Whenever you are on something and face a problem, things get dirty while debugging that one error. You try day after day, and it doesn’t get solved, and when you're on the verge of dropping the idea and accepting the failure, you end up coming up with a solution that makes you feel contempt for the efforts that paid off.
We, as a team, were facing a huge optimization issue that was dragging us down on the performance side. So we were on a high-priority task, and I was included as well. In other words, I slipped myself in because if it doesn't get fixed, we have to test a few other options, and those are very time-consuming and a big hassle to shift. Also, the list for the test had some very bad ones at the top to start with. I was frustrated to know how imperfect those are, and they still need to give it a try and report for the record.
So I, with the teammate with whom I collaborated, came together on a mission to crack this anyhow. We were determined to see the end of it, test every possible case to make this work before letting it go for something else.
"ᵂᵒʳᵈˢ ᵃⁿᵈ ᵖⁱᶜˢ ᵃʳᵉ ᵐⁱⁿᵉ, ᵘⁿˡᵉˢˢ ᴵ ˢʰᵒᵘᵗᵒᵘᵗ ʷʰᵉʳᵉ ᵗʰᵉʸ ᶜᵃᵐᵉ ᶠʳᵒᵐ!"
One thing I learned, during such collaborations, is that we get to swap roles, poke at what's on the other side, and try to learn how things work on that side. Like, when we were both working from our sides, making changes and fixes, they weren’t syncing enough. Like I was going in one direction and he was going in the other. Suddenly, I was like, “Wait a minute, come here, explain to me the logic and flow on your side, how you are handling and everything else, lemme share mine as well.”
And we both started to explain to one another, like we would be swapping roles, will develop in one another's stack, and at the end of the day, when we both grasped both ends, we could establish the perfect sync that stood still amidst the initial testing phase. We were successful on the mission that we were working on, a great milestone.
This is the power of collaboration or teamwork, you may say. The key factor was to come out of my comfort zone and poke around the one he works with, discussing the overall pipeline. If we were to stick to our own zones only, then it wouldn’t have been fixed. Like, I can't explain how much stuff I had to read and analyze on his stack just to understand the workflow. I was enjoying exploring new stuff, broadening my knowledge, my understanding, and all. I was like,
To me, going beyond my comfort zone was never something that I would be unhappy with. I have always welcomed it, even though it was an added burden for me. At the end of the burden, I knew there were fruitful rewards for me, something that would lead me towards being invincible.
So yeah, never afraid to go beyond the comfort zones because that's where the wild activities are found and the rewards as well.