Mentors: A Tribute To An Awesome Manager

There's always a mentor that all of us would like to remember. Sometimes its the grade school teacher who pushed you to your limits and your wits end, and at that point you unknowingly under appreciated him for his efforts to bring out the best in you. Sometimes its a college professor that showed considerable help, support and understanding to your capability and your work, placing the utmost importance in what you do and can do. Sometimes its the invisible man behind someone that,unbeknowest to you, would be putting out all sorts of odd jobs and strange requests that would eventually lead to your success. They're all the same to each and everyone of us: In the end, we realize the great values that they instilled in us, and gave us a different perspective to our life paradigm, and core values.

This is my version of a tribute to one of my many mentors.

I've been lucky to have worked at a company that allows much freedom in what I do. I entered my career oblivious to what I want, or what I can confidently accomplish. In many ways, I was that little person over at the hidden corner typing away with "whatever" her job was. I would eat lunch alone in comfort - I was invisible - and I fine with that setup, given my personality. Constantly, I've always carried a fear of being "found out", even if there was never even anything bad to be found out about me, except that I live in my own little world. I didn't have the confidence to speak out my ideas, despite time and time again, my ideas would be voiced out by another, and high praise would be given to them. During my years in school, I never raised my hands during class to answer a question that baffled every body, but I would know afterwards, when the professor would speak out the answer, that confirmed that I had the right answer in my head.

It was the fear of being wrong - One of the worst fears of its kind, since it will always leave you incapacitated, with no improvement, or feedback, if in case you were wrong. I lived like this for a fair amount of my life, and I would be lying if I said that I do not have that same fear, still residing in me, at this very moment.

But I had one of the best people backing me up when I was working in my current company. In a situation where there was extreme stress and pressure, he's the one person that would calm my nerves and guide me. He'd push me to do things which I extremely hated - bureaucratic, political, high profile, company critical - you name it, I did it. To what end, I didn't know then, but I dreaded these things. I also hated weekly meeting updates, when I have to tell him that I missed my own set deadline. I would squirm and pretend it is not a big deal, but inside, my whole innards where bellowing a huge frustrating defeat. But I'd still move on; He'd still continue to prod me on, as if it were no big deal. Just go ahead and finish it.. if you missed your own deadline, no need to mope. Just keep on doing it; do what you can, the best that you can, push yourself, challenge yourself - no sense in moping at your state now... you'll just be wasting more precious time. Accept what you're facing now, don't stop, just go ahead.. and do it.

I didn't like him the first time I met him. In fact, I avoided coming out to lunch with him and with coworkers, like a plague. He wasn't my superior then, and I was safe to get away from him if I could possibly manage it. He'd blurt out demeaning wisecracks about my inability to speak Cantonese, and all my coworkers would follow suit, leaving me always deflated with defeat. I actually hated him. I didn't want to be anywhere near him, and I sure as heck wasn't going to spend my only personal time within the day - the lunchtime - to be bombarded by comments that seemed more like insults to me than anything else.

Then came a time when I had to answer for something that wasn't my fault, and surprisingly enough, he and another colleague came around, and they both defended my position to my then supervisor. You see, I was the type that would always admit it was my fault, even if a large bulk of the fault wasn't entirely mine. I was the typical easy sacrificial lamb, and the scapegoat anybody could easily manipulate, because back then, I wasn't confident in what I can do. In the end, I was more or less redeemed, and he and another coworker gave me a brief insight on what I can do, and who I was, and what I should stand up for. More surprisingly, despite the fact that he'd constantly throw out all these seemingly meaningless insults back then during one of those rare departmental "lunchtime" hours, I thought he wasn't paying any attention at me. But it seemed he knew far more about me, than what I was willing to admit, or confirm, myself.

It was a great relief: I thought I was alone, but I wasn't, not really.

From then on, a few months later, he took over as my lead supervisor and manager.

There were a lot of things that needed to be done, and there were also things that I personally thought didn't seem so urgent or important, but he still asked me to do them, anyway. In a small to medium company, a lot of things were very much unstructured - a lot of times there were no standard procedures - and a likely lazy, green employee that I was at that time, I didn't think a lot of the stuff I was asked to do was necessary. Why do all these when they won't make a difference? If I did all these wonderful things, no one would know except me. A lot of the things he asked me prompted questions that popped up in my head:

1. What was the point of filling out all these forms?
2. Why all the bureaucracy and red tape?
3. Why do I need to write down the things I have to do, when I have it all memorized on the top of my head?
4. Why do I have to submit them all to you for review? Don't you trust me?
5. Why why Why??

Wasn't me, doing my job well, good enough for him? Why do I have to submit all these proposals, when top management isn't really going to take a look at it - I knew it would just be him? He also knew perfectly what I would be reporting on, so why ask me to make a formal documentation and an accompanying presentation? Why am I wasting so much time on things that top management wouldn't even begin to understand, let alone appreciate?

But did them I did, and back then, I was forced to, yes. I would spend months doing a project, months making analysis on the databases, months on preparing certain procedures, weeks spent to organize testing. In my mind, I just had to do it, because he told me to.

Maybe it was because I was just green back then. But in the end (recently), I realized doing all the things that he asked me to do, it was all for me, and not the company. Sure, it was also good for the company, but it wasn't really necessary for the company - it was more necessary for me. I was a bit surprised, because he didn't have any reason to actually help me out, except that as a supervisor and manager, he made it a point to care about my growth, and cared about expanding my experience as a Oracle DBA.

When there was a problem with live production, it felt safe that he was around, I'd have him on the phone as much as possible because he was the fallback that I've always had. The strange part about it is that he didn't really know in depth about anything that what I was doing, but we'd converse and discuss about what I needed to do: have him around to ask me the questions to which I perfectly know the answers.

He's always told me repeatedly, "You know what? You have a confidence issue. Its not that you don't know; You DO know. You always know. Each and everytime you ask me what you should do, I always bounce you back the same question: 'What SHOULD you do?' and you always have the answer. You DO know the answer. Contrary to what you think, you're actually extremely capable. Its always after that bout of uncertainly that's so characteristic of you that stops you from doing the things you need to do. Because after working with you for so long, I knew that after that bout of doubt and uncertainty, you always would do the right thing; Honestly, you just have this thing with confidence."

Four years down the road, and he's left the company. I felt apprehensive about having no fallback person to talk to if anything "catastrophic" happened. But comically, all the experiences that had happened until before he left, he did train me to handle problem issues by myself. During one of the major production deployments, I had some problems, and I called him up... but he wasn't answering any of my questions. He wasn't prodding me or leading me to do certain things. He was being unhelpful. I thought he was being mean and callous, but I think at the back of my mind, I was thinking "He's already leaving in a few weeks. He's not helping me out. But he's still there. I suppose I just need to learn how to handle these things by myself.... maybe." I did pull through, in the end. It probably took a bit more than I would've liked.. that doubt monster in me did rear its ugly head then, and I wasted a bit of time. But I still made it through the deadline, though.

Then, after he left, almost a few days later, I encountered my first real live production problem, alone, without his support, or his instructions, his prodding, or his "echo back" questions. I crazily wondered if I'm ever going to pull through.

I stayed about and tried to see what things I could do and should do. I had to stay up 40 hours for this, (the actual problem occurred within 12 hours, but I had to stay about to make sure everything was ok) Instead of panicking, all I had was his voice battering in my head, "always come back to a known state", "you've done this before, this should be no problem. The only difference is that you were handling testing databases, and this one is live production. But that doesn't matter, they're both the same thing" or "use your logic, they're always similar case, just of different circumstances", and in the end, I DID push through. Better yet, I found out that even without his help, I can manage. He was right, I did know what to do. There really was no need for all that apprehension, doubt and fear.

In the end, I learned more stuff technically, and professionally, than I would have ever hoped if I was just left to do my own. He parted his professionalism with our small team so effectively, in fact, that I have no doubts whatsover about my capability in the job market place. Despite the fact that I worked in a small company, I'm fully confident that I could cope and handle a career in a large, corporate setting, because that's what he tried to instill in us: Importance of professionalism in whatever circumstances, respect to where it is due, proactive growth, personal responsibility for learning, and self confidence.

It doesn't get any better than that. Either give the man a fish, or teach him how to fish for himself. He's done the latter for me, and that's what's made the huge impact.

Actually, you know what? There's even something better. Its the fact that I realized what he did for me, and I think that's the best thing. Realization, and gratitude.

He's probably not going to read this blog post, since he doesn't really know about it. But to all those people out there, I think its nice to stop a bit, think and try to realize what your direct supervisor/co worker may have done for you, and be grateful and appreciative; There's always going to be someone out there about you who's done the same thing. I'd probably be embarrassed silly if he did read this post, so I would rather that he doesn't read this, but regardless, I do show my appreciation when we all meet up occasionally, in my own way.

Ok, its rather been a longish post, but I think my ex-manager deserved a big space. :) I think I'll stop now. :P