A Day in the Life - 1/26/2023

Be at Your Own League

It's been a while since I last posted. I will work on that. I will attempt to make at least one post a week. I've been rereading Linchpin and one of the things that I read was about how real artists ship. And so I will work on shipping my art through this blog weekly, not weakly.

My current job involves filing new defects 0-1 times a day, plus working on 0-1 new cases a day. Over the Christmas season, we had a limited workforce, and so I was the only one from my team available for an entire week. Things were going smoothly, until that Thursday.

On that day, 5 different defects for cases needed to be filed. I don't know why the owners of the cases decided to only endorse the defects on that day, and all at the same time, when they could have endorsed them earlier that week, or even the week before. On peak days, 3 defects in a day would be something that one person could do, with a lot of effort. But 5 was unheard of, until that day. I rolled up my sleeves and got to work.

I managed to identify one was not a defect at all -- it had to do with a script that the case owner did not investigate. I worked on the rest without any unfinished tasks from my end. All defects were eventually filed the next day.

It was a proud moment for me after accomplishing everything, all by myself. Half the quarter has just gone by and my productivity is literally more than half the team's. While my team mates worked on 8 or 9 cases each, I've managed to finish 21. Truly, I'm at my own league. It's really something I want to keep up.

The Job vs. The Work

That however is only the job, and not the work. The work involves giving extra -- something that I'm not required to do. The extra is partly the emotional labor I put into the job. but it also has to do with reaching out, and making a connection, when not necessary. I've been doing that last year, by reaching out to general operations and helping them with their cases. And I've been greatly rewarded and recognized by doing so.

As Seth Godin puts it, "Over time, the gifts accrue and you have created a reputation." I've been willingly nominated by my peers in several recognition events such as, SuiteExcellence 2022 Q4, and, just in the past 2 months, GOAT (Greatest of All Time), and NSGBU Values in Action (recognized by Oracle's EVP, Evan Goldberg himself). It was very nice of him to even email me directly for the appreciation for the work I put in.

I have since gifted a reimbursement on a wardrobe from Ikea, a thermal tumbler, a plaque, and a jacket. Plus, yesterday was the first time I received a cash reward for good customer feedback. I also won a Konzert mini component, but that was from the Year ender event's Battle of the Bands. We won 3rd place. I'm very grateful for these gifts.

Speaking of Battle of the Bands, I guess that's another way to connect to other musicians in the entire organization, and entertain the entire organization as well. Perhaps I can consider that effort part of the work.

I've added my recognitions to my resume and LinkedIn. I'm glad to see my profile's getting more and more noticed. One of my customers yesterday even expressed the intention of getting me to join them.

The gifts I've given to others have come back to me. The gifts I give to others are eventually for myself. To my dear readers, I hope you find a way to make that connection -- be it a curricular activity, through reaching out to your former team, or whatever you can come up with. Then make good use of that connection to give a gift to someone else.