Be Remarkable

These few days we are required to go back and forth between Singapore-Johor Bahru (daily commuting) for the product build, where a hundred over printers are assembled within 5 days.

This afternoon while we were waiting for the End of Day Meeting, I was trapped in a multidirectional missile launching of brainstorm among few of my colleagues. Apparently, they were discussing about some part issues. In no time, different ideas, suggestions, advices flying and criss-crossing in the air surrounding me. Complete with the design and tooling jargons.

As you can guess, I just kept quiet and tried to digest the discussion which was going on. Never, ever, I was fast enough to come out with a thought. I felt like a spectator for tennis match. Right-left-right-left. (Not for marching)

Again, something crossed my mind. How do I actually survive in this industry by the way? Two years and few days are not a short period of time. In fact I could be kicked out anytime in between, but I have survived somehow. Even until now, I haven't got a good grip in looking into product design problems and respond to them instinctively. You will still see me frowning 'til my eyebrows almost joined together without any solutions coming out. It will, after quite some time... after few "A ha!!" heard from the surrounding.

May be it just proves one of my theory right, a theory which I adopted from a book by Seth Godin, PURPLE COW. In the book, he emphasized that to win the market, one needs to be remarkable. To be different.

Which is aligned with what I always believe. To be different, sometimes you don't need to be a swan among the ducks. Even being a duck among the swans can also make you positively remarkable.

May be that's what happens to me in my work now. Being the only Mechatronics graduate around, I have distinct advantages of being familiar with firmware codes, motor (although for this very topic my knowledge is actually nothing better than theirs), programming, algorithm, creating flowcharts.... Analysis and simulation are no strangers to me.

I might not be good in product design. But I am considerably OK in dealing with numbers, in mathematical operations, in analysis and simulation... areas which actually product design engineers don't need to excel in. This "OK" cathegory can be "good" for my fellow colleagues, just because they don't understand what I am doing, which is VERY normal since it was my field of study and not theirs.

That's whyyyy... in their eyes, they see me as a good engineer, some say bright (I didn't say it), have high potential (emang power source??), blablabla... Just because I've done something (around last year) which for them was impossible to do, but for me, it was just an implementation of what I've learned.

With this, the fact that I am not a good product design engineer becomes oblivious to them. It has proven the theory that even being a duck among swans, as long as you are different (positively), you can gather the spotlight around you.

So dudes, just be confident with what you have and BE REMARKABLE!!!!

PS: there's actually one drawback... everytime i confess to them that I don't feel suitable for this job, they always over-encourage me by saying "Of course you can!! Remember the simulation you did last year??? It was an achievement, you know....." Owalaaaaahhhh pusing deh