I have spent my life learning to be the best at the things I do. It is a constant and ongoing effort. I started by having an initial destination, but no way to get there. I learned to drive. Then as I discovered more destinations I wanted to visit, I learned to become a better driver. I wanted to be able to get there as soon as possible. Sometimes that meant taking new routes, driving over different terrain, or in extraordinary weather. I became a skilled driver.
Eventually, others wanted me to take people with me to my desired destinations. However, they were not the driver I was. They did not know the way. They had been told of the next grand location, but did not understand the path to get there. I was capable of figuring it out. Thus, I was asked to help them get there. Unfortunately, they quickly fell behind me and lost the path. I needed them to complete my journey. I found myself going back to look for them and point them in the right direction again. Showing them the way was not enough.
It turned out the other drivers did not know how to drive as well as I did. They could not follow me. Some of the paths I chose, they could not traverse. Not only did they need to know the way, they needed to be taught how to drive too. I do not know how to teach people to drive. I only took the time to learn how to drive myself. Since teaching people how to drive is becoming one of the things I do, I need to learn how to do it as best I can.
Leading people requires far more skill than making the journey myself. I have to understand the driving skills of each driver following me. Can they drive in rain? Can they drive on gravel? What kind of car do they drive? Is it a front-wheel drive vehicle? Is it a 4×4? This determines the route we can take. Some locations cannot be reached without teaching them new driving skills. We cannot reach an isolated mountain location with only a gravel road as an entrance unless the drivers are capable of navigating mountainous terrain on gravel roads. If they need to learn the skill, I need to know how long it will take them to learn it. Is it reasonable to reach a destination over a mountainous gravel road in three months if they do not have any experience with gravel or mountains? Perhaps I need to take them to slightly less desirous location that only requires the ability to drive on gravel. This would allow me to spend three months making the journey while teaching them about gravel roads. We can follow it up with a second journey to understand what it is like in mountains. It may require us to take six months to get to our final destination, but it may prevent a bad accident along the way. The bad accident could set us back even further if they are kept in a hospital for twelve months. There is a lot to consider when leading others to a destination I could reach myself without much fuss.
Why do I need to lead others to a common destination? I can not do everything by myself. There simply is not the time. If we are transporting resources to the new spot, I may have to make many journeys to get everything to the final location. By then, it could be too late. If I lead others, they can help transport. They could also begin to make trips without me. Maybe someday they would lead others. Our ability to overall productivity increases as I teach others my craft.
I wanted to go somewhere. I learned to get there. Others want the ability to get to the same location. I need to understand their skills along with how well they can learn new skills to plot a course we can all take to accomplish the journey in the shortest amount of time possible. Learning to lead is not easy. I suspect I will be working at it for a long time. After all, I spent 23 years learning to drive, and I am still learning new techniques to this day. The best advice I have so far is tell people where you are going, tell them how you intend to get there, and then help them get there.
Side Note: I am a software developer. I currently am leading a team of six to eight developers depending on the day. We need to learn the latest technologies and methodologies to produce quality software in a cost effective, yet timely, manner. All that being said, I have been playing a lot of Gran Turismo 5 lately on the Playstation 3. Thus, I spend a lot of time analyzing how I and others on the road drive. I thought I would combine the two to explain my latest feelings and insights. No matter where you go in life, never forget how you got there. I got to where I am in life by working hard and playing harder. I enjoy making software, but I will always make time for playing videogames.
I grew up to the phrase, “Never say never.” I grew up reading fantasy and science fiction books and watching action movies like any other boy. However, perhaps more than the excitement, I loved the story. When I got to school, I did not stop reading or watching movies. I also began getting into role-playing games (RPG’s) on both the console and the pen-and-paper variety, think Dungeons & Dragons. While those are a little beyond the norm, I took it a step further. I paid attention in history class. I heard about Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar. I read about Napoleon and General Eisenhower. I watched documentaries on Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee. I grew up believing a person could be great. I believed I could be one of them. Then I got older.
I was expected to find a way in life. I could not continue dreaming of being the next Michael Jordan, Steve Young, or Andy Roddick. I had to grow up. I was never very keen on the idea. By this time, computers had become an avenue to more stories and dreams. I began to pursue basic web development, and then on to programming. I could not decide whether I wanted to make games that future generations could love or websites which would open the eyes of others. I began walking down that path. On the side, I kept myself grounded with history classes. They were a constant reminder of where I wanted to be. I wanted to be in the history books.
I graduated college and got a job. I got told, “Welcome to the Real World.” It turns out it is not much different than whatever world I was in before. People have expectations, and it is my responsibility to meet them. That means even if I do not like it. I am very independent. I do not like someone else telling me what to do. At the same time, I want people to listen to me. I used to yell louder in hopes I could drown out the others until they had to listen to me. Sometimes I still do. With my job, I wanted to write code. I wanted my code to change the world.
My boss recently shifted me into a new sort of role. I coordinate developers literally on the other side of the world as we work on an application used by people in the same city as me. The new role requires getting up before the sun because people on the other side of the world work very different times than we do here. I am told it has something to do with an 11.5 hour timezone difference. I also spend most of my days in meetings. Some days I spend the entire day in meetings. Each meeting has people asking me to get work done. I struggled to understand how I was suppose to get work done while I was constantly in meetings. I wanted to be writing the code rather than sending it off to others. I could do it better. I yelled a little bit.
I still do not know whether I want to continue pursuing the road I am on or return to the fork in the road. However, in traveling down this new road, I learned something. If I want to be great, I do not have to do the things at which I am great. I just need to continue meeting the challenges laid before me. I have to rely on the people around me to help me. I have to rely on others to point me in the right direction when I can no longer see the road. I will have to try new things. I do not know where I am going. I do not know where I will end up. The one thing I know is I can never stop trying.
Last month was the second month in which I did not blog at all in the 20 months I have been blogging. When this occurred to me last night, I just about got out of bed to post something since it was not yet midnight. I respectfully declined and resolved to fix the problem. The past month saw me configuring a new computer about which I still need to blog, getting used to a new job, watching the Olympics, engaging in NHL 10, and simply spending time with friends and family. Read the rest of this entry »
I realized a couple of days ago I am at the end of the last summer vacation of my life. I will graduate college in December and enter the working world. To get a day off, I will have to wait for a holiday, or use ever precious time off. Fortunately, I have spent this last week making the most of it.
Friday, August 14, was the last day of my summer internship. I had spent the last three summers working in IT for the same company. I changed teams after the first year, but only moved a couple cubicle rows down. In other words, I saw the same floor of coworkers every summer for three years. It was interesting as I was packing up to leave because it hit me that I will never work as a student employee again. Students are always treated a little differently than normal employees. In every job I have had, student employees have been at least mildly protected from some of the mind-numbing tasks every job entails. Instead, I have been allowed to pursue the job tasks that interested me the most. I have also been able to avoid some of the red tape and bureaucracy slowing down some of my other team members. When in doubt, the simple line, “I didn’t know. I am only an intern.” will go a long ways. The trick is using it in a way to benefit the team I worked with everyday. It is seen as taking the initiative to get a job done with other coworkers are being a bit stringent. I was taught this clever technique by one of my leaders my first summer who used to me to contact business associates for information while being unable to give it myself since I did not know any details in which they were interested. There is a possibility I return to the same company to begin my career, but it is still up in the air at this point. Coincidentally, “Broken” by Seether was the last song to play on Pandora before I shut my computer down for the last time. The lyrics can be found here.
My three summer internships meant a summer spent in a city separated from my hometown and college. It was a blast. My sister and her family lived nearby which resulted in lots of summer evenings grilling food and hanging out on their back deck. I had a few friends from high school in the area which I would meet up with on occasion. There was also tennis and videogames. Perhaps the best part of it all was getting out on my own. I am one of those people who gets claustrophobic when I am constantly around people. Moving to a city seems like it would be a problem, but it was easy to tuck away in my apartment. Rather than having to make efforts to get away from everything, the inverse became true. I was making efforts to get out and do some things. Having an evening with nothing to do and being completely free to decide without anyone nagging may be one of the greatest experiences of all time. I have always loved driving across towns late at night in the summer when I am returning home from being out with friends. Being able to roll the windows down, turn up the music, and just cruise is amazing. Having my own apartment in a city was a parallel sensation. Of course, “Good Riddance” by Green Day had to come on the radio as I was driving out of town to move my stuff back to college. As before, the lyrics can be found here.
Then I got a week off before classes started. In that time, I have played nine holes of golf in which I shot my lowest score yet. It was the consistent round I have been looking for all summer. I have played tennis a couple of times. I have gone disc golfing for the first time in years. I have played Rock Band for a handful of hours. I had to get a shower mat to put down on the hardwood floors in my current house to keep the drum set from sliding across the floor. There have been countless hours of playing Call of Duty 4 including a few of the most epic moments yet. This all after two years spent playing the game. According to the statistics in game, I have logged almost two full weeks of my life playing the game. It is one of the greatest of all time in my opinion. I have taken some time to edit some video from the game as well. An afternoon was spent on web development. I have watched the movies Marley and Me, King Arthur, Jaws, and Eddie Izzard’s Dress to Kill. Last night brought several friends around a bonfire in our backyard until the whee hours of the morning. Last, but not least, I have gotten to spend several hours in the evening hanging out with my girlfriend after she has gotten off work. She will be much busier during the semester so it is nice to spend some time now. Something about double majoring, working, and being a collegiate athlete takes up a lot of time during the school year apparently.
All told, it has been a great summer. I have been wanting to write this blog post for over a week now. Funny that I am getting to it on the very last night before classes start. I remember when high school was getting ready to end, I was ready to kick back and just enjoy the end of it. I probably could have done a little better in the activities I participated in, but I doubt I could have enjoyed them much more. While I had a great time, I was ready to move onto something new. I planned my college schedule to have an easy semester to wrap things up. To the point I have two classes, one of which may very well be one of the easiest classes I will take at UNI. The other is just going to be pretty darn cool. Then I will be doing my undergraduate research which should be fun. Finally, I will be sitting on a third class so I might actually know something about the topic, software engineering, since my degree’s emphasis is in it, and the professor who taught it when I took it knew nothing about the matter. Needless to say, I have four months of sports, videogames, football, computers, and friends. It will be a good time.
I’ve recently started working on a new website. As many of you know, I frequently participate in a videogame clan. This includes not only playing games online with them, but running a website for them. Well, a few of us have decided to expand our involvement in the videogame culture. One website we regularly compete on in amateur tournaments is Gamebattles.
We have several complaints against Gamebattles. A lot of the admins are pricks. Most of them our high schoolers on power rushes. This results in the rules being horribly thrown by the wayside and very subjective rulings coming into play. They also tend to be aggravated by teams who repeatedly submit tickets because their opponents are breaking the rules. Rather than these teams who are trying to play legit getting wins for their efforts, they are punished for using the system put in place by Gamebattles. I don’t want to say all the admins and refs are corrupt, but a lot of them are. The few good ones tend to be lost in the sway, rubbed the wrong way by corrupt superiors (as I once was), or just too few make a difference.
When things go smoothly, the competition is awesome. I know all the KOR guys love it. We feed off of it. It gets to the point that we literally scheduled practices to get prepared for upcoming matches. We plan out our strategies. We have leaders to give out quick orders in the heat of the fray. We have even worked on a means for quite literally developing our own “playbook” of sorts. This is how KOR really got off its feet in the beginning. It started as a few guys playing together for fun. Then they got involved in GB (Gamebattles) and things took off from there.
So what does all this have to do with me building a new website? Well, some of us have gotten frustrated with GB for the above mentioned reasons. Some of us enjoy getting involved in various web development projects. So what does that all add up to? We sat around talking one day and got the idea we should make our own. Now we are actually starting to put some serious effort into it. We needed a name first. Since we needed a web domain to go with our name, we started ruling out names we couldn’t get a domain for easily. Finally, we came up with Champions of Gaming. I’m not providing a link here because we are still in the very early stages of development. We haven’t even purchased the domain we intend to use. I suspect this will come back to seriously haunt me if someone purchases before we do…