TL’s Story

After Print’s story, here goes Shizuka’s another story -

This time Shizuka joined the client side project thinking that now she can work closely with clients.

Initially it went well, she got to know about the domain and new tech stack.

As time passed, the project situation was becoming drastic.

• Clients shouting in each showcase
• Lot of delivery pressure
• Saturday working even after working long hours on weekdays.

In such situations, everyone was focused on their own story. After a few months, a new Tech Lead(TL) joined.

TL introduced himself and showed how happy he is to join the team.

Shizuka was laughing inside and was feeling sorry for him that his happiness might not stay for a longer time.

After a few days, TL realized the situation and he got pissed off.

One day, he asked everyone to have a tea break together.

After having tea, then he started talking with both crying and laughing face.

TL :

I am becoming crazy by seeing the current situation. I don’t think everyone is reading and understanding the code. We are working but not learning.

When you go out from this project, people will expect you to be an expert in the tech stack you worked on. I know we have client pressure and unrealistic deadlines.

But we can’t expect to achieve goals without any change in the way we are currently working.

How many of you went tried learning more about current tech stack .Sharing the learnings is the next step.

After hearing that Shizuka felt ashamed. Her eyes were looking down as she couldn’t dare to look at the TL now.

TL :

No one is coming up with the things which we can use to improve our code quality. Please please please strive for learning and improving..don’t just work blindly.

Now Shizuka and others got energy and motivation.

That day, Shizuka decided the topic which she thought, having knowledge of that would help to improve code quality.

The Next day, she gathered all her courage and stood near TL.

Shizuka:

TL, I learned about one topic and thinking to share it or not.

TL:

OH!! Awesome. Let’s have a session today only. After an hour? fine?

Shizuka:

What !! But I am not sure whether to talk about this or not. I feel most of the people might already know about it. I don’t even know how to start and what all things I should cover in session.

TL:

Haha.. See, I will tell you my story. It was a phase when I had not even fully changed my role as dev. I was supposed to conduct a session on Java Garbage Collector. You know, at that time also I had a similar feeling. But guess what, it was housefull. The session went for more than 1.30 hr. Everyone was impressed by the talk.

At that time I learned, don’t ever assume that everyone else might know about what you know. Just go and share with an open mind.

Shizuka felt so motivated and she gave a talk. She thought it might take 15 mins but with QnA it took more that an hour. Shizuka was happy that she delivered it.

She herself learned so much and helped others too.

Thanks to TL. Now whenever she hesitates to talk or share something, she just remembers her TL’s story. It’s a motivation for her.