From Pushing Carts to Pushing Data

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No Job is Too Small

When I graduated from college, we were still coming out of a recession, and no one would offer me a job. After a while, I hit the pavement with a binder full of resumes handing them out to anyone who would take one until a local Costco Wholesale Manager offered me the job of Cart Pusher.

For the next few months, I pushed carts in the wonderous Seattle rain coming home each day with my hands looking like shriveled raisins. Soon after, the other Cart Pusher quit so I was on double time trying to keep up with the hungry shoppers until one day I heard, "Hi there, can I help out"? It was the warehouse manager, the person responsible for managing a >$300M annual revenue warehouse with a "6-figure" salary asking if he could push carts with me in the rain. He could have easily told one of the other employees to do it, but we were short on staff, and it was the busy holiday season. That day ingrained in my mind a few things:

?1.) No matter who you are or what title you hold, no job is too small. The goal of completing a task is all that matters, and a Costco warehouse cannot function without carts.

2.) A leader should always model expected behaviors. When a leader is not willing to help this creates a domino effect through the entire organization with the resounding thought of "It's not my job".

3.) Do your best on the simplest of tasks because you never know where it may lead. In my case, the manager saw how hard I worked and later referred me to folks in the corporate office to perform some temp work setting up products on the eCommerce site. This then kicked off my journey into the corporate world, but that is a completely different story.

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No One is Smarter Than You

?Imposter syndrome is something many of us have experienced. Any time we walk into a new role or situation it is natural to feel self-conscious about your ability to do the job. When I initially landed a role in corporate accounting, this feeling hit me like a ton of bricks. Meetings felt like being back in school where the loudest people who always had an answer got the most exposure from leadership.

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Feeling like I was spinning in circles, I began to reach out to others across the organization who had qualities I admired and hoped to learn from. Sitting down with the then Assistant Vice President, he told me something simple that has stuck with me ever since which is that, "No one is smarter than you. Each person has their own unique qualities and experiences to bring to the table, figure out how to bring yours to light". I knew I would never be the loudest in the room, but here are a few things I've done to ensure I was the right person for any role.

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1.) Deliver results. At the end of the day your results are what matters. Sure, you have to deal with office politics and the potential of others claiming responsibility for your work, but in my career with three fortune 50 companies, I've learned no place is safe from that. If you can continuously deliver results and build the reputation of someone who gets things done, that alone will get you far. It is important to note that getting things done at all costs is not the way to go, always work collaboratively with others and complete your work in an ethical and honest manner.

2.) Become an expert in your role. It is easy to get caught up in always looking ahead. What’s your next job, IC or Manager, where do you want to be in 5 Years? However, knowing your area will help build a foundation of excellence to build upon. For example, when I worked in Incentive Compensation supporting analytics for our consumer market (think Xbox / Surface Laptops) I could have all the latest data modeling techniques and coolest coding language for my analysis, but all credibility would go down the drain if I couldn’t answer the simple question of "what was our profit margin was this past month?".

3.) Know your audience. Everyone you support will have a different perspective on what they need, part of your job is to anticipate the questions so that you can proactively address them before they are asked. If you're sharing information in a meeting with a group and no questions are asked, then that is a win. And I'm not talking about the post-pandemic meetings where you’re talking to a virtual audience of frozen headshots with no clue if they are paying attention, I'm talking about people fully engaged in the presentation.

Questions are not a bad thing. Often times information is left out because it is just too detailed for a majority of the audience, but it is good to anticipate questions and prepare answers in your head or notes as you look through your presentation from the audience’s perspective. Of course, if you don't have the answer, it's ok let them know you will find out and get back to them.

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Sell Your Work

When I left Costco and transitioned to Boeing, I also moved away from Accounting/Finance and into Business Intelligence/Data Analytics. It started with some Microsoft Access, deeper analysis in Excel, and a bit of Tableau splashed in, and before I knew it I was mesmerized by the power of SQL, R, and Python.

I remember building my first R -Shiny App like it was yesterday, and today, still love the feeling of seeing data populate with a simple SQL Select Statement, and of course switched out Tableau for PowerBI. Soon I was coding for most of the day pumping out a ton of amazing work with my cubicle teammates. After a while though, it just didn't seem like I was getting the recognition I had expected from all this work…something was missing.

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Luckily, I found myself working closely with a more senior member of the team whom I considered a mentor. In this role, we spent a decent amount of time traveling to Boeings subsidiary companies dissecting their pricing strategies and basically using data analysis to provide insights on how they could improve profit and revenue. If you've ever worked with an unhappy partner, you'll know the scenario we faced, imagine Boeing buying your company and then sending a couple people from Seattle to tell you how to do things. One day, I was telling my mentor I did not think all my hours of coding and analysis work were being recognized.

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He shared with me that it's true, nobody really cared about the code. It could take a day or months to refine an algorithm, but all the leadership level wants to see the result of your work, and you have to sell it! The next morning, we entered a conference room lined with executives to provide our analysis and pitch our algorithm. I was uncomfortable, we were in a different state with all new people, and I honestly couldn't sleep in the loud hotel.

I knew my mentor felt the same but as soon as we started the presentation he stood up, paced around the room in a calm and confident manner explaining the ideas in a way for all to understand, making sure to make eye contact with all the leaders, and using his vocals to emphasize the important parts all the while bringing me along as a partner in the journey to our result. You could see the leaders’ eyes light up, and a month later we were implementing the algorithm in the East Coast territory to begin A/B testing. What I learned in this scenario:

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1.) Importance of last mile excellence. You can be holding the future in the palm of your hand, but if you cannot share this idea in a clear and concise manner that others can get behind, then it will be lost in the weeds.

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2.) Promote your work. Everyone has their own priorities and agenda, and while you may have advocates to help you, you must always be your biggest advocate. Beyond completing your work, find ways to share it out even further. Maybe go on a roadshow to share with other teams, find ways to utilize the work to help deliver sub-goals (i.e. in this scenario we used pricing data to find where suppliers were gouging us on parts costs).

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Determination With a Little Luck

I've been in Washington State all my life, and before the Seattle area became a huge bustling tech hub, there was Microsoft. A place that was physically close but felt so far out of reach. By 2017-2018, I was looking for my next job and all the big and small tech companies were bringing in top talent from all over the world. How could I compete?

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It must have been a numbers game right? So, I must have sent out 500+ applications. I got a few bites, some recruiter screens and even one or two full loops, but this just made me realize how bad I was at interviewing, so I kept pushing and applying to jobs really not expecting an offer but using them more as interview practice because I knew I had the skills, it was just advertising myself that fell short.

Eventually rejection from my screens no longer phased me, and I highly recommend people get use to rejection and not take it personally. Once I had my interview skills up, I started to apply for only jobs I really wanted, but quickly came to the realization that I was looking at about a 0.2% chance of a recruiter even reaching back. This was demoralizing to get so excited about a role and never even get a rejection note.

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Instead of giving up, I started sending cold messages to potential managers of the job I applied for. When I applied to the People Analytics role at Microsoft, I went on LinkedIn and did a search for "People Analytics Microsoft". You better believe that every single person with that wording remotely received a message from me stating the role I applied for and why they should interview me.

By luck of the draw, I found her, the director of the role I applied to messaged me back and said she would like to have me come in for an interview and I should hear from the recruiter soon. A full loop of 4-5 interviews back-to-back is no joke for any role, but spoiler alert, with all that practice I nailed the interview and thus began my journey at Microsoft.

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Curiosity Leads to Discovery

This one is not for everyone, but I've never really had a 5-year plan or any other long-term plan that I've been told I should have. Instead, I follow my passions and interesting work. My passion has led me to the world of data, but I feel empowered to roam within that world to the most interesting areas!

If you are doing a job that you do not love, I challenge you to try something new. Especially if you are early to mid-level in your career, don't get stuck doing something you dislike for the next 30 years as you never know what you may discover.

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Conclusion:

?In this article, I have shared key learnings from Cart Pusher at Costco -> Sr.Analytics PM at Microsoft. Along the way, I have learned some valuable lessons that have helped me overcome obstacles, seize opportunities, and grow as a professional and as a person. These lessons are:

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1.) No job is too small. Every task matters, and every task is an opportunity to show your work ethic, your attitude, and your leadership.

2.) No one is smarter than you. Everyone has their own strengths and weaknesses, and you can learn from anyone.

3.) Sell your work. Coding and analysis are important, but they are not enough. You also need to be able to communicate with your work effectively, persuasively, and confidently.

4.) Determination with a little luck. Sometimes, you need to be persistent and creative in pursuing your goals.

5.) Curiosity leads to discovery. You don’t need to have a fixed plan for your career or your life. You just need to follow your passion and your interest and explore new possibilities. You never know what you may find or where you may end up.

I hope that by sharing my story, I can inspire others who may feel like they are not good enough or smart enough to pursue their dreams. Remember, you have something valuable to offer the world, and you can achieve anything you set your mind to. Thank you for reading.