When all these are over

I still remember one of interviews I had few years ago with DataConnection. It is one of these companies that appears really attractive with its growth graph. The reason was quite simple, I failed, which does not happen very often. DC has been known as a company has the lowest attrition rate while most strict interview process. Anyway, I failed the second round.

I can't remember the guy's name but what I do remember is the question. We (5 of us sitting in a small teeny room, and I bet someone was peeking us through the window) were asked to present a solution to resolve TCP transmission for ancient Greek philosophers. What I have had is an unforgettable session with this guy in another 'interrogating' room. I was pretty sure that I would get that job at that point, until he helped me to rip all the fuzzy part of my brain apart. Surely I still appreciate what he has done there. I quit convincing myself that I got a grip on something I did not really see through.

What is rather interesting to me is that DC has really spent significant amount of time, efforts in looking for the best people, not about what kind of experience they have, but the way they approach things. Officially I was not the right person at that time. The fact they have managed to maintain a consective growth ever since they kicked off in 1982 owes to their dedication and determination to only take the best on board. It is quite easy and convenient to get over with every recruitment, every personnel change, every up and down phase of a business unit. I have seen quite often people shrugging their shoulders and admitted that there is nothing more we can do and it just happened. It seems like we have done nothing incorrect and just bad luck. I can't help thinking that if luck is really about probability, how come the damn thing just keeps hitting us all the time!

During one conversation I have just had with our HR director, I have tried to subtlely expressed my opinion - 2, 3 years is a short period of a company's history, probably in one's whole career life. However, every compromise we made has an impact on what we would like to shape the team into. Flexibility becomes such an easy excuse for lack of capability for making decision.

What I have realised so far is, you can not really tell the fact nor the future from what has happend (in one's cv for instance), just like you have no idea which cycle path I have just taken to get here; while you will have pretty good chance to guess where I would be heading to from the way I took from here.