This is for the second project of toastmaster advanced storytelling manual. the theme is “it’s all personal”. Be honest, I am not in very good mode to give a personal story recently, so I avoided to tell “story”. I changed my script several times, and finalize it around 11:00 pm last night. This morning, I got up at 5:30 and practiced couple of times, then went to the conference room earlier to prepare the cards. Luckily I delievered pretty well and earned another “best speaker” ribbon.

What I said is slightly different with the script since I couldn’t memorize all in such a short time. I even cut the whole part of comparing software product with kids due to time limit.

————————————————————-

It’s review time. The best time to consider for a change
in the career.

 

I went to some seminars for career development. All of
them show this picture; I believe you saw this before.

From those seminars, one common concept is, don’t care
about the titles or levels, just think about the experiences you want to gain. Sounds
reasonable, doesn’t it?

So I asked myself: what experience do I want to
gain?  I want to gain experiences about
finance management, time management, project management, people management,
negotiation skills. Wait a minute; I already gain all those experiences from
being a parent. Don’t you believe me? I will prove it.  1:09

Those are the jobs that Microsoft has. Let’s go through
them one by one. 1:16

CEO: What does a CEO need to do? Create the long term
vision for the whole company, formalize the strategy, convince the shareholders
and lead the PUMs to work on it.  As the
main-decision maker in my family, I created the long term vision for the
family, set the tunes, get my husband agree and kids cooperate.  1:50

CFO: CFO takes care of the finance of the company, what
are the profit units, what’s the investment? Make long term and short term of
investment plans, aligned with company’s overall strategy; financially maintain
company’s daily operation. I did similar things to our family. Who earns the
money, how long do we stay on the job?
Make investment plan for kids, retirement, and economic crisis.  Maintain the daily operation of my family.
2:36

HR: Maintain the hiring system, and benefit system. At
home, I choose the private teachers; i make the decision for allowance policy,
stimulation plan for the kids. 2:56

PUM: Define the strategy for a particular product. Lay
out ship plans, get the teams work on it and get product into market. For me, i
need to find my daughter’s strength and talent, make long term development
plan.  I also need to make short term
plan, for example, find possible activities for this summer and sponsor
them.  3:28

Manager: They are the coaches, manage the team to get
work done and develop people at the same time. I need to care about the
development of my kids, motivate them to finish their homework or practice. I
give them feedbacks. Usually I need to micro manage them to build new skills.
3:50

PM: clarify the requirements of homework, projects, check
the progress every day, and coordinate with spouse, kids, school teachers and
private teachers.4:07

Let’s look at other Individual contributors. (Researcher)
I need to continuously innovate new ways to motivate my kids to finish their
work, (developer) help them building better habit. (Tester)Observe their
behavior, identify things need to be improved. (Writer) communicate with them
online. (Janitor) clean their room, (chef) make them dinner, (driver) take them
to classes. (Mentor) help them with their homework. (Mentee) let them help me
to play their favorite game, so they can build self-confidence. 4:55

Any role I missed? Who need Microsoft to gain those
experiences and skills? 5:06

It’s ironic that it’s hard to get a job at Microsoft, but
it is very easy to get the job as a parent. To get hired by Microsoft, we need
18 years of systemic education at schools, we need a master degree, and we need
to pass the tough interviews. As a parent, nobody asks you to prove your
ability before you take that position. 5:42

At Microsoft, there are plenty trainings for us to be a
better engineer. No school provides systemic education for us to be better
parent. Good parents are all excellent researchers. 6:01

So if I can do my parenting job well, I can do any job at
Microsoft. Microsoft don’t need those expensive interview process, just ask
kid’s school teachers and friends, the better the kids, the better job done by
their parents. 6:25

You may say, that’s unfair, I am not married or I don’t
have kids. Go get married and have kids. Soon you will have all those
experiences built up. 6:42

I will promise you won’t regret for that. Why? Parenting
is more fruitful than building a software product.

We have hundreds of engineers working together for one
product, which might only be in the market for years. Raising a kid only cost 2
people, but product will be in the community for decades. 7:16

So take a job as a parent and enjoy it. Let’s share the
motto of Microsoft, “Kid’s potential; our passion!” 7:27