Saturday, May 05, 2007

A Lesson On Life Yesterday

Yesterday was the longest workday at Cisco since I started on March 19, 2007. I went to work at 8:45 AM and went home on 7:30 PM. I ate lunch for 15 minutes in my cubicle. The assignment was cleaning up FY07 data. I can't be specific because I'm a newbie and I don't want to be fired—companies fire workers from Blogs =( The last person kept a separate database in Excel. The Excel database data and the main database data are inaccurate. If I know more about the department and know more skills, I can complete the assignment faster. Specific skills include SQL and Crystal, and I'm self learning both.

The lesson I learned yesterday was life doesn't hold hands for people. You are responsible for yourself. At Cisco, I talked to a few co-workers, and many of them worked at Cisco less than six months. They told me nobody is going to sit down and teach you. You must learn it yourself. You are given an assignment, here are the guidelines, now do it. Life is like Cisco . . . nobody is going to sit down and teach you how to live life. You must find how to live life yourself. (I just remember my Physics classes at SJSU taught their students the same way Cisco gave assignments.)

Also, yesterday was the most frustrated day. I made a lot of mistakes. I'm confident successful people welcome frustration and mistakes. They learn and become stronger experiencing frustration and mistakes. In my last jobs, frustration and mistakes were kept to a minimum and I didn't learn from my frustration and mistakes.

If you find a mentor, someone who teaches you, consider yourself lucky. I had one mentor. When I was in 4th grade, the most popular kid got along with everyone and he was a great guy. Part of me wants to be him today. I want to get along with everyone. Honestly, I have not. My goal is to get close to 100% success of getting along with everyone. In the meantime, the mentor is me and I continue to meet new people.

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