Celebrating Failure

1) Tell us about a time this past semester that you failed -- whether in this class, or outside of this class. Don't spare any details! It'd be even better if there was something you tried several times this semester, and failed each time.

I have failed a few times at fixing escalated desktop issues at my job but I guess this is par for the course as my team cannot be expected to know it all or fix every and all issues that our department encounters.  Our goal is to give best effort attempts at resolution and if all else fails we refer the case/incident to an onsite technician to provide further assistance.  It really bothers me when I’m unable to resolve a problem as I see my vested time and effort as all but wasted when a resolution is not attained.  The issues are not run of the mill problems so the end user is quite patient and cooperative but at the same time from a business standpoint, at which point does an organization continue to throw man hours at a software or hardware issue before deciding enough is enough and simply restore or replace the device to get it to return to an operation state.  That’s always been my dilemma, balancing that thought process, because my tenacious nature will see me attempt a multitude and myriad of solution attempts to no avail. 

2) Tell us what you learned from it. 

I learned that I have to take failure and missed opportunities in stride and not concern myself too much with them as they are occurrences of the past and there is absolutely nothing I can do to change them, only prevent them from occurring in the future.  The lesson here is that the sooner I learn from my mistakes; I’ll be less prone to commit them going forward.  I also consult my teammates sooner on certain issues to see if they have encountered similar problems to arrive at a fix sooner. 

3) Reflect, in general, on what you think about failure. Failure is hard, isn't it? It's embarrassing, sure, but it also means that we have to change something about ourselves. Talk about how you handle failure (emotionally, behaviorally).

The way I handle failure is dependent on the level of importance I’ve placed on the failed act.  Behaviorally and emotionally I’m usually level headed, although the solution that evaded will bug me and I normally check the ultimate resolution which is usually not far off from my line of thinking.  If the failure event is more important on my scale, then I usually am more passionate or emotional but within reason as I can keep my emotions in check. 

Finally, talk about how this class has changed your perspective on failure -- are you more likely to take a risk now than you were four months ago? 

Being turned down for interview requests and when asking strangers in general the questions from the assignments can be pretty disconcerting but I feel like I have lost some of my apprehensiveness when approaching people.  People in general, there are exceptions to this of course, are mostly willing to help and will at least try to answer as long as you tell them its not a sales pitch.  Its all in the approach and where you are encountering these folks as I learned that inside of a Publix is not a good place to approach people whereas at a Starbuck’s near me I find the people more approachable and willing to chat.  In my job, I’ve learned to accept the fact that I cannot fix all the issues I encounter and I need to lean on my resources more to alleviate the feeling of helplessness I used to get when I was unable to fix the problems I encountered.