I like busy people. At around 9, when a particular bus from Seattle comes to Bellevue Transit Center and a bunch of people cross the street to get to work they radiate some kind of positivity. The same when they grab a cup of coffee from the local Starbucks, the baristas working like bees, or when at lunch people go out to eat with their co-workers, the whole place hums with a sense of purpose, of belonging.
Being an ENFJ, I love people and I get energy by being with people. Coming to work has its own set of positivity for me. To say that I love working would be an understatement. I am one of those people who feel charged after a relaxing weekend to get to work on Mondays. It is not that I don't like weekends, but I love Mondays as well, because I have things to look forward to, challenges to meet, problems to solve and people I love spending time with.
Other than providing an income, and giving a practical way to use the knowledge I acquired from school, there are a lot of things I learned about myself at work. I found out that I have leadership skills. Throughout my entire life in India I have been told to hold back. I was getting into too much trouble, I had (well, I still have) strong opinions and airing them was not a smart thing. Here. I am encouraged to speak up. I am learning how to lead properly, that is utilize the natural tendency but to sharpen that as well. I have understood that my level of enthusiasm is above the national average, and instead of yelling at others for their lack of energy, I am learning how to get people to feel more interested and take part in activities.
Problem solving, especially in the STEM field is a.. how do I put it... it is probably the only thing which can give you something close to superpowers! In the software world, we mainly deal with things intangible. You can see a computer, but you can't feel the lines of code that does most of the work. We see the life in those lines of code, and get unnecessarily attached to them. Just the idea of someone using tab versus spacebar can cause religious wars in the software industry. We are a bunch of crazy people, but we love our weirdness. NOTE: not all software engineers are introverts.
There is a comfort in knowing that in science there is the concept of absolute truth. What I mean is, like when you add two and two, the answer would always be four. Similarly, if your friend has guessed a random number between 1 and 100, and you want to find out what is it, math tells us you only need (at most) 7 tries. And that is true! If you do it right, you won't go beyond 7 tries. That's what binary search is about. If you need more tries, you can be absolutely certain that you are doing it wrong. There have been times when my code didn't run as expected and I started cursing it, or pulling my hair. However much I may do either of those, it does't help because the computer, unluckily is a non-thinking, non-feeling weird thing. It doesn't care. Of course I found out there is stuff I missed, or wrote wrong. Once that is fixed, the code runs. There is no gray area in between!
I need to conclude this article with the people part. Arnab once asked me if I go to work to work or to have a social life because he only heard plans for coffee, lunch, or walks. It is true, because socializing is a big part of my existence and my friends at work help that. We have almost a dozen people to eat lunch with, they are all crazy in their own ways. If you see us then, you'd think we are a bunch of high school or college kids who know each other for many many years. They are those people who know my deepest evil wishes, on whose white sofa I can totally put my dirty feet on, and they can also tell me to my face that I need to stop wasting money.
It is very clear that I have found the right place where I belong.
Being an ENFJ, I love people and I get energy by being with people. Coming to work has its own set of positivity for me. To say that I love working would be an understatement. I am one of those people who feel charged after a relaxing weekend to get to work on Mondays. It is not that I don't like weekends, but I love Mondays as well, because I have things to look forward to, challenges to meet, problems to solve and people I love spending time with.
Other than providing an income, and giving a practical way to use the knowledge I acquired from school, there are a lot of things I learned about myself at work. I found out that I have leadership skills. Throughout my entire life in India I have been told to hold back. I was getting into too much trouble, I had (well, I still have) strong opinions and airing them was not a smart thing. Here. I am encouraged to speak up. I am learning how to lead properly, that is utilize the natural tendency but to sharpen that as well. I have understood that my level of enthusiasm is above the national average, and instead of yelling at others for their lack of energy, I am learning how to get people to feel more interested and take part in activities.
Problem solving, especially in the STEM field is a.. how do I put it... it is probably the only thing which can give you something close to superpowers! In the software world, we mainly deal with things intangible. You can see a computer, but you can't feel the lines of code that does most of the work. We see the life in those lines of code, and get unnecessarily attached to them. Just the idea of someone using tab versus spacebar can cause religious wars in the software industry. We are a bunch of crazy people, but we love our weirdness. NOTE: not all software engineers are introverts.
There is a comfort in knowing that in science there is the concept of absolute truth. What I mean is, like when you add two and two, the answer would always be four. Similarly, if your friend has guessed a random number between 1 and 100, and you want to find out what is it, math tells us you only need (at most) 7 tries. And that is true! If you do it right, you won't go beyond 7 tries. That's what binary search is about. If you need more tries, you can be absolutely certain that you are doing it wrong. There have been times when my code didn't run as expected and I started cursing it, or pulling my hair. However much I may do either of those, it does't help because the computer, unluckily is a non-thinking, non-feeling weird thing. It doesn't care. Of course I found out there is stuff I missed, or wrote wrong. Once that is fixed, the code runs. There is no gray area in between!
I need to conclude this article with the people part. Arnab once asked me if I go to work to work or to have a social life because he only heard plans for coffee, lunch, or walks. It is true, because socializing is a big part of my existence and my friends at work help that. We have almost a dozen people to eat lunch with, they are all crazy in their own ways. If you see us then, you'd think we are a bunch of high school or college kids who know each other for many many years. They are those people who know my deepest evil wishes, on whose white sofa I can totally put my dirty feet on, and they can also tell me to my face that I need to stop wasting money.
It is very clear that I have found the right place where I belong.
