mean that they will treat me any better than when I didn’t have a seat. Would they really listen to my input? Value my contributions? Take me seriously? Who knows? but it seems like a lot of people-pleasing to do for 40 hours a week and is that really fulfilling? I see why people build their own path because they were tired of hearing no’s and being rejected. Perhaps, they were tired of having to try to impress others.

I think I may be on that path to just building my own path, my own room, with my own table. It will be a lot of work because I am starting from scratch without any path.

To anyone reading this who can relate – don’t give up. You got this and you will keep shining. Do your thing, give it your all and do it FOR YOU.

When you’ve been tasked to “do scrum”

Red flags were all over when she said,”do scrum” and “fit the schedule into sprints”. Being an IC Agile Professional, I know you don’t just “do scrum”. I was speechless but the speechless system design engineer in me, and now suddenly the new scrum master of the team, had bills to pay. So scrum master it is. So, I decided to start “doing Scrum”. Implementing Agile across a program has been my most challenging, stressful job I have had yet, and I can’t say it has been rewarding. Most people on my team have been doing things their way, doing the SAME thing they have always done for longer than I have been alive. So, being the chosen one to introduce a new way of doing this was not the best work-scenario.

My first scrum ceremony was a fail. No one showed up. Fast forward 6 months, it’s getting better but still the same resistors. I tried a user story writing session. I thought it was going to be a fun-filled session with sticky notes – ended in crickets. The engineers had no idea who the user was, or what a feature is, they only understood architecture. It was baffling to me. Something so easy (writing user stories) was so difficult.

Honestly, the role is undervalued. I feel like it is me against 30+ people, plus I am leading a major change without any authority. Conflicting requests from leadership has been my greatest difficulty. They want agile but also not displaying much support for it. However, I have some learning lessons.

Before going all crazy with the scrum ceremonies, come up with a plan of what you will introduce and when. Create a presentation of what scrum is and what scrum is not and present that to leadership. Leadership needs to be onboard and fully understand the roles before attempting to change anything. That way you have their authority early.
Start tracking success. Come up with some goals and how you will get there. It could be participation, stakeholder engagement, process improvement etc. This will take some research.
Lastly, JOIN SOME AGILE GROUPS. Seriously, you will feel alone sometimes because 9 times out of 10 you will be when someone asks you to do scrum. I found some great podcasts, blogs, and reached out to agile coaches within my organization. By doing so, I found out I wasn’t alone and most of the issues I was facing were normal. I also found out, that people LOVE it, they LOVE talking about SCRUM. Seeing the passion for it motivated me to try harder.

At the end of the day, I am doing this on top of my system design engineering duties and it is not fun. I’m not going to lie. I think if I was back in management consulting where we take a formal approach to change management and business process improvement, it would be much more rewarding. However, casually “doing scrum” is not the way to go.

A Note to Job Seekers

There is often the added pressure when you have a family who depends on you. This can be extremely tough when on a job search. Needless to say, the whole process can take a hit to your self-esteem. No one actually likes rejection. It is just I believe that some people handle better than others. However, think of it like this. Don’t stop applying until you get a yes. It only takes one yes to get you out of the situation you are in.

The rejections are tough. Oh so tough! And some recruiters may just waste your time. Perhaps, you have a job and running out of “doctor appointment” excuses. Maybe you are looking for the right opportunity, so it is taking much longer than expected. Whatever the case is – you are not alone.

Listen to podcasts, read articles online do what you can to help prepare for what is coming next whether it is a phone screen or an in-person interview.

I have been trying to break into technology industry – to work for a large technology company. Some of my applications are rejected right away, some are rejected after the video chats – and that’s okay. It has been 3-4 months and no face-to-face interview yet.

Facebook and Google said nope but glad I made it to at least a phone screen and video interview lol

However, I am going to keep researching other companies with good values/missions and keep trying. I refuse to give up on my dreams. I also refuse to be in a place that does not see the value in me. So I will keep trying.