I try to be a team player....
The new job is working out OK, I guess. But it could be better. The project is to write a file-based source control system to manage remote servers. Puppet is package-based, and doesn't give us the necessary granularity to manage items on a file level.
This past week, I've been trying to learn how to write plugins for yum. Yum stands for "yellowdog updater, modified", and is the installation package manager for RedHat, Fedora, and CentOS. It's completely new to me. Plugins are writen in Python, which I've worked with before. But I have no familiarity with the modules I need to import.
My tech lead gives me partial information, and expects me to figure it out on my own. That may be how he learns things, but I need more hand-holding and spoon-feeding than that. The tried-and-true method of RTFM doesn't work for me; most of the documentation is written from the point of view of someone who understands how it works. Man pages are a reference, not a tutorial. And if I look at the code, which often doesn't contain any commentis, it doesn't make sense to me.
Deep down, I know he's not out to mislead me or send me on wild goose chases or snipe hunts, but it certainly feels that way at times. So why am I projecting or superimposing my past experiences onto him? Because it's what I know. And I'm reminded of several bad experiences I've had while being on teams.
The first was 8th grade social studies class. Mr. Heffley, our instructor, split up the class into 4-person teams, and each team was to come up with a paper describing various aspects of thee 1930s. My team was given the topic of Entertainment. I kept asking my teammates what I should work on, and they never answered my question with tasking. My name wasn't on the final paper, and I got a 0 for that project.
The second was an independent study in college. Several of us were working on code for an Adage image processor system. Again, I asked what I could do, and wasn't going to step on anyone's toes or duplicate someone else's work. And again, my requests were ignored. I got an Incomplete on that, which soon became an F.
The third was for a greeting card company in Cleveland. Mike, one of the project leads, spent very little time with me. When I asked him for help, he'd respond with "Google is your friend!" or provide me a link to letmegooglethatforyou.com.
The fourth was for a major pharmaceutical company in Indianapolis. Johny, my tech lead, often told me he didn't have time for me. That may have been true, as I think he was working on several different projects. But I took "I have no time" or "I'm busy" as a convenient excuse for avoiding me. I asked him to join me for lunch, and his response was "I eat at my cubicle".
In all four cases, my efforts to be a good team player were rebuffed or rebuked. Instead of being a valued team member, I was backstabbed and thrown under the bus. They made themselves look good at my expense. Is it any wonder why I don't trust people in general or teammates in particular?
This makes answering the interview question "Are you a team player?" difficult. They don't want to hear that I'm a loner, or that I prefer to work alone. But that is my truth.
This past week, I've been trying to learn how to write plugins for yum. Yum stands for "yellowdog updater, modified", and is the installation package manager for RedHat, Fedora, and CentOS. It's completely new to me. Plugins are writen in Python, which I've worked with before. But I have no familiarity with the modules I need to import.
My tech lead gives me partial information, and expects me to figure it out on my own. That may be how he learns things, but I need more hand-holding and spoon-feeding than that. The tried-and-true method of RTFM doesn't work for me; most of the documentation is written from the point of view of someone who understands how it works. Man pages are a reference, not a tutorial. And if I look at the code, which often doesn't contain any commentis, it doesn't make sense to me.
Deep down, I know he's not out to mislead me or send me on wild goose chases or snipe hunts, but it certainly feels that way at times. So why am I projecting or superimposing my past experiences onto him? Because it's what I know. And I'm reminded of several bad experiences I've had while being on teams.
The first was 8th grade social studies class. Mr. Heffley, our instructor, split up the class into 4-person teams, and each team was to come up with a paper describing various aspects of thee 1930s. My team was given the topic of Entertainment. I kept asking my teammates what I should work on, and they never answered my question with tasking. My name wasn't on the final paper, and I got a 0 for that project.
The second was an independent study in college. Several of us were working on code for an Adage image processor system. Again, I asked what I could do, and wasn't going to step on anyone's toes or duplicate someone else's work. And again, my requests were ignored. I got an Incomplete on that, which soon became an F.
The third was for a greeting card company in Cleveland. Mike, one of the project leads, spent very little time with me. When I asked him for help, he'd respond with "Google is your friend!" or provide me a link to letmegooglethatforyou.com.
The fourth was for a major pharmaceutical company in Indianapolis. Johny, my tech lead, often told me he didn't have time for me. That may have been true, as I think he was working on several different projects. But I took "I have no time" or "I'm busy" as a convenient excuse for avoiding me. I asked him to join me for lunch, and his response was "I eat at my cubicle".
In all four cases, my efforts to be a good team player were rebuffed or rebuked. Instead of being a valued team member, I was backstabbed and thrown under the bus. They made themselves look good at my expense. Is it any wonder why I don't trust people in general or teammates in particular?
This makes answering the interview question "Are you a team player?" difficult. They don't want to hear that I'm a loner, or that I prefer to work alone. But that is my truth.