Probably like a lot of you out there, I had no idea what to expect when I entered into corporate America.  I was likely more unprepared because I was trying to break into a technical field with a business degree and really no software skills other than ones I learned myself. I keed, UofL gave me SOME skills, but I lacked the in demand web skills which I had to foster through self discovery.

I spent a lot of my initial career working very hard and putting in a ton of hours. I was super fortunate to have a mentor that filled in the blanks I needed through my first couple of years, but I still always felt like I was behind my peers. This uneasiness led me to keep my guard up a lot more than I should have. Sometimes when I didn’t grasp a technical concept or business direction I would gloss over it and try to play catch up. For example, take bank accounting. It’s a ridiculous world where credits are actually debits and vice versa. Try developing internal accounting systems in that jacked up world. Furthermore, technical concepts are ALWAYS complicated because we’re in a field that fosters abstraction. Your abstraction of something is 90% of the time wildly different than what mine would have been.

So my advice to you is this, put your gaurd down and NEVER be afraid to say the stupid stuff that your always thinking. I’m usually in this camp. When a meeting starts off and you have 10 people that are trying to discuss something that no one fully understands, it will help when you ask that dumb question 9 other people are thinking and don’t want to ask. It will get everyone on the same page and working towards solving problems instead of wasting time.