Speak Up For Yourself
chalain Wrote:
Speaking up for myself has gotten me a dozen jobs and, to be honest, cost me my job at least three times. But they're ALL good stories. :-)
reaverta Wrote:
Quick question: Is that reassuring, or a warning to be careful? :p
Mu.
According to something (probably wrong) I once read, in Japanese the term "mu" can be used to answer any either-or question (most especially yes-or-no questions). It means "the smallness of the thought that framed your question cannot contain the immensity of the answer."
For example, "have you stopped beating your wife yet?" isn't funny in Japanese--they just blink at you and say "mu".
So anyway. Mu. I was praising the virtue of speaking up, but I wouldn't think of my words as reassuring--in fact, I wouldn't want to try to reassure you at all. And though I'm not warning you to be careful, I'm not NOT warning you to be careful, either.
Blurting out the most spectacularly wrong thing1 at the wrong time2 to the wrong person3 cost me the coolest job I ever had.
But blurting out the right thing4 at the right time5 to the right person6 landed me in a marriage that is now going on ten years of wedded bliss.
1 A cleverly turned insult.
2 A divisionwide meeting.
3 The Vice President of operations.
4 "I warn you, I'm weird."
5 The first thing I ever said when we met.
6 chaliren
It's like going into a competition where you have a good chance of winning but there are other players who are just as good as you. Reassurances? None, but don't let that slow you down. Caution? No, but stay awake. Get in there and play hard: some days you'll win big, and yes, some days you'll lose big and it will be all your fault. The only thing that is certain is that you can't win if you don't play.
I will say this much: I have occasionally regretted things I've said, but not often and never for long. And I've never--not once, not for a moment--regretted deciding to speak up.
I felt stupid for about a week over the insult that cost me my job, but now I treasure the experience. Would you believe I've done it twice more since then AND that I've never made that mistake again? I've done it twice more... just not by mistake.
You see, three years later a Vice President needed setting straight, and I knew exactly what the stakes were. I chose to say the right thing to him at the right time, professionally and courteously ripping him to shreds in front of the entire company. It cost me my job but I knew going in that it would AND that said cost would be laid at the feet of the Vice President. I had lunch with my project manager a year later. The Vice President was still an arrogant ass and still felt that I was a pretty worthless human being... but he was treating his engineers with a little more respect after spending a year trying to find a replacement programmer. (Note: I can't claim responsibility for that. I think I'm good, but I don't think I'm not THAT good: the job market is also extremely unfavorable to employers right now.)
Two years after that, however, I was working happily on a cool project when the Vice President and the President got into a pissing match, and I realized that I'd need to do something about it. I carefully weighed the possible ways of approaching the problem, the likelihood of suddenly becoming unemployed, and still decided to write an e-mail to them both entitled Why You Are Killing This Company". I didn't panic, I didn't overreact. I carefully chose words that I figured that balanced tact with shock in exactly the same proportions as my need to succeed and my not wanting to keep my job if things didn't improve. And this time, it worked!
So, no, Reaver: I'm not advising you to be cautious or hold back.
If you never win or lose, you're not playing.
If you're not losing once in a while, you're not playing hard enough.
If you don't lose BIG once in a while, you're not playing hard enough.
Losing big sucks... but if you lose big for the right reasons it can be a wonderful growth experience.