Gilbert L 梁敬暉

This is a multi-part series summarizing my college life. Before this, there were Prelude, Mountaintop, Nadir, and Formation.

A number of people have asked me what I think of Amazon. My reply is this: I had a time to forget at Amazon, but their AWS teams sound amazing. Amazon, after all, is a large company: different teams have different cultures and I was just unlucky to have joined a dispiriting team.

The first day was an omen of the months to come: my manager was 30 minutes late picking me up and he didn’t even consider taking me out to lunch.

Perhaps lunches weren’t my team’s favourite activity. Two weeks after my term began, we had the most awkward lunch of my life. It began with a series of small talks, in which people asked each others where they live as if they only just met. Awkward silence followed. Before long, everyone gave up: the contractor played Angry Birds on his iPhone, one manager confessed that he’s too tired to chat, most focused on their plates, and the rest turned the lunch into a work meeting.

My jobs weren’t entirely boring, but they weren’t terribly exciting either. My frustration, for the most part, grew from a lack of trust and expectations from my colleagues.

One time, my mentor called out to a coworker for clarification over a language syntax question (e.g Does “i” come before “e” if the “i” comes after “c?”). The coworker wasn’t at his cubicle, so I answered my mentor instead. When the coworker returned minutes later, my mentor asked him the question again. Now, my mentor could’ve “google”-ed the answer or he could’ve instant messaged him the question. Instead, he yelled out over the cubicle as if he wanted me to know that he had no faith in my answer. I guess the intern just can’t be trusted.

Crap like that demotivates me, so I hadn’t bother to contribute during team discussions. In one meeting, my manager - perhaps aware of my apathy - asked explicitly for my opinion. I spent thirty second expressing my thoughts on the issue; everyone nodded, but proceeded without addressing what I said. It reminded me of this advertisement where some Children Rights group mocked and warned parents of not listening to their children. If the parents don’t listen, why would the child speak?

My work hours reflected my indifference. On a typical day, I went to work at around 11, have an hour lunch, and sneaked home at 5. Nobody called me out. They didn’t care; I didn’t care.

Ironically, my effortless display got my coworker laid off. It seemed like he was already in hot waters before I joined. When the managers noticed how I was contributing more in four hours than he was in twelve, they decided to pull the trigger. I felt really sorry for the guy. He seemed like a nice person and he was the only colleague with whom I had friendly small talks. That he was on a working visa meant that he would face deportation in thirty days. I didn’t even care for my job and yet he’s the one who got axed.

In any case, my term was well summed up by my manager’s evaluation report, “Gilbert is very technically skilled…perhaps even more skilled than some of our full time developers. However, he lacks enthusiasm at work…”

Back at school, I joined the dorm incubator that is Velocity. Briefly put, Velocity was (and still is) not as amazing as imagined. Nevertheless, its existence is a boon for students and entrepreneurs alike. There are many possibilities there but there also are many problems. Hopefully, the right personalities emerge and even better things come out of the program.

My grades slipped heavily this term as I began experimenting with liberal arts courses. Public speaking was quite an experience.

In a frustrating turns of events, Google rejected me again. Even though I had passed their “technical round,” not one of the project managers showed interest in my resume. Instead, Microsoft decided to hire me as a Software Developer even though I wanted to experiment with a Project Management role. I was unsatisfied, but a friend at Velocity convinced me that a Microsoft summer would be a blast.

Hence, I added another giant corporation to my resume.

P.S I don’t know who reads my posts, but I think I better offer some advices to people who sulk at work like I did at IBM and Amazon. The proper and more appropriate action is to exert yourself: tell your manager that your work is unchallenging and ask for responsibilities. The reason I didn’t voice my frustration was because I always had a side project at home waiting for me. If work sucked, I’d just work less and go home. Don’t do this unless you don’t care about your career and/or you want to be an entrepreneur.