So much for holding an engineering degree.
A short story of my life so far as a complete failure.
Here I am, sitting on a futon, in a 6-tatami (i.e. 9.72 m2) room, with my back to a wood column of the wall, in Hibarigaoka, a suburb in West Tokyo. Why am I sitting like this? It’s because I can’t afford to buy a desk and a chair. The room already cost me 112000 yen for the first month, and 56000 yen per month thereafter. I don’t get my own apartment; this is a house share; we are currently 7 people in the house, although 3 will have left before September. This is not even central Tokyo. The room smells pretty bad because we are both guys and neither of us seems to know how to keep things tidy. Right now, we have a couple of dirty socks, a bunch of grocery receipts, magazines, and a plastic water bottle scattered across the floor. As of this writing, I have a grand total of 86330 yen with me. This means I blew 213670 yen out of the 300000 yen that dad gave me, in less than 1 month. I still don’t have a job because 1) I don’t have presentable work experience, 2) there is no entry level job other than for native Japanese speakers, 3) there is no PHP job.
How did all of this happen? I don’t know. And I’m trying to get a clearer idea by writing. I suppose I have been showing signs of gullibility and eventual failure since I was in elementary school. You know how I agreed to immigrate to Canada? My parents told me there are no compulsory home assignments for school in Canada. “Oh really?”
Then it was time to get into high school. I ended up in the same private high school as my sister, because the school had good reputations and had turned into co-ed just a few years before. There were lots of attractive girls and I had an easy time getting decent grades. I enjoyed all 5 years there. Or did I? Puberty hit me and I have always wanted a girlfriend since then, but I never got one. Mom always told me “She won’t be your wife.” So I never bothered doing anything more than glancing from time to time at the girls I liked. What was I thinking? The day of graduation, I cried like there was no tomorrow, not with my friends, but at home instead. My instinct was probably sensing what was waiting for me in life.
Then came time for pre-university prep school, something that we call the cégep in Québec. As fate would have it, I ended up in the same prep school as my sister was, and got into the IB programme, just like she did. I should have learned earlier. What was I thinking? I came out with an IB score that seemed too high to be what I deserved. I didn’t really learn anything useful from the programme except the question “how do you know?” from theory of knowledge, which I use now and then while trolling Digg.com.
I made some good friends in the IB programme, and a few of us decided to study software engineering in the same university. I liked computer games and I’ve been sitting in front my computer all day in my free time anyway, so why not? What was I thinking? Unlike my friends, I failed to enter the co-op programme. I graduated, with decent grades, but just below the threshold for Distinction. To this day, I still get the chills thinking about artificial intelligence, compiler design, and database implementation. My uncle asked me for opinions about an ERP system that the family business was going to implement. I gave him very vague answers that amount to “I don’t know”, if anybody were to examine closely enough. Sometime towards the end of my bachelor studies, dad started an aluminium extrusion business. I’m leaving out all the details about the nice girls that liked in prep school and in university; I never do anything about them, remember?
Right after graduation from university, my father suggested that I take a summer break and travel around China instead of taking a job immediately. His reasoning is that I would not have a better chance to witness all the change that has gone through China after I start working. I agreed with him at that time, and took a roadtrip with one of my uncles through about 1/3 of China. I even took another business trip with another uncle to the US. What was I thinking? I missed the peak hiring season, and I had already started forgetting everything about design patterns, Rational Unified Process, and so on. Heck, even if I had not started forgetting, those little pieces of knowledge would have fallen out of fashion in the quickly evolving IT sector anyway.
Once summer was over, I returned to Canada with my family to finalise our retreat back to Hong Kong. We had to sell our house and our car, and close our bank accounts, among other things. Then one day, something broke in my head and I decided that I didn’t like Hong Kong and Mainland, and that I wanted to stay away from the mess that was my greater family. I told my family that I wanted to stay in Montreal. They didn’t stop me in my selfish fit of the moment. They left me with the car and my sister left me with her savings. They even helped me find an apartment where I can live after we sell the house, and the washing machine and stove to go with it. Mom and my sister were crying as they entered the boarding zone of the airport. Mom thought she wouldn’t see me again in her life. I was also crying as I drove “home”. WHAT THE FUCK WAS I THINKING?!?!?!
The next morning I woke up to realise that there is nobody to eat breakfast with me anymore. I cried like a maniac. I opened the refrigerator and I found the curry that mom had prepared for me; I cried even harder. It was absolutely heartbreaking. Even now I’m sobbing as I recall my experience. I could hardly call that home because I lived there alone the whole time. It was more like a big prison into which I banished myself. I didn’t even get in touch with my friends after university anymore. Some of them have gone to work in Seattle, another went on a tour in Afghanistan. I didn’t look for a job because my friend (my current roommate) invited me to do freelance web design and web application development. What a great way to mess up my career. Since we were doing freelance stuff, the chances of us properly learning new tools was a big, incredible, zero. The whole time we were using only PHP5, HTML 4.01, CSS, and JavaScript. And I suck at web design, I can’t even do Flash, ShockWave, or Director. I don’t even know how to use Photoshop. Who was I trying to kid, trying to be a web designer? The whole experience gave me another big, incredible, nothing to buff my resume with. At that point, I still didn’t have to try shrinking my resume to 2 pages because I actually had no valid, presentable working experience.
Soon, my friend decided that business wasn’t good enough in Montreal. He told me that we can make more money working in the financial sector in Japan. I agreed to come to Japan with him, partly because Japan is closer to home, partly because I had fallen for a Japanese girl that I met in Montreal and that I wanted to do something about it, namely, learning her language first. I couldn’t properly liquidate everything because I was busy finishing off existing projects. The only thing I managed to sell at a decent price was the car. Pretty much everything else were given away. I tried to sell the sofa at $100 and even took the trouble to deliver it. The truck rental wasn’t cheap, but I thought money from the sofa and the other furnitures I was selling would have covered it. Guess what? The buyer gave me cheque instead of cash like I had said in the ad and it bounced.
Closing the bank account was another disaster. I decided to leave the bank account open because I had to wait for the refund from the car insurance company. Turns out that the cheque never got into my proxy’s hand. So now I have the option to fly back to Canada just to close a bank account that has no money in it or leave it and remain a resident (which means I have to pay income taxes even if I don’t live in Canada anymore). I also emptied the safety deposit box without discontinuing it. Out of the stuff from the safety deposit box, I deposited the few $1000 CAD bills into the bank account before wiring everything back to Hong Kong, following the advice of another friend that it’s too dangerous to carry a couple thousand dollars in cash at the airport. I completely forgot that those $1000 CAD bills were in the safety deposit box was because they were out-of-print collectibles.
And now I’m in Tokyo, trying to miraculously reboot my life. It’s not happening. Dad and his business partner have intentions for me to succeed them in the aluminium extrusion business. What am I doing here getting an IT job for? What Japanese company is going to hire somebody who has graduated for over a year and who still does not have job experience?
I’m so stupid I don’t deserve to live. I’m a failure.
August 18th, 2007 at 12:34 am
Kal, home is always here for you.
It doesn’t matter an IT job or not, you can succeed in other things and I don’t mean earning millions, you have normal IQ and have no handicaps, just be patient. and stop thinking about how your past experience messes up your resume. This is all bullshit. don’t let it put you down.
August 18th, 2007 at 12:54 am
Kal,
Home is always here for you. you are not a failure, no one knows what will happen and that’s why we let you try. Just don’t mind how much IT experience your past work gives you. What is past is past. Don’t close your eyes in front of other possibilities other than IT because you will close your doors. Don’t let the resume depress you. Your life is not about the resume. Having dreams is good but if these dreams leaves you in pain, you can wake up and we are here. I admire your courage for trying at least this is what I don’t have, just don’t give up because of this little thing.
Love always!!!
August 18th, 2007 at 1:02 am
Miss ya
August 22nd, 2007 at 9:53 am
Hey man,
Haven’t seen/talk to you in a long time. I guess you are having a rough time now. You know, there is never a bad choice. So what if you can get the highest paying IT job in the world. As long as you are happy doing whatever you are doing, it is all good. I always envy you because you get to travel a lot. You get to see the world, explore different culture, learn different things. You know, at the end of the day, it’s not money that counts. It’s how much you enjoy your life. Sure, you might think it is not very enjoyable at this moment, but later when you look back, I am sure you will be very satisfied with yourself. At least you’ve tried everything you’ve always wanted to. You traveled to Japan chasing your dream. I am sure this is many people’s dream (including myself), but how many people actually did it? How many of us is brave enough to spend all our savings to do something we like? Nobody. We are all scared. Scared of failure. So you should be proud of yourself. It is life experience you are gaining. Don’t only look at work experience. Work is only a small part of your life.
Another thing is, resume doesn’t mean anything. Having experience or not, does not actually influence how your resume look like. Resume is the place where you “BS” the most. You should make the smallest/easiest project seem like it is as complicated as a space shuttle design project. It all depends how you phrase things. If you like, just shoot me an email and I’ll do my best to give you suggestions (I am not that good, but better than nothing). I don’t know if you know, but it is actually quite hard to find a job in Japan. A lot of them prefer native Japanese people because they want someone who is willing to commit to the company for life (and of course it is also related to the language). But be patient, I am sure you will succeed. I know some websites that list job offers for English speaking IT people. I’ll post it here once I find it. Heck, you can always teach English. There is always an alternative solution, right?
Don’t be discouraged. You should be proud of yourself because many of us are. TSG will always be here. Just email us whenever you need anything. You have our emails. Take care my friend.
P.S. My brother’s DE is finally lv52. My sister’s Mage can now summon 3 dires.
September 3rd, 2007 at 10:57 am
Dude!
You are totally not a failure. You are one of the smartest people I have had the chance to know! Yes we got good jobs in Seattle, It’s not because we’re better than you, it’s really a matter of luck, being there at the right moment, giving your CV to the right person, etc. You know, at this level, we’re all good at what we do.
I really don’t think you’d be in a bad spot because you took a break after school. Many people do that, and most people interviewing you will probably “wish they were able to do that before they got tied down to a job, a family and their miserable life”.
Of course, if you’re out of the field for like 5 years then it will be harder to get back in. If you choose to get into the family business, all is not lost. You made some great friends during your studies, and you learned how to reason, solve problems, etc. These are invaluable skills. And if you get into ERP software, that fits right in our field of study!!! There are advantages to taking on a business like that, for one, you get to be your own boss more or less. That’s something we’re going to have to work for years to achieve any kind of decision-making power.
October 26th, 2007 at 1:52 pm
hey Kal,
wow it has been a super long time. i hadn’t read your site in a long time, since i remembered it was mostly in chinese when we were at ConU and i don’t read chinese (funny that since we were the only chinese ppl in our circle at the time).
Anyways, i agree with your sister you are brave really brave to have given your first shot a living on your own right when your whole family moved back. Having moved out on my own as well (all the way to British Columbia) i can say that it is scary and it takes bravery to do it.
And Spiro is right too. Being out of the field sucks but sometimes shit happens, and you know in an interview that is all you have to say. As long as you don’t say “for that period in my life i did nothing and just lived at home” when they asked why you haven’t worked. You decided to try something, risked a lot and learned alot, there isn’t anything wrong with that and growing as a person is always going to be more important than growing as just some programmer.
Also i’ll point something out that others might not have noticed. I have been doing interviews for job openings and must people don’t really noticed this but communication skills are an important part of programming. I get a lot of chinese guys applying, and to be honest their english sucks. You have a very unique strenght, one whos rarity isn’t mentioned enough. Just look at your english, it is far and away a million times better than the resumes i look at, this means more than their GPA to me. So you can do chinese and you can do proper non-broken english, this is so valuable.
Another point where our stories kind of align is that not only did we both move out on our own, but we both have non-tech periods on our resumes. Coming out to B.C. and only having 2 years out of 4 from SoEng is certainly a handicap. Then not working for a tech coming for my first year and a half didn’t help either. But intelligence isn’t something a school or books can give you, it is something we both posses and it in forever part of us. Getting into tech has less to do with what is on your resume and more to do with what you are, so don’t over value your non-work experience on your resume.
I used to really want to go back to finish SoEng, but i have never had enough money to get it finished and deep down i know i suck in traditional academic settings as much as i admire them. Also not have a degree always makes you feel like you are less in people’s eyes with out it, but there are always you can find to make you feel this way. (as i have discovered from friends who have degrees) Ultimately the worthwhile people will judge you are your intellect and not what some papers (resume or degree) say.
Notice how i say i used to really want to finish SoEng, after reading resumes from graduates who should wipe my ass on the floor (because i never graduated) and then seeing how shitty they are, it makes me disappointed in how universities let people graduate who don’t know anything. I have always wanted degrees to mean something, but the “real world” has shown me that degrees don’t necessarily equate to ability.
Kal, you have got ability don’t let yourself doubt that for a minute. Life always has ups and downs but you will be able to survive and live life the way you want by using your natural abilities and your intelligence.
Btw, there are lots of good positions here in vancouver for someone who can really speak english (like i know you can) and knows chinese. Vancouver is like hong kong 2, if you are willing to come back to canada. (hey ahmed is only 2 hours away, i just saw him today for lunch)
Also if you are any good at PHP doing the MVC thing then shoot me your resume. (but you have to move to vancouver) Cake or Symfony is a plus and you would have room to grow your skill set in ways you wouldn’t believe.
(spiro is right about meeting the right people and what we learned at ConU)