Three Hundred Sixty-Five

The past 2 months have been keeping busy. I just finished my CISSP today (at the time of writing) and luckily, even though this was the exam I was the most unsure one so far in my life (because the answers are all so grey, unlike the scientific ones where there black and white are so clear), I managed to get myself through. So one less problem to worry about. In the end, I am really happy about this one because this was one of the few things that I actually wanted to accomplish.

2 more weeks (actually only one left now) and I am finally able to get on the plane for a 3-week vacation to leave the work a bit behind. Even though these 2 weeks won’t be easy … The Young Leadership Board will have a meeting with Partners in Hamburg next Tuesday, let’s see how this one will turn out. We have been again adhoc-ly investigating some people related issues, why people tend to be unhappy and so on. But this is a topic for itself, maybe more to it later.

I am writing this actually just to recap on what has happened in the past year since I got back from the what I called “Brief interlude” and started my new job. Even at the beginning of my travel, I was feeling kind of OK already to be focusing on other things. Mentally, I was not thinking too much about what has happened. Although recently, I have been having some flashbacks. Some fictive conversations flow into my head. I have not been super motivated for work, so I was also not controlling my thoughts with meditation or whatever to avoid them. I kind of just drifted along sometimes.

In this year, I got to know a lot more new people. Also given that the consulting environment is ever changing with people coming, people leaving, I got used to observe people having short round of introductions, summarizing what they do, what they claim they excel at, and what they really want to. Now I remember the blockchain guy that really wanted to do something in that regard when he joined. Now, exactly after one year, he is moving to a new job at UBS to do “blockchain whatever”. All those people, who do not really understood what is underneath and tries to do something cool, is what bugs me about in this business. I don’t want to claim that I understand much myself, but if you fail to explain to me the simplest questions, then, I really just want to keep my distance. There was also this narcissistic lady, who is 40+ years old. My boss took her over when she switched from PwC because she was feeling bad that lady N only joined the company for a few weeks and now she is leaving her alone. Lady N is someone who is super defensive and does not have the social competency at all. Once if she sees something going against her, she is trying to use any means to fight you, even though maybe, the problem is originating from her. It could be small things like someone being a bit loud in the project area, it could even be that the window is opened for too long and she is feeling cold. Or it might be that she is not able to filter the excel columns based on color. In the end, all the faults are with other people and she is the only one in the room who is behaving correctly, with best intend. Also, she does not know any boundary with other people, but when you scratch on the surface of her boundary a tiny little bit (as in the case of someone being a bit loud in the project area), she will push you back. She is someone who is twisting the reality towards her own “benefit”. Using the word benefit maybe not even correct here, but you get the idea. She reminds me of the movie Memento every single time. To certain extend it is really sad to see her helplessly running around, nobody even closely likes her. And it will be blamed upon use for sure, that is no doubt, but at this stage, I really do not care anymore. As with all, it will hurt us more when we try to help.

Usually, I try to see the good sides in people (And now that I am re-reading it, I realized I have not mentioned some of the awesome people I met at all). Maybe it is possible to neglect other parts so that you can genuinely like one person. Lately, it tends to get more and more difficult … Which actually brings me back to the people topic in the company. When you want to go higher up in ranks, becoming a manager and so on, what is the difference that you are gonna make? I really do like the idea of coaching people, or even lead in a project by example. As a responsible person/manager/lead, you should stand firmly there to protect others. You can guide the direction, and give other people the stability or the safe feeling that maybe needed for their comfort. I am really glad that I found my current boss who is exactly like that and this is also what makes feel easy to maybe even work those rare extra hours. And strangely, I always tend to see some messages while doing other stuff, now I was just rewatching some Naruto, and read “When one does not give up, there is always salvation.” And this is exactly why I despise the people who do not act to get themselves out of the hole (and sometimes they even expect other people to get them out, blame for others not wanting to help them), and this is also why I like people such as HD that they try their best to go through their lives. This is also the main motivation why I wanted to read the book that I am reading now …

Some time last week, in the midst of all the stress, I was also feeling a bit lost, in the big direction. And I ask myself what I do all this for? In the end, where do I wanna be in 5 years? (This was the question that is mocked by many people during HR interviews, but really, it is not a bad thing to think about it) I think I will have the next 3 weeks to think about this and plan ahead again.

I think I should start to move this page to a less prominent place. I need to consider this phase now as concluded. I do like the idea of keep posting some things from time to time, in a way to keep think about different things. Also reading a bit from time to time is also not a bad idea. The last one is really a bit pain to finish, given all those different things going on …

Also now that I am a “Certified profession”, I really need to fix my home network …