I started in Las Vegas in 2012, Foundever being my first job at a call center. I had had a variety of jobs, from cooking to construction to reproducing paintings, while going to school for Media Arts & Animation. I thought I was going to grow up to be a game designer- my primary hobby is games, both video and board. With my first campaign, I handled “Tier 3” calls such as injury claims and Better Business Bureau complaints, and designing investigative processes around those. After a year, I had an opportunity to move into Operational Reporting for the site.
During my time in Reporting, my selection of hats included scorecards, fin ops, physical security, photography, communication, training, even supervising and developing the support staff of the site, and every combination thereof. I used to introduce myself to new employees as the building’s “Resident Nerd: The One Willing to Read Manuals.” That role helped me realized I’m interested in systems, not games. My interest in designing games became an interest in exploring and understanding systematic processes.
That attitude and reputation is the reason I’m on the CI team now, continuing to apply myself to the unknown needs and opportunities of the company.
To share my mindset, for me, it’s about continued learning and understanding and helping others do the same. That’s true of analysts in general, and it’s still true now with my focus on continuous improvement. To explain what I mean, I’d like to talk about the first of a few principles I’ve held myself to, which is:
“You can’t make people better.” Try as we might, work in the modern world is not about TELLING people what to do and how to do it. At every level of our hierarchy, everyone you find faces novel challenges and has to apply their own experience and problem-solving. None of us can operate this entire company single-handedly, nor can any of us understand everything that everyone ELSE needs to do. In short: you have to trust people to do their jobs, and you can’t MAKE them do better. You can only LET them.
As for how to do that, another principle that is important to me is the transparent sharing of knowledge and information. This comes from growing up reading Isaac Asimov. In his stories, every problem, no matter the stakes, was always solved at last by the good guys candidly talking it out without ego. This is why I’ve given so much time to learning, teaching, and why I’m part of the MAX Connect project.