“Bro, we're gonna face this problem pretty soon, and if we handle this as per my idea, we will be able to solve 60% of the problems we are working on right now as well,” I said to my senior. I had ideas about a few major things that we were struggling with.
A problem creates the opportunity to work for a solution, and the company I am working for is doing the same, developing products that serve as a solution. Every day or tomorrow, we face problems in our workflow, investigate and look for ways to overcome, and this is how things are going to pull the whole project.
“Damn! That's something unique and a very feasible solution for us. If you can make this happen, then things are gonna skyrocket in our product's performance.” That's what came from my immediate senior's side after hearing my idea.
So, the quote I made above never reached the upper level from my end. I had the plan, a full picture of the architecture that was gonna sustain, logic that was gonna work for sure. But why didn't it go upstairs? What was the issue? No issue.
“Okay, I will. Before sharing the idea, I am thinking of going a little deeper, make some poc if this actually works or not. Lemme get some confidence before pulling this to the management.” I was suffering from a lack of confidence, like what if it fails, and I end up wasting time.
“Come on, don't stress yourself. What if you fail? Nothing. Just shoot the idea, work on this. The idea itself looks solid. Even if it fails, you're gonna get praised for coming up with such a unique solution. And I'm damn sure you will be able to replicate this anyhow.” My senior pushed me to present the idea without any delays.
But I wasn’t confident, I was idling with the thought of digging deeper before presenting to the management. While thinking, I got engaged with other stuff, got hooked to another task, my mind got diverted, and I finally got myself busy far away from this.
📸 Image generated by AI
Guess what, my senior shared the idea that I told him? What do you think? This one came to my thoughts for once before sharing with him that what if he passes this before I do, and takes all the credits. This is very common in corporate fields, right? But I had trust; I never truly felt that he would do something like that. He has always been my mentor and a well-wisher.
After a couple of days, we got an emergency meeting call for the tech team. It was like we had an idea to mitigate that XYZ problem, the very same problem I thought of solving with my idea. The text was very positive and cheerful, something that could be really great.
I was like, “Did my senior share my ideas with his name? No, this can't be. Or they came up with something else, could be better than mine.” - tons of things going through my head while we approach the conference room for the meeting.
So when the lead started to talk, he addressed the problem, and guess what, he started to propose the idea that I thought of. He researched and came up with this idea, hahaha. He doesn’t have a deep overview of how the architecture or workflow would be; he just figured out the 30% of what I thought of. And now, he passed this whole thing on to the team to dive deeper and do the PoC. It's a high-priority task. My senior gave some credit that I too had this idea, but no use, as now it's not who had the idea, now it's like whether this gonna work or not. As a lead, he has nothing to take credit for. But this could boost my impression if I had proposed this earlier.
Coming out of the conference room, I looked at my senior, and with a smile, he said to me, “I told ya to share the idea without thinking of the outcome. You delayed, and now someone else got it.”
He could see I was sad about missing the boat, he added, “Don't be sad, it's just the idea, the whole workload is pending, you have better visuals, so crack this practically and showcase your impact. That's gonna blow them even more, best of luck.”
And then, I cheered up. Maybe I missed the boat initially, but still, I do have a chance to prove my worth. And by next week, I'm gonna break through it for sure. I will execute this in such a way that it will be beyond the basic idea they got. I will take this to the next level. So no time to cry over the missed boat, it's show time…
Join this week's Creative Nonfiction prompt by The Ink Well Community