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"Liam, can you please come into my office?"

I remember the gut-wrenching feeling as I realized what was soon to come. It felt like I was climbing mountains of shame with each step I took.

There was 5 of us at the startup:

4 Engineers

1 CEO

It wasn't the type of place where mistakes fly under the radar.

"Can you please take a seat?"

"Yeah."

"Did you write this SQL Query?"

"Yes.. I did."

After 5 minutes of talking, I was sent home with a final check in hand.

I was 16 years old and naive. I had so many lessons ahead.

Getting fired stained a permanent lesson in my mind.

A less that I will never forget.

Here's how I got fired from my first programming job in two weeks.

There are valuable lessons here for everybody.

Even if you think you heard them before.

My Ego

Nothing has killed and buried more opportunity in my life than ego.

The killer of all growth.

For the sake of this newsletter let me set my definition of ego straight:

Ego is the part of you that wants to control other people's perceptions

The reason you exaggerate a story

The reason you don't mention your failures

The reason you act awkward around your crush

In my case:

The reason I was afraid to admit I didn't know s**t

I was excited to land this gig at 16 years old.

I wasn't even done with high school.

Deep down I knew I was underqualified, but I was afraid for them to know that. They hired me hoping I was adequate right? I can't admit I am less than that.

For lack of a euphemism I lied to this company.

Do you know what code subversion is?

Yeah, I think so!

Can you write an API endpoint?

Yeah, of course!

Can you script a SQL join?

Yep!

(googles everything immediately after)

Lying to control the perception of others.

Ego is the root of all things ugly about people.

All of this could have been avoided if I stepped up and admitted my limitations. It would have gained respect. Not cost me it.

My Assumptions

Assumption is the killer of all integrity.

This is a lesson I live by to this day.

Here were some of the assumptions I made:

• I should be good at this
• They will get mad if I can't deliver
• This code should be easy to understand

These all held me back, because after my final talk with the CEO I realized:

• They didn't expect me to be amazing
• They wanted me to ask the senior devs for help
• They expected me to be confused by their codebase

My refusal to ask questions was a red flag.

You can ask questions and appear stupid for a moment.

Or you can make assumptions and remain stupid for a lifetime.

Your choice.

My Pride

Pride is the internal version of ego.

Ego is managing how others see you

Pride is managing how you see yourself

"I can figure this out on my own"

Excellent in many cases, but as a blanket solution will always trend downwards over time. Nothing incredible has ever been built by a single person.

Even if you think it was, they are building on the shoulders of others before them. Using hard work and invention from the previous generations.

Creation is never a solo activity.

Even if your teammates died 200 years ago.

Pride prevented me from getting the help I needed because I was too prideful of my own ability. Too scared to ask for help because that would have harmed my own image of myself.

Ego and pride are something you protect

They are not something you show

I was too proud of my self-belief that I am a capable person.

The Lesson

Ask questions and do not hesitate.

There is nothing that will cost you more in your career than doing everything on your own. You can't sustain growth without the help of others.

If you feel like you have no questions to ask anybody:

That is a sign that it is time to move on.

You never want to be the smartest person in the room. That means you aren't learning, while everybody else is.

In other words:

The smartest person in the room is depreciating in value.

_______

For those curious, the mistake I made was doing a SQL cross join when I should have done a left join. (I had no idea what I was doing lol)

Thank you to everybody who read to the end.

I appreciate all of you.

As always, shoot me questions, let me know what you think, or say hi by sending me an email at swdlodonnell@gmail.com.

I hope you learned something from this and it helps somebody avoid the mistakes I made.

Until next week 👋

Stay foolish.