Soft Opening New Datacomm Office

Today is a good day and is chosen as the day of soft opening our new office in Mampang, Jakarta. While almost our company employees are there, attending the event, I chose to not attending it. The reason is quite simple, if it is a celebration, then there is nothing for me to celebrate yet. And besides, it was only an invitation, not an obligation so I must have a choice, mustn't I?

Rather than joining people in a party, I would prefer to do some JNCIP lab exercise. My exam will come in less than three weeks. And I haven't 100% confident that I will pass it. I'm different from the other colleagues who manage to pass it in term of field job experience. There are several respectable colleagues from Datacomm that have passed the JNCIP. But almost of their time are spent for doing JUNOS configuration, either in lab testing in our office or in customer site. So it's not quite a surprise that they are be able to pass it.

My story in Datacomm is quite different. From the beginning I join Datacomm, I was told by my boss to do many different kind of projects. While it is exciting, the consequences is that I must always have to look back on things I've done. It's impossible to remember all things I've done. Well, I'm still a human after all :P.

In the last meeting, my boss praised me for having many Juniper Certifications. Yes, among all engineer, I have collected the most. And it's because I always took JNCIA before taking JNCIS that make me able to be like that. I know that one of my colleagues is very proud of passing JNCIS without taking JNCIA first and I admire him. But I know I'm not a very special and intelligent person, so I decided to take the basic first before advancing the next level. I always took JNCIA as practice. So when the score is high, it would make me comfortable to take the JNCIS later. After all, I'm not the kind of person that believe success can be reach instantly.

But what is the impact of having many certifications to my career? Many will surprise that my career actually not as good as my certifications number :P. It took me more than three years working in Datacomm before my boss promote me to be a consulting engineer. Well, most engineer manage to reach that position in only 1,5 - 2 years. The secret is they are focused to do only one thing so they are faster to be an expert in their field. So I'm not consider myself as a very highly successful employee. I think I'm average but that doesn't matter since my purposes is different from the other.

Many people join the company for pursuing their career (equal to money, of course). Some people are overdoing it that sometimes they don't even care that they humiliate themselves in front of others. It's not a secret as in every companies, everybody wants to look good in front of their bosses. While they hold knive in their back, it's a different matter. As long as the bosses don't know, usually they will achieve a good position. It's a fact, a sad fact.

But I'm really happy in Datacomm I don't have to do that kind of practice. There are many toys and things to learn here and I'm so happy right now I'm able to get acquainted with them eventhough I'm not the expert of all. There are always people in my company who have more expertise than me. And for them we should also admire their achievements, that they have taken the long road to be in that position.