I’m sitting at an Airbnb in Vail, typing notes for the end of the year. We all had our fair share of craziness in 2020. It became a shared global phenomenon that everything happened in this year had some dilemma caused by covid: it’s a constant, never-ending quiz for me about each life decision. Well, I don’t know about covid but the year is officially ending in 15 days.
When the year first started, I was still at Prime Video, working on internal tools for content ingestion pipeline. At the time, I already made a long execution plan for next couple of months.
Near end of Jan 2020, I moved from the old apartment to a co-living-concept house. I’d be living with a bunch of strangers, sharing the same kitchen and laundry, but having my own little room and bath. It was a temporary setup for interview preparation. Why? The old apartment was nice but it’s 1.5 hours drive one-way to work. I could never finish all I wanted with that much time spent on traffic with uncertainties.
Now looking back, it was the big bet of my year.
A few random things were happening there. The person living right next door plays loud forest/animal sounds at night to get into sleep, but seems extremely introvert such that no meaningful conversation can start. The other next-door locked her self up the entire 3 months and I barely saw her. I didn’t spend much efforts to break the ice because fairly all I wanted to do is to prepare and review. I did that pretty well.
I had been fixing things around the house. The electricity was constantly tripping for my room such that my Mac is turning off all the time. There was a bad switch. I had to call the agency, found the owner, and helped finding the right contact to fix things up.
Once that’s done, one day I was typing code, the ceiling broke out a hole and water starts dripping off into the bed. It was bad. I was worried that water could come close to my Mac. Again, calling the agent, finding even an airbnb, and calling the owner, and eventually someone came to rescue. Huh, I had that fixed up.
The preparation went smoothly, and I went on my Bay Area trips.
2020 has been horrible but the timing was just right for me to land a bunch offers. I had, for years, finally found exactly what I wanted to do. I had much bigger offers but I went with what I felt most suitable, declined the result and went on my new journey.
I looked back in 2018, I paid perhaps double the efforts and time, but wasn’t able to reach my goal at the time. What was the problem? Perhaps I was missing the support and insights. I had a perception of what I want to achieve in 2018, but it was vague. However through 2019–2020, I was at the bottom, and had much crisp goal to hit. Fortunately, both confidence and skillsets are matching up the interview expectation.
With that said, now here I am.
Joining a new company gives some challenges as expected. After all, all the domain knowledge, rules, tools, ways of doing things are completely different. Learning as a beginner is piece of cake, I like to be in a position where I can just take notes and absorb. However, living up to the expectation I set for myself was not trivial to accomplish.
I became this even more organized person when approaching the new environment. I had the habit of taking notes, but now I’m putting all things in order so I can search & find easily. I used to work with what’s arranged for me at work, but nowI learnt to drive and push all career decision: get into the org I passionated about, pick the team I wanted, and find the project I needed to reach next level.
Pushing and driving things is hard. It gradually lands more responsibilities. Funny that when I felt too much to carry, I looked around and easily spotted how others may have taken even more pressure, then it was okay to keep going. After half year here at this new place, I’m still not as comfortable as I was, but at least just somewhat more competent than six months earlier.
Covid was here all the along this year, never missed a day.
In Thanksgiving, we took this trip to Denver Colorado to find some sort of escape beyond just work and work. It wasn’t a strange place given I had been here two times in the past. However, that is a fresh perspective. Similar to the end of 2019, this year end has been exciting. I’m picking up snowboarding at 30’s.
I never thought I could go up to mountain top and go down black line voluntarily. Apparently trying something dangerous can be both interesting and healthy. I started posting what I’m trilled about on Instagram, posting my trip, sharing the trip videos. I only get to live Vail, CO perhaps one time in life, oh I’m going to make the best out of this, ending 2020 with style.
