Time and again the career/self-help books tell us to “make goals” and keep track of progress. As a lazy cunt who casually believes things will work their way out and OTP planning takes the art and mystery out of everyday life, I found that hard to follow through.

But two months at Y! has undeniably worn off some of the self-esteem I built up during the two months of job seeking. Yes, it has been a great and fun time, but I’m not entirely satisfied with how I came through. Simply put, I don’t feel I’m living up to the promises I made and now feel like a kid afraid of being caught.

Is it really that bad? On the surface, I got myself known to the producers and some colleagues. I got to know a few of them relatively well. I completed two small tasks without seeking spoon-feeding type of help, on alien platforms and languages. Though not working as fast as people might have expected, I should have portrayed the image of a fast learning, experienced web developer with a reasonable level of creditability. Or at least I hope so. Without realizing, I probably allowed myself to slack a bit too much.

On the down side, yes I’m essentially the same as I was before. Those areas I wished to improve never made much of an impression.

So what next? Here are just some of the goals I logically should be heading towards, no matter how far fetched:

- Understand the logistics and maintenance of the servers. Be able to do some real troubleshooting.
- Know all there is about GSP and is able to perform upgrades to all the servers.
- Better time mgmt and design in new tasks…
- Get closer with other engineers!

Too generic isn’t it? Knowing where to go doesn’t necessarily know hot to get there. What I need now is work out a plan for reaching these objectives. The shyness thing and the get-together thing can be helped a little by bringing in the wii (yeah pathetic approach I know) and by following suggestions in certain books. As for technical, i don’t know, this shouldn’t really be an issue for me isn’t it? Afterall I’ve been in this situation time and time again. The only difference this time is really, a new set of systems and lack of useful documentation…these can be solved through self-observation and well, ASK!! Just go to work focused and awake, and have clear objectives of what to complete each day and week.

Well, obviously i haven’t a clue how to turn this rumbling post into something useful and thought provoking as I intended. I guess…should I lower the bar and say, just define goals and review them every month? That should be easier and the entire process would generate far less pressure.

Moving these plans to a more private part of the blog