One thing I joke about is that I became a software engineer because I wanted to communicate with machines and not people. Yes, it is a joke.
People are the best part of life and in every job I have loved, hated and meh’d at, I have always taken two things with me — the knowledge I learnt and the people I teamed up with.
Working in big tech is challenging. You don’t know it until you’ve done it, even if you think you do. Corporate America is not a place you go to feel better about how people act and are motivated.
My friend Candace Wong told me when I joined Amazon a few years after her, to not lose the essence of who I was. That is the best advice I ever got and the one thing I always passed on to others.
Never change your core values and what made you special enough to be there… just to be there. You’ve defeated the purpose for why you were hired in the first place if you do. Do that and you will survive and maybe even thrive.
But I left that world and there are many reasons. Some I will write about one day but like any relationship (be it friends, family or other), you must hold a part of yourself that is yours and always will be. The anchor.
This is why when people act in ways that are induced by stress, anxiety or insecurity, I try to stand back and apply some empathy. That is one of my anchors: The basic belief that people are doing what they think is right for them at the time.
Empathy allows you to walk in their shoes and maybe adjust to where they are coming from and deal with them and it gives you a moment to breathe and consider your reaction or choice not to react.
Many people have disappointed me in the time I have been alive and I am sure I have disappointed others but if you give up on the idea of people and sink into misanthropy then you will lose the best thing about getting up and going to work each day — the people.
The biggest thing I miss about working each day is the people and so my journey now is to find my people in different places.
Damana Madden 