An achievement I can't actually tell you about!

Posted on 2007/04/20 22:06:20 (April 2007).

[Tuesday 17th April]
It's a bit of a shame sometimes working under a very strict NDA - today I achieved a major breakthrough at work, which I would love to write about here, but unfortunately I can't. So you'll just have to take my word for it that I did a good thing and everyone was pleased about it.

The last couple of weeks have represented a bit of a turning point with the new job - as may have been apparent to anyone reading my blog over the past few months I was initially somewhat disappointed with my latest career move. I realise now part of that was actually a kind of feeling of insecurity. Starting a new job means you have to prove yourself to a whole new set of people, more or less from scratch. In my previous job I'd gone in with a certain amount of past experience which was not so common, and pleasingly directly relevant to the new role. So from relatively early on I had that something tangible to offer.

Having been hired on a CV which was all about a fairly niche area of technology, I had assumed that in this job I'd also be doing similar sort of work, but it turned out a few weeks in I'd actually be working on something significantly different, with tools that were mostly unfamiliar to me. So I didn't have any of that security blanket of "I know something you don't know". The absence of that actually made me feel pretty uncomfortable.

Looking back now though I've learnt a lot in a very short space of time, and in addition have found some areas where I feel I have got something unique to offer.

One particular surprise has been that the work I'm doing now is actually a bit closer to what I was doing in my PhD than in any of my previous jobs, and it feels really good to know there are real world applications to at least part of the stuff I was rattling on about for all those years.

So anyway, in summary today I got my first metaphorical round of applause from my peers at work, and it felt really good indeed - I think now I can actually do this job, and probably as a result of that I'm actually starting to quite enjoy it as well.

Well well, it sounds like things are finally turning the right direction for you!! I am glad to read about it. Of course being successful in your job will help looking at it under a different light, I am sure that at M$ Jap even if you did something great it would have been taken for granted given that they would never allow themselves to agree that a gaijin could actually do a good job...

Posted by Lox at 2007/04/21 00:54:39.

Thanks Lox! Hmmm not sure if that is a totally accurate description of my former Japanese colleagues - at least a couple of them were very good at dishing out compliments and were generally the best sort of people you could hope to work with... Although I suppose there were also a couple of people who met your description. But hey, it's all in the past now!

Posted by John at 2007/04/21 15:02:18.

Thanks Lox! Hmmm not sure if that is a totally accurate description of my former Japanese colleagues - at least a couple of them were very good at dishing out compliments and were generally the best sort of people you could hope to work with... Although I suppose there were also a couple of people who met your description. But hey, it's all in the past now!

Posted by John at 2007/04/21 15:02:45.

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