Junior Software Engineer

With all of the Accenture campaigns from internet, broadcast and even print. I can’t help but look back on my short lived JSE days. Obvious ba? Hindi ako na regular sa Accenture. Period.

Back then it’s quite excruciating and painful to the ego. Ang sintemyento ko pa nun, ang dami-dami sa company ang hindi makapaghintay na ma-lift ang kanilang mga bwakanang bonds at makaalis eyeing Singapore or Hong Kong as next step to their careers. Habang ako naman eh pinagpilitan ang sarili pero ayun… kapos pa rin. I had several failures from my academic years kahit malinis ang transcript ko sa singko, I am proud of me having my ECE license. For me it’s a proof that I can muster all my strength, command discipline and be an asset for an organization. Pero wow, Natanggal ako nonetheless.

Ano ba ang nangyari back then? Where did I go wrong…

Rigid ang interviews para makapasok sa Accenture. You can go through as much as three interviews, counting all of the interviews I gone through I’ll say naka-anim ako. Actually nag-apply na ako sa company fresh grad pa lang ako ng 2003, i don’t have the resources to fund and review for my board exams so I decided na magtrabaho na lang. June-July-August sinubukan kong ligawan ang company, after my third interview hindi na ako tinawagan ine-mail na lang ako. Hindi ako pumasa.

After a year, after ng board exams at habang sinusubukan ko ang unang sem ko sa pagtuturo. Accenture called again, hindi ko sigurado kung may quota or whatever ang HR nila, pero when they asked if I am still interested, I was still as eager as ever. I even thought that this is the high time… I mean, siguro hindi lang ako natanggap para makapag-board exams ako, magka-license, pero eto na sya talaga… another three sets of interviews. I finally got in.

First two weeks training agad! Grand! I mean new stuffs wow! Ok to…
Peoplesoft, SQR, SQL… I never encountered them back in college as in zero, most terms and definitions, first time lahat. It even felt like I am getting paid just to learn all of this? New proficiencies? Sweet deal. I haven’t realized the bonds yet, nah… ultimately, hindi ko rin naman prinoblema ang mga yun. I had several more trainings after that. Mas malalim pang training sa Peoplesoft. I can’t imagine never hearing about Peoplesoft when in the outsourcing field they are actually big. Ang hindi lang masayang part eh nung nag-pool sila ng tao, pero it almost took some three weeks para mabigyan or ma-i-assign ako sa isang project. Two and a half months I was paid to do training, reading and learning. I am anxious to be in a team, to be a part of a group and to put what I have just learned to good use. What I didn’t saw coming was that even with that two months and half of training won’t help me very well.

Trivia! There is where I actually got the idea of Professional Student. Being paid to learn? Good times.

So eto na! ako ang last na kinuha sa pool ng trained batch, It even got me thinking, maybe I am last on my first Peoplesoft class… kaya ako ang huling kinuha… Nah, no it can’t be… nakakapick up ako nga mabuti and at par sa ibang naroon. Anyways eto na binigyan na ako ng project. Challenge at last! This is it!

Hindi ko sigurado kung saan ako unang nagka-issue sa work. Culture shock ba? Or humina ba ang pick-up ko nun dahil I actually personal issues that I have to juggle as well back home. For sure they all accumulated and exploded on my face.

Sa working area. I admit culture shock. I was very very timid back then, I seldom engage to conversations, Hindi ako sumasabay sa lunch dahil may baon ako, bihira akong magtanong dahil nahihiya ako. Picturing myself back then… even I won’t strike a conversation with myself. I am a picture of a person with very low self esteem. I like to think I am not that bad with regards to socialization since I made acquaintances if not friends. Pero sa loob ng mismong project, I was lost… I even had only one common person to talk to. Siguro kasi sya lang ang kaparehas ko ng interes tulad ng anime and stuff. Pero kahit na… I can’t say that it’s an issue of the school you came from. But I guess it more of the culture you are used to. I am not used calling a person with higher position with her first name for one. Pero I guess it’s an issue of how you deliver yourself. Heck! I can’t even deliver myself without getting nervous to our US counterparts. If they see you as a person they can step on, one way or the other they will.

One more thing I struggled with is all of the freaking time records. We have the general company record, then we have time records for the specific project, then we also have time records for the task assigned. Ang weird especially sa project specific record, you have to indicate the task you have performed all through the day, by the minute! Hindi ko naman puedeng ilagay sa record na nagtype at nagexperiment ako with my programming scripts dahil sa task assigned time record allotted lang ang bawat galaw mo up to how many seconds! Bihira akong makakita ng ka-opisina na umuuwi ng alas-singko y meida, pero lahat sila buo nila yung eight hours ng mga project task, na hindi ko malaman kung ano ang ginawa nila pero it is as if on the whole eight hours of their stay hindi sila nag blog, nag-internet, nag-chat lahat trabaho wow! Hiwaga ng “Ghosting”

We have several meetings as well. Department up to project meeting. Tatlo lang kami sa department, pero parang dalawang magkaibigan lang na nagkukwentuhan ang mga kasama ko. There was even this meetin, tinanong ako what took me so long with a certain task, naggawa raw ito ng “variance” sa timeline, I explained I am on the learning curve. I have to do this yada yada… when my another colleague was asked the same question, she answered “Pasaway ako eh…” I didn’t get it. The whole team was laughing, and I didn’t seem to catch up… it felt like the joke was on me…

So come May… I was called by my manager. And told me… I won’t be regularized. It is as if the I have betrayed all that I know. My ego at that moment was shattered. I can’t say I didn’t expected it, its just I never instilled that it would actually happen.


the letter

That was two years. There are some stuffs that developed and I can say… my failures in that endeavor became precious lessons, they for a fact cost too much and I can only charge them to experience. Hindi naman puedeng magmukmok na lang diba?

I have heard the Project that I once belong to still stands, siemps may iba sa kanila na nakaalis na, with my short stay, I doubt that they would even remember me. Furthermore lesson I have learned is that being likable is something valuable so that people around you won’t have a hard time having you around. Maybe back then I am but an annoyance but hey! People will only step on you if you let them. You must somehow deliver yourself nonetheless. At mas ok kung High Performance hehe…

I just put it this way… I am a tiger… if they disagree and they think I don’t fit, I’ll bring them my forest.