For the first 5 months in the new company, I was such a loser, always worrying I cant understand what the foreign exchange trading application is trying to do. I only see bunch of exchange rates floating for different currencies and changing every millisecond, and when you place a trade, there is so much logic in the strategy how the bank implements it and manages the risk by hedging it to different ECNs (Reuters, EBS, etc). I really DONT know what is the expected behavior, coz I simply dont know where to start. And yes, so many interruptions in life, and even the boss asked me during a one-on-one session if everything's alright with me. Yes, my focus was so bad obviously. And I was not trying harder.
Apart from the usual stuff, the first ever project assigned to me was actually a no-brainer boring integration project. The bank was acquired 2 years ago by another bigger bank. This project was just mainly checking how the transition goes and login scenario should be ok. There were few hiccups and finally everything was resolved.
Come friday (a day before signoff) sometime early May, a major booboo came out. Functionally I have verified it to be ok. Just that login suddenly stopped working with java1.4 and I didnt know when. (I was using 1.6, what the h*ll do I know about java?) Hell it was so humiliating, I wanted to dig a cozy hole and jumped into it and hide from everybody. The harm was done, I spoiled my name. Last remedy fixes resurrected it. The cost of the nigthmare was that all of us extended till 12midnight on a friday and I had to cancel a movie (of which I already pre-booked online, gone to waste), and I guess I would have had harsh feedbacks thrown on me somewhere in the chaos.
With all the forces working against me, I finally realize I had to help myself. It's no excuse that I still dwell on contemplating that this is a totally new field to me (not my usual data warehousing). They say 'hundred times reading reveals the meaning'. With a mind that is set to learn, and again reusing my common sense (thank God I still have a few left), suddenly I understood. Literally like a light bulb igniting.
The following 3 days was the peak of my learning curve. I was testing the 'engine' and criticizing every logic that I can possibly break and question. Engine is the execution engine meaning the core, the heart of the trading application. Limits, fillkills, maker/taker, bid/offer, all of it. Orders placed using icebergs and snipers strategy, quite challenging. I think even my boss was surprised how in the earth did I manage to catch up suddenly (and I hope he should know by now not to assign me any no-brainer projects anymore coz it is where I usually screw up!). I actually dont know. I just had one thing in my mind back then: Kelangan ko na talagang bumawi. Finally put my name out of the 'useless people' list.
I was glad the saying 'you cant teach an old dog new tricks' probably doesnt hold true all the time. Back in HP, I remembered there were experienced folks hired. And yet it was taking them so long to pick up a new system. And these are the people who would always prefer doing the 'admin work' and not really wanting to learn the functional/domain knowledge of an application/project. I realize I am not really meant for a talkie job nor a people person :p. I'd rather quit corporate world, quit IT, and do something else if I'm totally useless..
That's it. Hope to hear less rants from me about work. And I dont think I would be keen to shift work focus again, it's not always lucky that I can adjust to a new environment.
Sometimes shit has to happen to jerk us back to reality. :)
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