2022: Values at the core my professional life

Year is coming to a close; reflections aplenty. A year led by values & an exciting brand new experience has made 2022 a fulfilling one. Here's a peak!

P E A C E / C A L M N E S S.

Peace was the quality I started the year off with.

In my previous company, I was at another department's office and by chance, I saw this tiny image (as seen above) stuck to someone's desk. I was intrigued by the simple logic behind it.

After that, I constantly caught myself thinking of the future, worrying about it. I noticed that I keep pondering about how my future would go. I always planned and even worked out contingencies for that particular plan. It was insane. I would remember this flow chart from time to time, yet I could not stop worrying. Planning my future felt like I had full control over it. Yet, even with all those plans, life happened exactly the way things were meant to happen. The plan itself was an illusion of control I had over the uncertainty of life that I could not handle.

And the funniest part of all was that when one worry would get resolved and life would go my way or another great way; I'd momentary feel happy & grateful then move on the next worry. How very human of me, so greedy! What would God have thought when He/She saw me move from one desire to the next? - "Girl, calm down, I just gave you what you asked for or gave you something better and you are already crying about the next?"

This realisation was a turning point for me. It was pertinent for me to live in the present. I needed some peace and quiet. I have practised this where every time I get a worry, I call for peace. Basically, I just say the word "Peace" and take deep breaths. And now, whenever a worry knocks my door, I choose gratitude for the life I have and give thanks. And the worry leaves my head.

I am not worry free, but I try to practice this everyday.

And at this point, I have to talk about my colleague Ranjith Jayarajan . I noticed that regardless of how exasperated I sounded when I shared a problem with him or regardless of how much stress the situation warranted, he would always sound like a monk, so calm. And the calmness that he has transcends to me and I always notice that I become calmer too, as if it will all be fine. I'm so glad something so good is infectious! Ranjith is a such an intelligent Tech Lead who handles a lottttt of things in a day and how is he so calm? I was beyond impressed by his demeanour and had to find out whether he was always like that. So when I went for dinner with his family, the first thing I asked his wife was how he is at home - apparently he is same and never gets angry or stressed. Monk Ranjith, thanks for being my calm in the storm as we aim to complete development or go-live with many projects this year. You have taught me a lot not just about APIs, coding and postman logs but also about how to be. Thank you!

?S I N C E R I T Y.

Sincerity has been the backbone of the work that I do in a small company. Thank God I started practicing it a little before June, which was the time I joined my new company, Appvantage, an automobile IT company.

This year, I have been working on sincerity. Whenever people used to ask me "Are you sure?", I'd get scared. Scared that I may have missed something out or made some mistake. But now, every piece of work I do, I give it my 100%. I do that one extra step to cross check, I choose the annoying Method B instead of easy Method A, should it ensure quality. I always ask myself "Can I do this better in the given time?" before I tick off a task. So now, yes, I am sure. Because, I know I have done my due diligence and I constantly & consciously make an effort to kick Annoying Ms Lazy out of my mind whenever she pops up. And guess what, it usually just takes me 2 to 5mins more - merely the time one takes to mindlessly scroll through Instagram or reply a message on Whatsapp.

And this has saved me at work. The level of accountability and responsibility is extremely high in small companies as the teams are lean. A lack of corporate hierarchy ensures that there aren't a list of people who vet your work before it goes out. You need to own your work, take initiative to ask and check with others need be and your boss is involved where ever necessary.

I notice that if I make mistakes in the writing of my user stories or my UX design, I waste my developers' time. And trust me, developers' time is extremely precious, especially so in a small company. And in the past weeks, I even find myself committing timelines and project go-live dates to my bosses & clients. I'm only confident because I am sincere.

My boss Bojarajan Pasupathy always tells me "Think of the User. The product that we build is used by so many Users all over the country so we should not take shortcuts and deliver a sub-par product just because it saves us a few man-days and helps the client's budget. Our job is to delivery quality". So a few days back, when we were doing solutioning for our digital product, I told my boss that he's very dedicated and so driven to deliver excellence despite the roadblocks he faces. And for the very first time, he decided to take a few minutes to tell me a story and I listened keenly.

He said "Once upon a time, there was a carpenter who wanted to quit his job and his boss convinced him to do one last project for him. The carpenter had agreed on a timeline but did not deliver on time, in fact delayed it by months. His boss was very angry and the carpenter apologised and promised to finish it soon. When the project was completed, the carpenter invited the boss to see it and the boss handed the keys over to the carpenter and said "This house that you built is yours!" And the carpenter thought "Dammit, if I had known it was going to be mine, I'd have done a better job". So Meena, always deliver your best and do it as if you are doing for yourself, every single day."

One of the early stages when I met Boja and he was teaching me about Agile, he first explained to me our role as consultants using an analogy. A a bad doctor gives you an ointment for your pain when you complain that your hand hurts but a good doctor finds the root cause of it and understands that the pain is caused by your heart related problems. Likewise, as consultants, you always work on understanding your client's requirements deeply before you find a solution. And clients tend to explain their problems as a solution, usually with a mockup screen because that is what they can visualise and it is easy to explain to us too. But you as consultant, you always focus on understanding their pain points and the business objective they are trying to fulfil. That day, I was very impressed and very focused on what came next as he broke down the Agile Methodology for me. I remember these very well though it has been a few months now. But, the carpenter story he had told me is going to stay with me for life and the respect I have for him grew because this man has ethics and he lives by them.

?K I N D N E S S.

On my birthday this year in October, I aspired to be a kinder person. I so deeply felt that no one's life is easy, some harder than the rest. Sometimes I find myself thinking "How I wish they understood my situation better and were a little nicer to me?" So with my part-time helper, I treat her the way I want my boss to treat me. And I realised that if you're genuinely kinder to a person, they go an extra mile because they are touched by your kindness.

When I started off at Appvantage, every day was overwhelming. I felt like everytime I learnt & conquered something, I was pushed to the deeper end of the sea and I constantly had to learn to stay afloat. But, the great thing was that I enjoyed learning how to swim - I loved my job. But of course, I had to learn to cope with the high pressure.

And during one such stressful time, one of my developers called me to clarify something that I had written in one of my User Story descriptions, like they usually do. I had already spent a lot of time briefing a group of them on it, but of course, I explained to him the same thing a couple of times in different ways. And in order to confirm his understanding, he explained it (wrongly) and I replied "Nonono, that's not what I mean" in a rather frustrated tone. In that instant, I realised that I should be kinder. If he starts explaining a thing about coding, I'd probably take hours to understand the simplest of things. So who am I to get annoyed? Even if not, I shouldn't lose my temper, but that really humbled me. And the worst part is that the developers that I work with are the nicest people, no politics, no games; so, of course this did not help my guilt. From that day, I try to be extra mindful of my mood and extra kind to my wonderful, talented developers! I am so in awe of the work they do. Thong Nguyen is certainly my most favourite developer, what would we do without you!

I also experienced kindness from many of my colleagues. One person I would like to specifically point out is Almira Hidalgo who was the only other person working on the same product as me. She supported me and even encouraged me to approach her anytime I had any questions and would always patiently explain the features of the product so very well. I call her the product dictionary! Beyond that she also supported me when I was on the verge of breakdowns during these 6 months. Thank you for your kindness, thank you for being someone I can trust at work.

And maybe, kindness is a culture in my company and if it is, it is definitely because of the tone from the top! My big boss Poo Yang Eng is a very very kind human being, everyone knows how understanding & flexible he is. Many may think that as a boss, it may be a difficult quality to have. I'm not sure how he manages to be kind and still ensures that we deliver. What I know is because he gives me his full trust and goes an extra mile to accommodate my requests if they are fair, I ensure that I am honest and I stay resilient during the most hectic of times even when I feel like I am handling way more workload than what is the norm in a small company (which is already a lot). Because, I trust that when I have informed him about an issue, he cares enough to find a solution for it and would not exploit my hard work to cut costs. Hence, kindness is powerful.

?All in all, in 2022, I have realised that:

• It is very important to live life consciously, it is important to be aware of my thoughts, my actions and how it impacts others.
• To treat others like I want to be treated.
• And to be truthful to oneself and to your values.

I would like end my year by being thankful for this opportunity to get into this extremely interesting & fast-paced IT industry, to work in a small company while I have the energy to hustle every single day where I get to learn and grow so so much (while surely keeping in mind some sort of work life balance that life in Germany has taught me), and to be around people who make me a better person by exemplifying important qualities. I end my year with gratitude as always.

Thank you for reading :) I'd love to hear about some values which have helped you this year/ you've upheld. Looking forward to your sharings too!