Everyday I'm hustling, so why didn't anybody want me.
Where I started.
Close approximation to Age 7 me,
That line above represented the first 20ish years of my career. I'm a self-taught IT person, I am a jack-of-all trades that entered the computing world at age 7 with a book on BASIC programming and no computer (True Story). My Uncle Rich got me my first two computers and just told me the sky was the limit with these tools. A cherished childhood friend taught me everything he knew and really honed my skills and challenged me to be great. Another Uncle (Uncle Karl) recognized my talents and insisted that I start a consulting business while I was in high school. I never took that advice seriously and for the first 20 years of my career I've had the personal perception of failure for not going it on my own.
You might be asking, what is this post/announcement about? Well, in 20ish years in the industry I've never gotten a promotion. Never. Passed over every time. Sure I've moved up in my career by moving between corporations. But I have never been in a place where it felt I was valued enough, or did a job well enough that I'd be considered for a promotion. I've gotten merit increases. I've received multiple awards for achievements in my career. But I've never been good enough.
I've challenged myself to do whatever it takes. In the beginning I assumed it was because I wasn't assertive enough. I fought all my natural tendencies to fall back and changed in order to present myself slightly more aggressive. That didn't work. Constantly I assumed that I was passed over because I didn't know enough. So I began spending money on every fringe piece of technology and mastering it. Teaching myself programming languages, esoteric network hardware, reading whitepapers on everything. It just felt like it didn't matter. Emotionally I felt like the often shared "How come he don't want me?" clip from the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.
Let's take a step back, in the beginning of my career I worked for a firm where I had to know everything, No wasn't an answer. Way before Jay-Z coined "Difficult takes a day, impossible takes a week", I had to have that attitude to survive. My aggression towards my career began as just a survival instinct as everyday was deemed to be my last if I didn't have an answer that would move the company forward. From learning from Phone Switches/PBX, AS/400 administration, writing SQL reports, physically cabling, troubleshooting code, cisco router configurations, on and on. I had to do it (without training).And all that to say it, nothing has ever frightened me.
Anyways, with this can do philosophy, and a friendly attitude I just grew so confused as to why I was always passed by. At the ten year mark of my career I began to feel dread, feeling that I was never going to make it any further in my career. Each job interview/acceptance I had the same answer to where I'd like to see myself in the future, each time I left those opportunities, it was because I didn't see a path forward. I can handle personal rejection well, I can handle many types of rejection well. But I just couldn't handle career rejection well.
The second half of my career I feel like the wheels began to fall off. It just felt as if the harder I tried to make a company better or provide process improvement the more resistance I received.
This part cuts deep, you see as a black man its impossible to know how hard to push for what is right. I don't want to get painted as a angry black man and thus painted into a corner of just being some sort of pariah. I also don't want to give any one the chance to think their negative biases were correct either. But with all these failures piling up I began to stop pushing as hard to learn everything I could. I moved my professional energy to photography. I moved my entertainment to cars. Eventually I just thought about going back to school and retreating to another field. In 2015 I considered leaving the STL area just to have a fresh start somewhere.
While searching for work outside of Saint Louis, a head hunter contacted me for another firm in Saint Louis. I explained my situation as honestly as I could. Explaining that I'm not really looking for another Saint Louis job. The headhunter was very persuasive and as such I decided to go for the interview. During this interview process I learned that this firm encouraged movement from within and it immediately showed when I talked to people from the firm. I ended up accepting their offer for employment, telling myself this is my last shot in Saint Louis to prove myself as valuable.
They threw me into the deep end immediately shipping me to a remote location to lead a migration effort for an acquired firm. I survived that, and the responsibilities kept growing. A lot of self doubt had also kicked in as I've seen this before. Repeatedly I have seen a lot of early success and then a barrier I couldn't get around.
But, something was different this time. My manager told me I was too technical, and I had lots of other areas to grow, and here's how to do it. I was challenged to work on presentations, and as an exercise to improve I was told to give presentations on subject matters that the rest of the team wasn't familiar on. I was given a task to meet every department head (VP/director/mgmt) and have a conversation with them, let these people learn who I was. In this role I was pushed in directions I had never been pushed before. Technology took a back seat for the first time.
I survived my first year with a roadmap of places I could improve. However past wounds were still present, on my self-evaluations I rated myself very low on every category. I just didn't think I was good enough now could I believe I've done a good job. I mean for 19 years that's what I've been told. The same cycle of "nailing the interview" getting the job, nailing some early projects, and then getting passed over for promotions or told I'm just not ready (without a roadmap with tangible goals). I explained my past to my manager and we moved forward.
This past year I got moved into a new role (still not a promotion, but more responsibilities). The firm I was at had a deadline to hit so they assembled a team to make sure it got done, and I was selected to be on that team. At times last year I felt this was both a gift and a curse. Long days, long nights, many days of having to ask people to push harder when I myself didn't have more to give. Many presentations, many meetings where many "bad" words were let loose. Many trips too.
All this to say something special happened. I was told I was being considered for a promotion. I needed to do some HRish things and we would see.
Well.... I made it. I got to the next step: ARCHITECT, and I didn't have to leave to reach this next level! To many people it wouldn't seem like much. But this has been a 20 year struggle for me. To feel like someone truly believed in me that wasn't family, wasn't a job where I got in because I knew someone, a job that allowed me to help push the company in a direction. I felt like my opinion was valued.
I feel like the biggest load has been lifted off my shoulders. I don't have to prove myself. I can just do great work now. All that hustling finally feels like it was worth it and I can move forward. I don't think IT is my forever future as photography on a personal level feels more fulfilling. If I had a message out of this though, keep grinding and don't be afraid to change lanes, (more on that another time).
