A milestone

A manager once told, being a manager is a tough job. You no longer only  have to worry about what you have to do, you have to worry about all the people you managed. You'll constantly have a million things you'll need to do. A manager's job is lead the team, energize the team, provide a vision of the team, to always make sure the team is moving forward. A manager's job to ensure their engineers are happy, to get what they need to work efficiently and to lead their career growth. A manager's job is to protect their engineers, to filter all the shit that comes from the top, so that engineers are free to concentrate on their work, free from unnecessary distractions. A manager's job is make sure the engineers feel recognized and appreciated. A manager's job is to make sure that all hell breaks lose, he must still must remain feet firmly on the ground, that even when everybody is unhappy, he still must smile.

However, who makes sure the managers get recognized and appreciated? When engineers come and pour out their troubles to their manager, who does the manager go to pour out the troubles of his own heart?

So then I asked that manager, why do you want to be a manager then? His answer, it's the satisfaction of seeing your engineers grow and achieve and hoping that you helped to play small role in making that happen.

Today is CC. Today is a milestone of me. My first CC in a new role. A time when all managers bow their heads in prayer and say, "Oh God, please let everything be okay".

I understand more what a manager goes through now. All things that happen behind the scenes. So to a particular manager out there, I want to say a huge thank you. Whatever I have achieved so far in my career, I owe a big part to you.

And to the engineers who have worked so hard as a team, a huge thank you. I'm extremely proud of the team and I make no effort to hide that from anybody I can tell.

I know friends think I'm crazy for working even when I'm holiday. Well, I don't see my job as just a job. I see it as a career full of potential oppurtunies (erm, I can tell you this because I'm calmer after CC. Ask me again while I'm in the middle of hell and I may give you a different answer). After working so hard, it makes me appreaciate simple things like sitting in Starbucks right now on a Friday morning.

Now I just need to hibernate for a few days to have strength for a whole cycle of new madness. And I forsee a hell lot of madness coming. :)