When I was in high school, I had AP Calculus. But I'm not going to say that I'm some sort of math whiz (even though I WAS vice president of the math club), it wasn't hard to get into. But I had a great teacher, and the concepts made sense to me, so I got an A.

Those of you that have taken some sort of calculus class know that most teachers care not only about the answer, but also how you GOT the answer. The computations and methods to come up with the answer to a problem were very important, because that shows that you have an understanding of it.

Unfortunately, I didn't score well enough on my AP Calculus test to not have to take it in college, so I took it again in college. And even though I learned the same concepts the year before, had the same calculus problems, I didn't do too well. The method of teaching was different. The way to come up with the answers was taught in a way that I wasn't used to - I still had the old way ingrained in my head. I was still answering questions using my old methods. So I was coming up with the right answers, but according to the way the class was taught, I wasn't showing the proper work to get those answers. In my frustration to try and learn the new way, I started getting the two confused, and in the end got a C in the class.

That's similar to my situation now. For the last 7 years, I have been learning and doing things the way my old company did it. I know our product pretty well, I know how to accomplish one task 10 different ways. Just like AP Calculus.

But I've been in training over the last couple weeks, and I've been learning the product of the company that just acquired us. Once, they were our competitor, so essentially, they do the same thing that we do. But differently. So it's been a bit of a struggle for me to learn the "new way" and reconciling it with the "old way" that I was so used to before. Both products have the same results, but different ways of achieving those results. I have to get used to new processes, new terminology, a different way of thinking. It's not easy, and it's definitely challenging, but I'm not going to get anywhere while stuck in the old frame of mind.

With that said, I can't turn my back on the past and totally disregard the product I've worked on the last 7 years of my life. While the new product does things more efficiently in some areas, has a couple cool bells and whistles, and has an interface that is more user friendly, there are some things with the old product that were really great, that I'll really miss that will hopefully be integrated into the product of my new company.

Life will be pretty interesting from here on out. Just warning you that there may be a couple stress relieving ranting posts in the horizon. But all in all, things are good, there's a brighter future ahead even though the way might get dark and stormy at times.

Posted by Yano at October 14, 2004 05:23 AM

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---