[moved from the Drafts folder — never sent this email]
Chris,
I have been thinking about my status here, about my goals, and about the future. (FYI, I just submitted my Objectives.)
As you might have noticed in the objectives, one of my longer term goals is to become a manager. I know you’ve been managing for some time now and you are doing a good job, but I’d like to try it as well. This might be possible here or might not, but I’m convinced that it is something I would like to do. I’m not saying right away. Actually, I’m not going to push hard on this, but if something opens up, I would like to be considered. I would like to have a clear indication, though, that it is something that is possible for me. I am setting a personal goal to achieve this by the end of my 3rd year here, middle of 2008.
Why do I want to be a manager and what makes me think that I can do a good job? In my Toastmasters club, I have had a officer role for the second year now. I am the president now. I discovered that I like to help people. I discovered that people respond well to me and like to cooperate with me. I am enthusiastic when I lead people. I like to teach them and motivate them. I even told them that my ideal job would entail being a manager, to lead people. Several of them said that I will be a very good manager. They said that I could do it now — that I’m ready. I think I am.
The second thing. As you know, I’ve been on the search project for a couple of months now. I have noticed one thing. My energy level and enthusiasm for work has gone down the longer I’m on the project. I think there are several reasons for that. I think there is not enough innovation on the search project. I did a lot of refactoring when I started working on the project, which made the project a little easier to maintain. But those were minor refactorings. I have recently played around with browser testing, which is cool and I plan to check it in when the project I’m using goes live, but once again, this good but minor stuff.
I and everybody else, I think, like to be on the cutting edge technology. I like to build stuff from scratch. I like to be in charge of things, experiment with new technologies.
Search is not there. That’s why it’s become boring for me. I know it’s a very important, the most important project this company has, but there is not enough fun for me.
Over time, in the next month or two, I would also like you to put somebody else on the project. Or at least rotate me with different projects. Like I said, building things from scratch is the best part in this job.
We can talk about this one on one. I like this company. I want to do my best, but I realize that I can only do so if I’m happy.Stanley