The one thing to remember about the IT world (and it probably translates wider still) - everyone makes mistakes.
We estimate tasks, the estimates are wrong. The tasks themselves are at best, inaccurate. The requirements that drove us to create those tasks are wrong. Customers complain about our software being wrong, and sometimes the customers are wrong.
In your position now, if a recruiter phoned/emailed with something along the lines of "I've got a guy to talk to you about, he probably has a bit of a bad reputation - but that's simply because no-one told him how to get things right at the start, I think he's worth looking at, can I send the resume across?" ... my reply would be "sure, lets have a look."
Getting things wrong isn't a problem, especially when you don't know any better. Putting things right when you know they're wrong is the true sign of character.
While I will agree that I didn't "know any better", I could definitely sense that something was wrong. More specifically, I knew I was doing something wrong. But I didn't know what that was! Which is why I posed this question and I am glad I did.
I always think about the definition of insanity (apparently not a direct Einstein quote!), "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."
I am just glad to break out of that cycle and explore new methods and practices, and hopefully learn from my mistakes and right my wrongs!
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The one thing to remember about the IT world (and it probably translates wider still) - everyone makes mistakes.
We estimate tasks, the estimates are wrong. The tasks themselves are at best, inaccurate. The requirements that drove us to create those tasks are wrong. Customers complain about our software being wrong, and sometimes the customers are wrong.
In your position now, if a recruiter phoned/emailed with something along the lines of "I've got a guy to talk to you about, he probably has a bit of a bad reputation - but that's simply because no-one told him how to get things right at the start, I think he's worth looking at, can I send the resume across?" ... my reply would be "sure, lets have a look."
Getting things wrong isn't a problem, especially when you don't know any better. Putting things right when you know they're wrong is the true sign of character.
While I will agree that I didn't "know any better", I could definitely sense that something was wrong. More specifically, I knew I was doing something wrong. But I didn't know what that was! Which is why I posed this question and I am glad I did.
I always think about the definition of insanity (apparently not a direct Einstein quote!), "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."
I am just glad to break out of that cycle and explore new methods and practices, and hopefully learn from my mistakes and right my wrongs!