Javier 
When I decided to share my journey I thought other people had a better story to tell or they experienced bigger challenges in comparison to mine.
I remembered a phrase that a good boss told many years ago on a business trip that I had to Costa Rica, he told me “Javier, always be like the hens when she lays an egg, she starts to cackle to lets them know that she laid an egg. The hens lay one egg at a time, while the turtles lay many eggs at a time but they cover it with sand in the middle of the night, and nobody knows”.
As I said before, I was uncertain to share my narration because I have no idea how to write it or how to express my experience, but when I recalled this conversation with my boss I found the courage inside of me and I started to write not just my history but also the knowledge that I have acquired in my career.
I have a wide experience as an IT professional with 16 years of experience in this business, I started as a technical support guy but I was always ambitious and I tried to learn from others.
At my first job in 2003 was less than five months when I was laid off because the company had some financial issues, I was concerned how to get at home and share this bad news with my family.
However, I moved forward looking for a new opportunity, and two months later I got a job in a small financial company where I took my first steps as an IT handyman. It was a great opportunity because I learned many things including Visual Basic & SQL Server 7 — waooh that is old, right!! Even though I started as an IT handyman when I left I was an Accidental SQL DBA.
My Peruvian boss taught me many things and shared all his knowledge, we worked most days up to 16 hours a day, even on weekends. Our effort and passion were bigger than our tiredness and we even become friends which we still are. In 2007 our roads separated when he left the company and I was shown a new opportunity. I resigned from my job of 3 and a half years and I accepted the new opportunity, even if I was earning less than my previous job. Why did I do it?
The answer caught up to me years later when I move to the USA. So, returning to my first day in my new job on April 25 of 2007. I started to work in the biggest retail company in the world a.k.a Walmart. When I started my new job; I was thinking about how to grow in this company, what new languages, programs, and technology tools I could learn. I was excited to be there, I did not feel scared because my happiness and confidence were strong.
I learned many things and I found my career path in the Data World, my last position there was in the Servers and Databases team, they showed me the way, so I could be prepared to live in the USA. I was involved in worldwide projects, I started to sync my work time with people in other regions outside of my office base in Honduras. I learned about ITIL, big-scale databases, and how a mistake can affect the operations around the world, I learn how to do to things right from the first time.
From my 3 bosses, I learned to be humble, share my knowledge with others, and be a team player and always try to be eager to learn and trying to be up to date, adding new skills to my toolbelt. My experience in this company ends in the spring of 2012 but a short time later the biggest challenge in my life started when I moved to live in the U.S.A and I was not scared because I felt ready and I had the tools to do a great job.
In future articles, I would like to share my experience living in the USA and how I got my dream job.
The first thing is to never feel scared to meet new challenges and never stop learning.
See you in a new post.
This post was originally published on Medium
