Getting Fired — Part 1

When I reconciled the dreams of my former self with reality

This post is going to be more vulnerable than other things I’ve written. And to be honest a part of the reason I can have this vulnerability is because I am now in a position of strength, where I am immune to the negative judgements having this conversation would entail so no bravery to see here. But I feel it may be valuable to someone. Also have to note, I didn’t actually get fired but was well on my way there.

Jetson, I get you bro. // Courtesy the Hanna Barbera show Jetsons

I had a visit by my sister’s family. One of the things my nephew, A, really enjoyed was visiting UT-Austin, the Alma mater for both myself and my brother-in-law. And it got us talking about where college is supposed to fit. That it isn’t the end in itself and you can’t center your life around it. That college doesn’t teach you how to fail while that’s a regular part of real life. And I shared with him how I was under a performance improvement plan at ARM and was looking at a termination before joining Flux7.

I’ve thought a lot about what happened that led to me struggling in my career. And want to share my thoughts in case they are helpful to someone. Especially someone that is early in their career and trying to figure it al out.

There Is Such A Thing As A Fit

Two pieces may be right for each other or they may not be. Either way it is not a mark against the pieces if they’re not meant to be together. // Photo by Vardan Papikyan on Unsplash

Let me start off by saying one thing. ARM was an excellent employer. Great talented teams creating great products. The products permeated lives and make a real difference in everyone’s life. Even now as I write this know I’ll have many former coworkers reading this. Including senior engineers and managers. And I want them to know that I appreciate everything that they did to help me succeed. Hell, I was told that as much as it was a confusing time for me on why am I failing in engineering, the management team was just as confused in why would I be struggling.

Also on the note of trying to help me succeed. A special thank you to Jimmy Mason. Among the other things you’ve taught me, special call out to Little’s Law. It’s amazing how often you need it to understand a system.

It was not a fit for me, and where I was at the time. I tried to make it work. And had I known what I know now, I probably would have recognized it wasn’t working and gave up sooner. I met many people there, and I am grateful for all the care and guidance they gave me, the things they taught me, the opportunities they gave me. It just was not a fit for me and so everyone will have to evaluate for themselves what is a fit for them, and I hope I can provide some guidelines to help you evaluate what is a fit.

Don’t Cling To Your Old Self

Since my first semester in college I had decided I loved computer architecture. I saw how logic gates can be turned into machines that run programs. I loved learning about branch predictors, caches, pipelining, Tomasulo’s algorithm, just everything that is done in modern machines to make them go faster. And so I devoted myself to computer architecture in college. In addition when I entered the workforce in 2008 the mobile revolution was still pending. And I was excited to see the world changing aspects of it in articles like this about Jan Chipchase from Nokia.

Looking at yourself in the mirror can be very hard // Photo by Milada Vigerova on Unsplash

But even during my internships the cracks started to appear. I found myself getting bored about work, rather than being excited. That failure in expectation is best captured by James Mickens in his parody article: “The Slow Winter”. And so the thought would come to me on did I make the wrong choice in choosing computer architecture, does it actually match my temperament. The truth is I was too afraid to know the answer so I would push that thought out of my mind telling myself to stay the course, and getting myself to believe.

Those were good dreams, but they weren’t my dreams, but rather the dreams of someone that didn’t exist anymore. Or maybe that person never existed. Either way the only way I could treat myself right was to open my eyes and look at the man in the mirror, and recognize him for who he truly was. Rather than clinging to the dream I had been carrying for 11 years.

You’re Not A Robot

I was drowning in private. It was foolish to think my professional life was going to be smooth sailing. // Photo by Stormseeker on Unsplash

While I was struggling professionally it was also the darkest time in my personal life. I thought I could separate professional from personal but it wasn’t working. I brought the stresses and distractions from my personal life into my professional life. I was already struggling. This just compounded my struggles. It was already hard to concentrate on the work I was doing. But the constant stress made it worse. Not to mention that my mind was elsewhere.

I had a lot of support and understanding from my employer and manager. And so I’m really grateful to ARM and would highly recommend them as an employer. And had I been more energized about the work I was doing with their support I may have been able to perform better. But under the circumstances with struggling on both personal and professional fronts I could not. At times I did try to tell myself that I will use work to distract myself and have relief from my personal life. But I was never able to get into it enough to do this on a consistent basis. And so my professional life struggled.

I also shut out my support network from my professional life. I was already exhibiting a lot more vulnerability to my friends and family than I was used to as I leaned on them on my personal struggles. And wasn’t ready to pile on my professional struggles (read wasn’t ready to admit failing professionally to them). With close family it was even worse. I knew they were worried about me, and my mental well-being. I did not want them to worry. And so actively took steps to hide that I am struggling professionally from my family. Keep smiling, keep telling everyone everything is okay.

Learn How To Navigate

You feel you’re in control, you’re choosing your route, but really you are following the directions laid out for you // Photo by Tamas Tuzes-Katai on Unsplash

In many ways I was somebody that broke the mold throughout my education. I frequently argued with my teachers especially math and science. I would learn things other than what I was supposed to learn. Do my own projects. But the truth was I was very much accustomed to having my path laid out for me instead of learning how to find and build my own path.

I didn’t notice it at the time, but school really prevents you from learning how to build your own path.

1. You take classes with set syllabi. Until college you don’t really have an option on what classes to take. And even in college most of the classes are required for your degree. You may need to answer a few broad questions like, “I want to be a _____ when I grow up.” But you never have to figure out what are the skills and knowledge needed to become that.
2. During the course of the semester, you have specific milestones you have to meet. You don’t get to decide what you will need to learn to meet your goals. You don’t need to figure out what is enough learning on a particular subject and you need to move away from learning to taking action. All of that is already decided for you. And one after another you achieve these milestones and feel a sense of accomplishment. In work, everything is in a continuum. It’s hard to tell yourself apart between years. And without getting that ‘A’ how would you know you’ve reached the learning milestone needed from you.
3. School gives objective, quick, and impactful feedback. In work, messy reality gets in the way. A statement may be too polite to have the impact needed, or a boss may just be too critical. Everything is done collaboratively and so feedback is often too slow, usually some level of arguable, and so it loses its impact. Advice is also not as actionable as study harder.

And so I had never learned how to forge my own path. And so was lost in terms of what I wanted and how to get there. For that matter I’m not sure I even knew how to .

Everyone Has To Work Hard

In school in many ways I was able to skate by. Some work had to be done, I did that work and had fun the rest of the time. I could lean on a better memory or better ability to comprehend to have acing exams as a part of my strategy instead of consistent effort in homework and attendance. Because the bar was fixed. The thing about employment is that there seem to be only two levels. Operate at your potential or fail. And I was not operating at my potential, so I was failing. Things need to get done. Employment impact is measured by action, thinking through problems is not enough. Being a better problem solver means you’ll be able to solve harder problems but you still have to test and implement the solution. So you won’t be able to slack off. There is no substitute for consistent hard work. On the other hand, it is extremely rewarding to feel like you are living up to your potential.

These factors all culminated in me failing at my job. I was fortunate in that I was able to join my friend’s startup to and later became an equal partner. But that change of environment allowed me to do a reset on my life. And so while this post talks about the circumstances that led to me failing in my job. To see the lessons learned in rebuilding myself please continue on to Part 2.

Getting Fired — Part 2