When I first joined my first company as a Software Engineer, I was so excited to be part of a profile which is so luring and so creative and immensely paying for the deserving candidates.
I, who had just been out of the college finishing his degree in technical education, was apparently happier and more enthusiastic about his career and work. I mean, that’s what I had always dreamt of, all throughout my higher educational years, ever since I had decided to do a degree course in technical education. Although the decision of joining the college for technical education was very much driven by my wild desire to become a proficient and expert Software Engineer, just like they portray in Hollywood science fiction movies, which is way more than just the exaggeration of the aforementioned profile. This exaggeration, however, is unquestionably justified owing to the advancement in technology these days. I presume most of the aspiring Software Engineers out there must have been very much fascinated by these movies, just like I was. The said profile, indeed, is exciting, challenging, and has immense scope for once creativity and innovation. Although, at the same time it demands a great deal of perspiration.
Once you have entered the ocean of information technology, it’s like you have been given a boat and an oar to sail through the entire ocean all by yourself. You yourself are the captain, passenger, and the crew of the ship, who is all alone and who has an entire ocean to sail through. From the very first moment, you have boarded the ship you are expected to sail it with perfection, steer it like a pro. All right, that’s being a little bit melodramatic. What I am trying to convey here is that even though you are a fresher having no experience whatsoever of how the concerned industry works, just the theoretical knowledge of the basic concepts, or little bit more knowledge of some programming language at the most. Nevertheless, you are expected to produce results from that very day, which is not wrong either, in fact, to be a little blunt, that’s what they are paying you for.
In this course of your fight to produce results, you are mostly on the losing side which is nothing to feel bad about. Sometimes you could not produce the results or the other time you could not meet the deadlines. These things are inevitable and nothing to be worried about. However, they are being put in front of you as if you solely are responsible for all the failures and your employer has incurred a great business loss because of you. In such a situation many of the fellow software engineers may go into depression and may also end up losing their self-confidence which is the greatest loss anybody could ever incur. It’s like you are going to be drowned away by that strong wave in the ocean, but you cannot unless you cut the only support you have got your self-esteem. Under no circumstances you should lose your self-esteem because every single time you fall, that’s the only trait of yours which is going to get you up all along.
As soon as you are deployed into a project, you start working enthusiastically expecting some new learning and sometimes to impress your seniors also. Everything goes quite smooth for initial days of your deployment on the project; that phase, being the Knowledge Transfer phase. In that phase you feel so good and mesmerized by the new environment of your office and the new work as well. But just when you had started getting comfy in that environment, you suddenly had a reality check. Your project manager gives you some real task, your first ever task on a live project, which you have to do on your own. You are expected to seek no help from any of your senior since nobody will give you any. This behavior of your seniors can be very well justified since your seniors may already have their own stack of tasks to be accomplished. But quite often their non-cooperative behavior is driven by their egotist nature and the notion of this egotist behavior is their view that “since I have learned all this by myself, so should they(newbies).” They don’t believe much in sharing the load and knowledge, however, they are very good at pretending that.
So now you are out on the battlefield all alone with just your weapons. Since this is your very first task you start it quite enthusiastically which can mark your threshold, but the deeper you go into it, you realize that there are still so many things alien to you in that project, although you already had your KT sessions. Consequently, you have to approach your senior for the help. Looking at the problem you have asked, your senior smiles at you and said that the issue was a silly one. The very first instance when you felt like embarrassed and ashamed of yourself for not knowing the solution to the “silly” problem. This was the first blow to your confidence, although it was light, it somehow managed to leave a mark. This is nothing to be ashamed of or feel embarrassed about. Nobody knows everything; nevertheless, your senior’s sarcastic smile had already done the damage. You find yourself to be reluctant to ask him any further questions unless the issue is real critical one. But yet again, who is to decide on the criticality.
The next time you were assigned a task, you decided to do it completely by yourself without the help of your senior. But that again turns out against you, since you could not deliver that in time. Apparently, that made your senior disappointed. His reaction rendered you embarrassed once again and yet another blow to your self -confidence. Now you had started doubting yourself and your own skills. You observed that the situation remained the same for the subsequent tasks as well that were assigned to you. By that time, when you had spent almost three months in your company, you had lost almost half of your confidence and you haven’t learned anything concrete yet. You had been trying really hard to learn things as quick as possible but all in vain. Your fear of getting insulted on seeking your seniors' help had also added to your miseries.
What is the solution to this problem? Will it always be like this? There is only one person who can help you out of your misery and that person is none other than "YOU".
First of all, you should overcome your fear of getting insulted. For that, you should never forget that not everybody in this world knows everything. So how can you, who does not have any experience, are expected to know all the things. Having said that you should never approach your senior without doing your homework. Complete your analysis of the problem and the possible solution to that problem. Presenting your analysis to your senior will definitely make him realize that you have made some sincere efforts for the solution of the problem and thus leave a good impression on him. In corporate culture, it’s easy to get the skilled resources but getting a sincere resource is a real deal. As far as development skills are concerned, you will eventually learn them, rather you will generate your expertise on your skill set.
To achieve all that, all you’ve got to do is to be persistent, patient and practicing. Following these three P’s will definitely nudge you forward to your destination.
Try to be a little adamant, stop feeling insulted or embarrassed whenever your senior or technical lead scolds you for something related to your task, rather take that scolding positively and work on your weaknesses. Today’s generation can get carried away easily and get themselves involved in a scuffle with their seniors, beware of it. Hold yourself if you really want to learn a thing or two from the experience of your seniors. Believe me, being short tempered will not get you anywhere, let alone your goal. Ultimately it will be you who is on the losing side.
Being a fresher you should always brace yourself up to take on whatever challenge is poised in front of you, try to be proactive, instead of being reactive, however difficult it may seem at first, it is definitely going to make your life a lot easier afterward.
Do not ever hesitate to seek the assistance of your seniors wherever you feel like taking some. It will always be wise and advantageous to save a couple of hours just by asking your seniors rather than spending hours trying to learn the things all by yourself.
Try to jot down the solution of your problem and implement it followed by testing it for the results. Thinking alone of the solutions won’t produce the results, implementing them will help you a lot, rather. That’s the best possible way to learn the things quickly and for a long period of time.
Before it ends, I would just say that by implementing the aforementioned practices and tricks you can bring a drastic change in your professional life.
Stay connected for the next draft of my experiences.
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