Try to be better version of yourself everyday

A “low-to-normal” version of myself

Back in 2012, when I first started working as Developer, I was a “low-to-normal” young boy just finished my College periods. My scores in high school, college was … OK , enough to survive and get me through the study period. Pheww … thanks Mom, Sisters, finally I can say “bye bye and never see you again !” to … my studying, I’m done !

After graduated a few days, Mom asked me:
– Why didn’t you have a job now ?
– Does any company call you to go to work ?
– Does the College prepare job for you as they promised when we signed up to the course ?

Oh Mom, I’m sorry I want to tell you: “Life doesn’t work that way, no company give a shit to a just graduated student who had … OK score, and yes the college – they lied about the part preparing jobs for students”
I told Mom I would like to take a break, 3 months at least to enjoy the happy times before looking for jobs.

The first job & the first working day

My college friends started to apply for jobs right after the graduation, few of them got job offers, others failed. They asked me did I go interview yet ? I said no, not yet, I want to enjoy the break time, but inside I was start to worry about myself: “May be I should get a job“. So I did that, prepared CV, got 2 calls, did 1 interview and got accepted !
Easy peezy !!! Easy game !!!

At first day going to work, I was so nervous , and when I received my first task, it was a task related to Database operations, just write a small program to random some data & insert into DB. Ohhh man, I didn’t know how to do, how to start !? Actually I couldn’t remember how to write MS-SQL DB connection string one of the most basic thing I should ‘ve learnt when study programming !!!

Because it’s was my first day at work, and I was doing my first task, I didn’t dare to ask for help. I looked around, other people was working, look like they were quite serious !!! A few moment later, I mean a few hours later , I was thinking myself: “If I don’t ask for help, maybe I can’t finish the task and my Manager will be disappointed“, and then after a few minutes struggled, I decided to ask for help to the guy who was next to me: “Hello, hihi can you help me with this task ? I wrote MS-SQL DB connection string, but it didn’t work ! Hihi … “

He looked at me, no smile, serious face, then he looked at my code and … viola he fixed the issue.
Thanks man, you are my life saver, holy molly god hand, love you !

But in that very moment, I realized that I was bad, I was not enough to take this job, may be I’m the worst in the room , and may be other people also realized the same thing … I feel ashamed … I couldn’t finish my first task without help, I couldn’t remember things which are consider is very basic for a junior programmer … I could have been fired in the next week. I was scared…

Went back to home, Mom asked me how was my 1st working day ? I said it was OK …
Yea but I know it’s not OK, at all !!!
I realized If I don’t become better, I will fail, I will be fired, people will look down on me … I don’t want any of that shit

I never failed in any examinations I took, yea not good scores but I never failed before, but this time I know that this is not examination, this is my life, my job, my pride, my life … and I felt I would fail this time.
So I decided to push myself, for good, the very 1st time in my life.

Decision to change: focus, work hard & repeat

I stopped playing online games … for a while.
I started to look for articles, coding tutorials, try some demo of new libraries I found interesting, practice programing tasks … every working day, not everyday, It would be a lie if I said so …. Of course I played games (cant quit this shit yet , it’s good ! Addicted … like drug) & go out with friends on weekend.

I started to be curios about … things, such as: “oh how to made this table UI look better ?” (believe me, the app I worked on that time had shit, ugly UI … yea but our client pay money, so who care ??? ), other things such as: how to make the input forms more interesting and easier to use for our Data Entry staff ? … and many others.

I suddenly realized that I like these things, I love a good app, good website with beautiful UX/UI, I become more & more curios, I put more and more free time into finding & trying new UI libraries, practicing my skills and I just felt in love with what I do.

I get better at my daily jobs as a Software Engineer … in time. It’s not magic something happen in one night, I did ask a lot of questions, good questions, stupid questions, annoying questions … I got mocked, disagreement in many topics. Yea but’s that’s OK, because I can feel that everyday I’m learning something new !!!

After 2 months, I passed my trial period with high head, confidence, my efforts were paid off, I knew I was OK … I will keep doing things I loved, and yes at this time writing this post, I still does.

Keep it up

As time gone, I was far away from being a young boy, a junior developer … I ‘ve growth up, and getting older, getting more experiences. I learnt many lessons along the way, I face & overcome the difficulties, I fight battles, both win & lose some . But I do know what I want, I don’t want to lose, I don’t want to be left behind, I want to be better at everything I do … day by day and I want to share that with others, young people, who I used to be, a “not yet good” version like me before.