Persistent Pursuit of Perfection Part 4: Opportunity
In my previous blog post, I wrote about all the jobs that I worked in my youth all the way through college. In all the various odd jobs, I always put my best foot forward. It didn’t matter working the front desk at my Dad’s Chinese take out restaurant, volunteering to mentor elementary school students, working for the Assistant Headmaster at Boston Latin School to perform various office tasks, driving buses at UMass Amherst or even my summer job as a car Service Agent at Enterprise Rent-A-Car, I always worked extremely hard. Looking back though, all of these jobs provided invaluable experience and developed humility that would become a part of my identity. This is the story about my first professional opportunity.
In my first blog post about my inspiration to begin this website, I mentioned how I came across a Craigslist ad that was posted by a recruiting company in Boston. The ad was very unassuming, but it was this unassuming Craigslist ad that became the first job opportunity in my career, something that led me to the position that I am in today. I was able to draw on my past phone and customer service experience as an Internet Service Provider tech support agent.
The first person who trained me was like an encyclopedia for all Internet service providers, what differentiated them and how all of them needed to be configured. So I tried to soak up everything that I can, asked a lot of questions and I watched how he expertly approached his work. Thanks Ramon. I learned from another mentor, Dixon, a meticulous way to organize our freeform text fields and ticket notes. I learned what worked for them and adapted some of their techniques and knowledge to form my own style. Every call was an opportunity to reflect on how to be more efficient on the next and to learn how to interact better with customers, with Internet Service Providers, and with technical and non-technical people. Every ticket was an opportunity to become a better writer in order to effectively communicate with teammates on actions that were already taken on a particular ticket.
In a call center environment, performance is measured by output (i.e. calls taken, tickets worked and tickets closed). In order to stand out, I had to make a conscious effort to make the most of every minute of the work day. As I became more familiar with each service provider around the country, I was able to predict the questions that would be asked of me and be prepared with the requisite answers. I even practiced my typing so that I could further optimize my output. In a matter of a few months I became one of the strongest members of the team.
While every call and every ticket worked was an opportunity to become better at the role, all teams at all companies are always going to have problems that need solving. One problem I identified was the disorganized and inconsistent way that the department did training. I saw this as an opportunity for myself to create a formal training class for new hires joining the department. After a few months of creating the content, it was launched and became a requirement for all new employees. This opportunity wasn’t just a learning experience for me to become a teacher/mentor on the team, but also provided new hires with a streamlined program that would set them up to be successful at their role. To this day, some of that content I created is still in use despite many iterations over the past ten years. I am proud of this accomplishment not just because I saw an opportunity to improve something and worked tirelessly to achieve my goal, but because it made a positive impact on my teammates’ careers. Working to excel at my everyday responsibilities and taking the opportunity to create a valuable resource for the team led me to another opportunity, when the managers of my team asked me to join them in management.
As I transitioned into management, I managed people that started at the company like I did. Technical troubleshooting always follows a particular set of rules that must be followed in order for the piece of technology to work. That part isn’t that difficult to teach. The challenging and best part of managing people is needing to adapt my management style in a relatable way, putting into consideration the background, motivation, learning style, and personalities of each individual. This is much easier said than done. There are some scenarios that I’ve come across that my management peers and I didn’t always have the right answer for. Encountering these types of challenges in management for the first time was a very humbling yet thought-provoking time. Even though the solutions are not always going to be an if-this-then-that scenario, I always approach these situations as just another problem to solve.
Despite being a reliable individual contributor, the truth was that I was a very inexperienced people manager. Weekly one-on-one meetings, quarterly review meetings, management meetings and presentations for other departments, every meeting was an opportunity to learn from my directs, my peers and my leaders. I try to learn from other established managers, whether they directly managed me or were leaders in another part of the company. I also immersed myself in management and self help books and podcasts such as Manager Tools. Even now, years after my first management position, I am always trying to learn how to be a better people manager. The greatest fulfillment I have as a people manager is seeing former direct reports of mine thriving in their careers, as managers, as engineers, as leaders as they continue to grow and develop, long after I managed them. Although my role in managing these folks was just a small part of their overall development as a professional, I can’t help but feel proud and delighted knowing that I contributed to their growth and success.
Sometimes opportunity is hidden in the place you would least expect it, sometimes it is right in front of you, sometimes it gets given to you. Opportunities are around you every moment of every day. It is up to you to find that opportunity and use it as a springboard for your continued growth and development. There always comes a time where you need to make a decision to leave your current position and look at other departments, other teams and/or other companies for the next opportunity that aligns with your career goals. After five years, I decided to look for that new opportunity to continue my growth and development as a professional.
