A different type of CV
The idea of sharing one’s failures is not new.
Academics who have worked ceaselessly towards a PhD degree, predictably, have shared a CV of failures for a small group of graduating students. Even more so if these academics are perceived to be highly successful. You can find examples here, here, and here.
However, it is rare to see working professionals or companies own their failures in public. There may be obvious reasons why we don’t but one astonishingly common reason is we don’t see it as one.
We tend to carry a self-justifying narrative about our lives that we try to disguise lessons in failure as some form of success. It’s hard for many of us to see failures for what they really are.
The Boy will not be a failure. Mythili knows. She has seen the generations before. The boy will make it. As his father has said, he does not have the option of failure.
He will crack at least one entrance exam, and he will one day have a nice house in a suburb of San Francisco, or in a suburb of a suburb of San Francisco… He will drive a Toyota Corolla to work. And there, in the conference room of his office, he will tell his small team, with his hands stretched wide in a managerial way,'We must think out of the box’.
-Manu Joseph in The Illicit Happiness of Other People
Also, I am not the first professional to talk about failures. In fact, I was inspired by a short note on failures by the late Twitter APM Courtney Brousseau whose tragic story I found on Reddit.
Why write this now
As a society, we idealise and correlate working hard with success while discounting the role of luck in our lives.
It may be important for professionals to disclose their moments of failure and luck now more than ever as millions of hardworking individuals have either lost their jobs, their companies or are yet to start their careers due to the impact of Covid-19.
It is not easy for me to share my failures. I must admit I’m nervous.
One because it goes without saying that women already have a lot to lose with the kind of damaging stereotypes people hold about our abilities as a workforce. Step outside of it and you’re cancelled for life. By sharing mine, I hope to not reinforce those stereotypes.
Two, most people in my line of profession are not comfortable sharing their failures publicly unless they have enough grey hairs (or a bald patch), have a lawyer or are perceived to be successful in typical ways — founding members of a company, lots of equity, big stake in companies, lots of visibility to their talent, or just Twitter popular.
These “successes” hedge them against the risks of confiding their screw-ups. So even when do they share, it is only as good as virtue signalling.
I’m sharing my failures with only my conscience as my safety net.
Three, as many others have said, there is a likelihood of meta failure from this effort — that my failure CV gets more attention than my actual CV.
I am biased about what I call my failures, obviously and enormously. So this could seem incomplete and not failure-worthy. I have taken intellectual risks by switching industries and companies. As much as these risks come with proportionate rewards, it has also led to different kinds of failures. Writing about my failures is my way of understanding myself better.
I write this to find meaning and closure.
#1
I spent nine thousand rupees (~$120) for a 7-day course in cracking an architecture entrance exam. Now, I just watch YouTube videos on urban planning, interior design, and architecture.
For fun.
After my twelfth standard exams, I prepared myself to face two worst-case scenarios: My marks disappearing from the government’s database and my exam papers getting damaged in some remote village. I was an anxious person but being in General Category in India, I had a reason to worry about the competition even if I scored really well. Struck by this fear of not making into any of Tamil Nadu’s 600 engineering colleges, I signed up for Architect Solomon D Vedamuthu’s classes at DVS Centre for Design and Delineation.
Several hundred drawings later, I got the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to graduate as an architect from a top college. However, when I got to attend Anna University’s first day of counselling, I went back to my plan A — engineering.
I view this as an inability to trust in my abilities and systems around me. It made me want to always create backup plans due to a fear of failure.
Steve Jobs spun a wonderful narrative on how a Calligraphy course helped him design beautiful typography in the first Macintosh he had built. The closest I can get to make some sense of this random education is to build myself a comfortable and functional home in the future.
#2
For nearly 12 years, I did not know what I wanted.
There is nothing like watching one’s father suffer to inspire one toward obtaining a degree in a good college without succumbing to the temptation of a student loan. I began chasing accolades, internships and scholarships in college.
I believed that aiming for great scores in academia meant I was on my way to knowing myself better. I couldn't have been more wrong. While it seems like a systemic failure, this is as much a personal failure.
I took upon myself to do too many things in college. I couldn't say NO. In the process, I lost clarity on what I wanted to be.
#3
I have disappointed a few people by being very good at something and not pursuing it seriously enough.
This is again a by product of my trust issues in myself like several other women. I have had expectations to hear people I respect say “You’re doing a good job!” and reward me with things that line up with what they say.
#4
I had to abruptly close an EduTech initiative I was managing.
During my final year of engineering and my first job, I used to actively tutor engineering students for GATE and run mock interviews through an initiative called Chemmit. I connected professionals from niche fields with students who were struggling to find an opportunity. I couldn’t continue it when I saw a different world opening up to me in software.
#5
I failed to apply to my dream graduate school on time.
On Dec 2016, my city was struck by a massive cyclone. My family and I lived several days without electricity, water, and the internet. With exactly a week left to apply for 6 universities, I grew restless about my future. It felt as if my life was coming to a dead end. On the day of the application deadline, I headed to a nearby internet café with my documents in tow. I came across a post by a tech visionary on the web and that changed my mind on the spot. I cold-emailed him for career advice and I abandoned the idea of doing my master’s that year.
What came out of that email was life-altering. I feel grateful that the cyclone disrupted my plan.
#6
I have justified my behaviour because I felt others acted in a way that earned my cruelty towards them.
I’ve gone months being both consciously and unconsciously silent to a few people. Psychology calls this “The silent treatment”.
But what I most regret is those I did unconsciously.
I used to travel 44 miles back and forth every single day for almost three years sheerly because I loved my work. My mother would worry that I switched several modes of transport to reach work and questioned if all that pain was even worth it. I would snap back saying Apple’s Chief Designer Jony Ive too travelled the same distance for work.
Home, where my parents live, felt like an AirBnB I got to use for free. I had no patience to talk to anyone at home. I would spend several nights working endlessly — talking to customers, partners and colleagues in different time zones to be that awesome professional everyone saw me on the outside while I was suffering terribly in my personal life.
Thinking deeply about this today as I work from home, I realise I had some of my priorities misplaced. Today, I have stopped flinching when my mother is talking loudly on the phone while I am working or doling out a lot of unsolicited advice to me. Today, family comes first before everything else.
#7
I cannot ever go back to sleep at the right time.
My sleep cycle altered after my overly long work commutes. Ever since 2017 I have not been able to sleep before 2 a.m. I am trying hard to fix my circadian rhythm.
#8
I have a folder full of stuff I am not proud of.
In contrast to my otherwise decent writing, I have gone rogue — writing that is distasteful, rebellious, meaningless, going around in circles, header-less, or stuck without a coherent body. My favourite part was to murder everything I wrote into a blank screen. I failed to produce anything of substance. However, it was therapeutic. It was my way of dealing with any sort of anger and pain.
#9
I suck at running although I have tried it several times.
I will update this as and when I think more about it.