Cloud Therapy: E028 – AeroCom Client, Paul Li’s IT Journey

Learn how IT Professional and AeroCom client, Paul Li, has thrived for 25 years in his IT career. Paul shares his story with us, and tells us about his most difficult time in IT, how he approaches management feedback and much more!

Which 3 telecom or cloud service providers does AeroCom recommend for your company?

MY TOP 3

TRANSCRIPT:

Mike: Cloud Therapy Episode 28.

Hey, IT Nation, welcome to Cloud Therapy with AeroComInc.com where you learn about the latest cloud and telecom technology that is going to take your career to the next level. I’m your host Mike Smith. Let’s do it.

Hello, everybody. Welcome to another great episode of Cloud Therapy. Thank you for joining us. And I’m super excited today because we’re going to switch it up a little bit. Now, typically I have guests on the program that work for service providers, and they talk about technology so that you guys can learn about cloud and telecom technology and use that knowledge to elevate your career in IT. But on a similar token, I still want you to be able to listen to today’s podcast in a way that will elevate your career, but instead of having in an employee from a service provider, what I wanted to do is have one of our customers come on who is one of your peers and have that person tell us their story of their journey in IT in terms of their human experiences because I think that is one of the most important things everyone can always improve in terms of elevating their career is their interaction with people at their job.

So I asked one of our best customers, his name is Paul Li, to come on the program and tell us about his career IT journey and his ups and downs in relation to dealing with people, both people that work for him and the people he’s worked for. So I hope you’ll really enjoy this. It’s a great story. And Paul has actually been in IT for twenty-five years, between IT and architecture, so he’s been around a long time. He’s interacted with a lot of people and he’s pretty high up there. So it’s a great person to listen to and obviously we don’t do every single thing one another does, but we always learn a little bit every time we talk to someone else who is going or been where we want to go. So again, I hope you enjoy this. This is Paul Li.

But before we get to Paul I just want to do a couple quick reminders. Number one, you can always find the transcripts to these podcasts on our website at AeroComInc.com. Just go to the Blog section and search for this podcast and you’ll find the complete transcript of this episode there. And number two, I wanted to talk about a great giveaway that we have, as we always do. So if you are the lucky person who is going to purchase a phone system for your company – I know that’s super lucky, right – so if that’s you, you’re going to love this giveaway.

So I decided to do some webinars, and these webinars are going to be called the Four Cornerstones of Buying a Business Phone System that makes everyone in your company happy. And the reason I’m doing this webinar is because you know as well as I do that the hardest thing about buying a phone system for your company is you’re trying to make everybody happy and it’s pretty stressful and it’s super hard because you’re trying to make your users happy, you’re trying to make your boss happy, you’re trying to make people calling into your company happy, and you’re just trying to do your job in IT, right? This isn’t your normal day-to-day job, but all of a sudden you’re tasked with doing this. Well, I can tell you that you absolutely can make everybody happy if you follow four simple steps, that’s get the features right, get the voice quality right, get the pricing right, and get the provider right. And in these webinars I’m going to go into detail on how do you do those four things, how do you get those four things right so that you can buy a phone system that makes everybody happy. So all you have to do to register, it’s absolutely free, you just text the word “VOIPWEBINAR” to the number 44-222, and we will text you with instructions on how to reserve your free spot in one of these upcoming webinars that I’m doing. Again, text the word “VOIPWEBINAR” to the number 44-222 and we will tell you how to claim your free spot in one of these webinars so you can learn how to buy a phone system for your company that everybody’s going to love, which is going to make your job a lot easier.

Okay, so let’s get to the program. Here is Paul Li. Enjoy!

Welcome, Paul.

Paul: Thank you.

Mike: And could you please take a moment to, kind of, introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about yourself, both professionally and personally?

Paul: Sure. Yeah, I’ve been actually working in the field of architecture since 1988. So it’s been a while. But I slowly actually transitioned into the IT field, probably starting about 1995, 1996, where we just started to blast off with the web and all that. And so, since then I start off actually doing half of architecture, half of IT, and now I’m practically fully IT, so to the point where they’ll need me to pinch hit on some architectural work at sometimes, very rare moments, but most of the time the majority of my time is really spent on research and development and see how we could improve our work in the area of technology and really take advantage of technology to help us to get more efficient and get a better turnaround for our clients.

Mike: Awesome!

Paul: Personally, I’ve been married for almost twenty-five years.

Mike: Wow!

Paul: That’s been a long time.

Mike: Congrats!

Paul: And I have a kid who is almost twenty-one. I’m glad she’s not in the architectural field, let’s just say. But she’s also not in the IT field. She’s an animal lover.

Mike: Oh.

Paul: Yeah. I actually found out that animal lovers working in that kind of field with animals, dogs and cats, you actually make a lot less than with architecture.

Mike: Oh, man.

Paul: That makes me wish she actually had gone in architecture would’ve been better.

Mike: That’s so funny.

Paul: Because she loves dogs and cats so much, I mean, it should be something that she does and enjoy doing, it’ll be great.

Mike: Oh, that’s awesome. Yeah. One of my daughters is twelve and she loves animals and she’s always saying that she wants to be a veterinarian because she loves animals. Ironically, we don’t have a single pet in our house. So we’re sitting there going, ah, well, we’ll wait and see how much you love animals once you have to clean up and do all that stuff. But it’s funny that that definitely strikes a chord with me when you have a daughter that loves animals.

Paul: Oh, yeah. We have a seventy pound dog. That’s what we have.

Mike: Holy cow! What kind of dog is that?

Paul: It’s a mix between a Shepherd and a Lab. But we’ve had her for twelve years now and just love her to death. I think my wife wants to be buried with her, not with me. What’s the deal with that? So I guess, you know, having a dog or a cat or whatever pet animal you have, it’s very different than raising a kid, let’s just say.

Mike: Yeah, how so? What have you experienced with that where it’s a little different than parenting?

Paul: Yeah.

Mike: So, like, have you experienced some differences there?

Paul: Oh, yeah. I mean, with raising a daughter she’ll talk back to you, she can take the car and leave on her own and you can’t stop her. You want to just tie her down. You talk back to me, you’re not getting dinner tonight.

Mike: I love it. I love it. Cool. And what struck me when you were talking about your IT career is how you transitioned to architecture to IT, that the question I had for you was, how did you start making that transition? Was it, you know, were you with the same company and just started asking them if you could dabble in the IT side or did they ask you, or how did that materialize?

Paul: Actually, it really started way back when I was in college, and I took a programming class and I loved it. I love being able to program and customize and it’s immediate gratification, something has changed and you created that program and you see the effects of it. And then when I was hired by this small firm in Burbank, my first job out of school, and they were I always think the cutting edge or the leading edge, you call it, where they want to transition everything from hand drafting to computer drafting. And for the first two weeks he just let me in there in front of a computer and say, “Here, here’s the computer, here’s some books you read and then see what you can learn.” So from that point on I realized that I actually love the computer, using with the computer for drafting, more than drafting itself, and designing. Then I was hired by a bigger firm, the firm I’m with now, and at first it was all architecture because that’s what they need me to do, design and drafting and drawing everything up, but still in the computer. But then I think they realized that as they asked me questions about the computer and I would be able to give them answers. I’m not afraid to, like, open the box up of the computer and unplug this wire and plug that wire in and I’m not afraid of being electrocuted so they realized that that’s something that I enjoy doing and I would like to pursue, so I would talk to them, they would talk to me. And so slowly, it’s not like, oh, tomorrow you can do all computer work, it was a slow process where every year they would review, have performance reviews, what do you think now, are you sure you want to do computers, you know, you’re sure you don’t want to stick with architecture? I’d go, yeah, I think I’m really interested in computers. So slowly, you know, we had an IT guy that was here full time, and I would be, like, under him and learning from him and see what he’s doing and how he maintains our firm. And it got to the point where he was let go and I took on the full steam, head on on the computer stuff. And since then we also hired out computer consulting firms to help us to manage many of our servers. We have so many servers now compared to when we first started back in the early ‘90s. So it’s a slow process, but it’s something that you have to really love and enjoy.

Mike: Awesome.

Paul: And you show that and they see that that is something you can do and effectively, and not just like you love it but you fail.

Mike: Yeah.

Paul: You love it and you succeed.

Mike: Awesome. That’s cool. So I think that’s great for the listeners to understand that, you know, if you have a passion for IT, and even though you might be doing a different job right now, that you can still get into IT. You don’t have to start, necessarily, in IT, that if it’s something you enjoy doing, you can actually integrate that into the current company you’re working for if you just show a little interest in it. Sometimes that can materialize into a full-time job even with the same company. That’s awesome.

Paul: That’s right.

Mike: That’s great. Okay. Well, let’s jump into this. I think, you know, we’re definitely going to talk about some fun stuff here, but the first question I always like to ask is, it’s more of a nice human question of saying hey, not everything has gone well, there’s always been something that’s gone bad in everybody’s career, but can you take us to one of the most difficult moments you’ve faced in your IT career?

Paul: There are so many that it will take a long time to name. But let me start off with the very beginnings. I think a real hard time was when we first started this web thing, and email, and I had no idea what that was. My boss would say, hey, you go and find out more about setting up an email address for our company, and I go what is that? Why email? Why not just pick up the phone and call?

Mike: Yeah.

Paul: What do you mean, writing emails? But then as I read up more about it, and I had to do a lot of reading because, I mean, it was so new, back in the mid-‘90s, where except Windows ‘95, you know, browsing the web first came on and everyone was like crazy about it, being able to see graphics on the screen and use your telephone line, you know, American Online and that kind of stuff – or America offline, I should say. Using dial-ups. It was a crazy time.

Mike: Wow.

Paul: And until I tried it, until I tried emailing and setting up an email, going through an internet service provider, it wasn’t until after I did all of those steps that I realized, oh, that’s why we should email instead of picking up a phone and call. I can hit so many people at one time. And it’s all logged electronically. I have a file here that I could go back and say, hey, this is what I’ve done in the past, this is what you responded. It’s a thread of a legal documentation. So that was a real difficult time just to start off because it was something new. No one’s really know that much about it or basically talk that much about it, and I had to do a lot of research.

Mike: Right.

Paul: And even recently, as more new technology comes out, it’s always a challenge because, you know, my bosses would be, we want these new gadgets like the iPhone when it first came out. I was like what is an iPhone? I don’t know.

Mike: Yeah.

Paul: Actually, I’ve got to say, to this day I don’t have much of a leash. My wife and I don’t have a cell phone because we’re on the computer all day long and we’re on the web and getting emails online that I happen to be offline most of the time except when I’m driving.

Mike: Wow.

Paul: So these new gadgets that come out, it’s always a challenge for me, especially when they first came out and had no support. The iPhone way back when it came out was really not for business. And there was really no support for the exchange server, which is something you use a lot if you use Microsoft to do business emailing. And we just had to find so many different ways around and had to do research online, how to get an email from your exchange server into a little gadget like the iPhone, which everybody wanted. And it took time, and there were these services we paid for to get going, and it’s never perfect. Sometimes, you know, one of the bosses called me up said, I didn’t get my email. Well, I don’t know why. We’re paying for it, this other service to get it done, when it’s not working.

Mike: Right.

Paul: So it took some time before finally, obviously Apple then made it possible for the iPhone to get email from the exchange server directly without paying a third party.

Mike: Yeah.

Paul: So that, again, is a challenge that I had to face because of new technology, and the partners want us to jump on board right away, and I really had to spend some time doing research of my own.

Mike: Yeah. That’s awesome. A couple things that came to mind there, the first being that, like, when your boss first came to you about email, and I know it’s been twenty years or so, so it might be a little bit fuzzy, but like, did they give you a timeline? Did they say, okay, we want you to figure this out within a certain amount of time? Or did they tell you like, hey, we want to implement this company-wide? Or was it just kind of like, hey, you know, can you figure it out here and there, and we’d like to get maybe a couple email accounts set up? Or what was the directive you were given?

Paul: Yeah, and this is very interesting for a lot of bosses, you know, they will tell you I want this to be done, but they will tell you when they need it, but obviously they want it like tomorrow or yesterday.

Mike: Yeah.

Paul: So I would have to like get on board, drop everything I’m doing and immediately tackle this problem, which is what I remember doing. And this particular partner I had at the time, he was in charge of technology, a part of our firm, he really wanted to get an email for himself, just for himself, you know, because, well, just because.

Mike: Right.

Paul: So he wanted me to find out more about it and once I found out that you could get an email for yourself, you really need to then get additional emails for everybody else; other partners who were also would be wondering, hey, what about my email? So we had to actually spend money to pay for the internet service provider to get an email for every partner. And back then we had like five or six partners. So we had a lot of partners that wanted their personal emails. And getting it to them directly was also a challenge because unless they had their own dial-up, back then there was no, like, T1.

Mike: Right.

Paul: There was no cheap way of getting everyone internet access personally from their computer at work.

Mike: Oh, yeah.

Paul: So everyone would be paying, again, each partner would pay for their own personal dial-up, and the speed of that was really slow, as you know. And everyone had to have a modem on their computer and so they should all have computers, whether it was a laptop they could buy, it was usually a mobile workstation that the partners would use would have a built-in modem so that they could dial out. So that wherever they go, they could dial and get a connection. But it mostly streams WiFi because wireless was like still not a thing that like everybody uses, unlike now. So it was a challenge back then. But once everybody started kicking in and then the technology started catching up to the gadgets that are out there, then we started to, you know, get some really cheap T1 access where everyone in the entire company was able to get email.

Mike: Right.

Paul: And basically you’d pay for a domain and everybody could have their own individual emails based on their first and last name, or however you do the conventional email naming convention, and everybody was happy at that moment. And then, of course, you know, after they get their emails, like, are they really working or are they actually sending emails and stuff for themselves?

Mike: Getting forwards, all those forwards from family members that we all remember getting.

Paul: Yeah, because you could be emailing pictures from everybody and go oh!

Mike: Yeah.

Paul: Everybody got distracted. They’re forwarding it on to everybody else.

Mike: Yeah. Absolutely.

Paul: Pictures of my dog! Here!

Mike: Absolutely. Absolutely. The other question I had is you brought up something that just floored me. You said you don’t have a cell phone? Is that what you just said? That you and your wife do not have a cell phone.

Paul: That’s right.

Mike: What? Wait. You’re an IT professional. You do not have a cell phone. I mean, I don’t even know where to start with that. How does that work? So, you know, so obviously, you mentioned leash. I mean, I’m assuming you mean like so that you don’t have to be worrying about receiving emails or anything, that once you’ve left work, that’s it. So the only way people can get in touch with you is at your desktop, when it comes to email and that type of thing?

Paul: That’s right. So, I mean, I see it as an advantage because my wife and I have been carpooling ever since, even before we got married. I would drop her off at work. Right now we only work about a block away. So we’re always seeing each other, there’s very rarely we’re apart, so we don’t need to call each other, we don’t need to email each other. My daughter does have a phone of her own. She does own an iPhone. So we’re able to keep track of her or we can get in touch with her.

Mike: Right.

Paul: But we don’t want our bosses to get in touch with us.

Mike: Right.

Paul: Like, we’re off, we’re off, okay? Unless we choose to check our email.

Mike: Right.

Paul: Then we’ll respond.

Mike: So you have just the old-school fashion, you have a home phone at home.

Paul: Yes.

Mike: And, you know, you have a line at your office, and just like we did, you know, ten, fifteen years ago if someone needs to get a hold of you, they need to call you at your desk; if you’re not there, they need to leave a message and wait, and just kind of the basics, huh?

Paul: That’s right. Now again, I do have internet access at home, so I can choose to check email, which I do. It’s not like I’m not going to stop checking my email.

Mike: Sure.

Paul: So if they were to email me, and then I will respond, but they can’t call me if I don’t have a cell phone.

Mike: Yeah. I love that. I love the discipline. I think that’s fantastic. I think there are so many downsides to, you know, the so-called leash that we have that I think that’s great. I think just the fact that you guys have thought it through and chosen to kind of stay away and buck the norm, I think that’s great. Because, you know, I think all of us can relate to the advantages that must bring you and the peace that must bring you at times.

Paul: Yeah.

Mike: Just not having that distraction at all times. Now, did you ever have a cell phone and go away from it?

Paul: Yes.

Mike: Or, you know, is it you’ve never adopted it?

Paul: We only got a cell phone that one time when we drove cross-country from California to Georgia, and that was actually a gift from my sister-in-law, she says, “Well, you know, since you’re driving and we don’t want anything happening to you, so we’ll let you have a cell phone during that time that you travel cross-country until you’re back.” But that was only time I got a cell phone.

Mike: Oh, wow! So you’ve never even really, like, gone that route and tried it out. It’s just you’ve seen it materialize and continually communicated with your wife, that, hey, nope, I don’t like it, I don’t like the idea of that.

Paul: Yeah. I mean, it’s convenient. Like, for example, my wife tells me, you need to go buy me something at the store. So I go to the store and I don’t find it.

Mike: Yeah.

Paul: So then I don’t have to call her up on the cell phone. Hey, it’s not here, you know?

Mike: Yeah.

Paul: But I looked for that and forget it.

Mike: Yeah, no, that’s true. And payphones are disappearing, so that avenue is slowly disappearing for you because I’m sure for a while there you were like, oh, I could always find a payphone but now you’re like, now I don’t know if I can find a payphone anywhere.

Paul: And it’s very important you have a very reliable call. Because someone especially in Southern California drives so much that if something breaks down in your car, then you’re stuck without cell phone.

Mike: Yeah. No, absolutely. Man, you are one of the last of the Mohicans, I think. That’s awesome. I learned something about you. That’s cool.

Paul: Yeah.

Mike: Well, you know, hey, I think that’s inspirational to us all. So that’s great. So, awesome. Well, switching it up. You know, even though I could probably talk about that from the next half an hour, I think we should probably move on.

Paul: Yep.

Mike: But I think one question I always like to bring up is that, a question surrounding your boss and feedback. And the reason why I bring this up is because I think that everyone is always working hard, trying to figure out what things do their boss want them to do, what things does their boss think are the most important things they should be working on. So the way you obviously know what things are the most important are the things that your boss responds to you about and gives you some positive feedback about. So I always like to ask the question, what is a scenario, or can you give us a time where you got positive feedback from a boss and what provoked it?

Paul: Yeah, especially, I think maybe in this culture, our corporate culture in this particular firm that I’m in, it’s kind of hard to get positive feedback unless you pursue it. Usually it occurs at the annual performance review where you sit in and then you talk to them and hopefully they give you positive feedback and not negative. But there was one time recently, actually, where I was involved with an associates meeting where associates of the firm would gather together and talk about how we could be a better leader for junior staff and newly hired staff in the firm. And the partners were there and they were sitting in and we were talking and getting responses. This was actually from an annual survey that everyone fills out, and so we’re trying to look and see what the feedback was with the entire staff and the partners were trying to understand why they’re answering the questions the way they are and how they needed really the rest of the group, the associates group, to help them understand the rest of the staff. And then my name is popped up. I don’t know what to do, one of the partners says, look at Paul, I mean, it’s great that how he not only emails us with problems but he emails us and provides us options, different solutions to the problems. So that was like a positive feedback to me, right there, out of the blue. So that happens every so often where I won’t expect it, but usually it would occur more often during a review process.

Mike: Awesome. I think the great takeaway I’m getting there for our audience, and let me know if you agree, Paul, is that bosses like it when you not only just bring up a problem – they don’t necessarily like when you bring up a problem – but if you are going to bring up a problem have a couple solutions in mind and you’re just asking for approval for one or two solutions so that you’re not throwing that problem on the boss’s desk and walking away. You’re actually taking the initiative to come up with solutions and just say, hey, I’m just checking to make sure that these solutions are good.

Paul: Exactly.

Mike: Yeah. I think that’s great advice. That’s advice that I think my first boss gave me and he said, hey, don’t come and throw a problem on my desk and walk away and leave me with the problem. You know?

Paul: Yep.

Mike: Just, hey, come up with a couple solutions. And, you know, the counter to that is that it also, I guess I should say the added benefit to that is that it also shows your boss that you’re capable of thinking about great solutions and that you’re intelligent, you’re coming up with awesome solutions. But even though you might know the solution in your head if you don’t express it, then your boss is left wondering if you have the ability to come up with solutions.

Paul: Yeah. That’s also one of my first boss told me, too. You know, you come to me with problems, if you don’t give me any solutions, it doesn’t help me.

Mike: Right.

Paul: You know, it’s giving me more problems.

Mike: Yeah. Yeah.

Paul: So, yes, that’s what I also learned, too. It’s important to provide different solutions. It may not be a great solution, it may not be the ultimate solution, but at least it tells them that you’re thinking.

Mike: Awesome. Awesome. Very good. Along the same lines, my next question for you is regarding communicating upward to a boss. I think this is always important because, especially in IT, IT can sometimes become separated from the rest of the company and their work, and they’re working super hard doing a lot of great things, but a lot of people in the company don’t even know what they’re doing. They don’t understand the IT department that much, or they don’t understand what, you know, the IT department is actually up to every day. Especially that becomes a problem when that person is your boss who doesn’t really understand what you’re doing. And obviously, in order for your boss to promote you, give you a raise, things like that, it’s important for them to know the good things that you’re doing. So if they don’t know those things, trying to find a way to communicate those things upward to your boss without looking like you’re brownnosing is really important in navigating your career. So, can you think of a time where you’ve actually had to communicate upward about something great that you did just to let your boss know that it happened?

Paul: Again, we have to do that a lot because, like I said, it’s very hard, and we have so many things going on, they would not remember what I did for them yesterday.

Mike: Wow.

Paul: So other than the times during the performance reviews, that’s where you really write down very clearly that this is what I did for this past year, you know, number one, number two, number three. So those really are, for me anyways, the really good times where I could tell them and document for them, and then remind them this is what I’ve done. But also other times, I mean, I have one particular boss who has been really good at communicating. He would not be sitting inside his office, but he’d actually come out and he loves to talk. So I would have no problems approaching him and telling him, hey, this is what I’ve done yesterday, I mean, is it something that you think is worthwhile thinking about it, remembering about. So communicating with some bosses in here are very easy because they’re not someone who would be sitting in the office and seems like they don’t want to talk to you. And even those who do sit in their office, they would tell you, you know, it’s okay to come in, but it’s hard. It’s very difficult to go in there, walk in there while they’re in their office. But for them to come out and sit with you and talk with you, just talk about the wind, and that will be the time that I will say, okay, I’ll ask you questions or I’ll tell you what I’ve been doing. And this particular boss has been very good at doing that. So I think it helps to have someone who’s in charge, who’s willing to come out and just chat. Not necessarily talk about work.

Mike: Right.

Paul: Nothing that’s billable, let’s just say. But those are the opportunities where I found that was really good just to say, okay, I mean, we talk about anything, but at the same we talk about work too, and it made me very comfortable talking to him during situations like that.

Mike: Is there a specific moment that you can think of, like, a recent one where you think of, you know, you brought up something that you’re working on outside of a review? Because I’m just thinking some of the listeners may not have reviews, maybe their bosses aren’t even doing reviews with them and so they’re thinking, gosh, well, I don’t have a review. Like, what’s something specific? Like, is there an example that you might have?

Paul: Yeah. One of the situations that comes up is, like, I guess that we’re just talking there or chatting about the wind, and then I will say, you know, hey, if we spend this amount of money on this particular gadget, well, we’ll save us so much more. For example, one of the products that bought is a very small laptop, it’s called the Spectre, and HP made it. It was probably about two or three years ago they start shipping it out. And my boss was very interested in having a small, little gadget to carry around, not something heavy. So I told him that, okay, it is possible for you to get this product, okay, but it’s from what HP called the home side of the product, not the business side. So there’ll be certain issues with buying it from the home side, of course, if you listen to them. So he bought it anyway because it’s cheap. It’s less expensive buying from the business side. And then the first issue that obviously that comes is, like, it stopped working. What did we do? So right away I told him that this is what you can do, this is basically the only thing you can do is ship it back to them to have them replace and repair. So we went into whole process of doing that and so he was happy that I knew how to get a way around the problem, which is not who I am, okay? We’re stuck with this, we can’t do anything with this, what do we do now? So he’s happy that I was able to right away give him a solution and he saw that I was prepared. We got the product shipped back and he got it back and he’s been using it since. No problem.

So I think, again, it’s that openness. You know, you need to have to have boss that’s willing to talk to you, come out and not be to the point where, you know, you do what I say and that’s it. I’m not going to listen to your feedback. And in this case, I have a boss that’s willing to listen to feedback.

Mike: Yeah, that’s great. And just trying to creatively thinking about it from the listener’s perspective, I mean, a nice strategy might be if you have a boss that maybe isn’t that open or isn’t communicating that much, you know, something that Paul brought up that I think is interesting is, hey, maybe put yourself in your boss’s shoes and think, okay, what are they doing every day that I might have an idea about, or I might be able to affect. Whether that’s cost, you know, managing cost for a company, like finding a less expensive way to do something that your boss is involved in so your boss definitely feels the cost benefit of you bringing an idea up that might save them some money.

Paul: Yeah.

Mike: Or something that your boss uses on a daily basis. You coming up with a creative way for them to improve the technology that they’re using is obviously a great way to communicate to your boss some of your capabilities and your intelligence and the things that you’re doing on a daily basis, is first of all think of your direct boss and think of what they’re involved in on daily basis, put yourself in their shoes and think, hey, how can I help them. And it may be a little bit outside of your day-to-day, you know, whether or not you’re working on servers or helpdesk or whatever it might be, but if you could take a minute to think of a way you might be able to help your boss, that’s a great way to at least start the upward communication. That’s great.

Paul: Yep.

Mike: Awesome! Okay, now those are the good things. But what I also like to bring up is a time where a boss has given you some constructive criticism or negative feedback. Although it might be painful for you to recount, can you take us a time where you’ve gotten some negative feedback from a boss or a little constructive criticism, and tell us, you know, the situation and how it kind of came about?

Paul: I don’t get negative feedbacks. I’m perfect.

Mike: I like it. I like it. Stay positive.

Paul: Actually, something that happened again very recently, usually we have staff that leaves and when staff leave we have to take care of what did they do with their email. You know, people have to be monitoring their email still in case we still receive emails from the clients that are directed to staff that’s no longer here. So one of the minor responsibilities is to find out from the partners and associate partners that are here, who should be managing that email box? And typically, we’ll leave it open for, like, thirty days so that in case we lose emails, we don’t want that to happen. So we capture any emails that still comes in from clients and directed to ex-staff. So I’ll send an email to the partners and associate partners and say, hey, who should be checking out and monitoring this particular ex-staff’s email? And one of the associate partners responded right away and said, ah, I think this particular person should be taking care of it. Okay. And I didn’t receive any responses from anyone else. Usually, when I don’t receive a response I’m thinking that means they’re okay with the initial recommendation.

Mike: Sure.

Paul: From one of the associate partners. So I proceeded in assigning that particular staff to check email for someone who’s no longer here. Since that person is working the project, I didn’t think that would be a problem and had gotten a great recommendation by an associate partner. Then suddenly I get this other email from one of the partners says, what? What did you just do? I go, wow, this is from one of your buddies here who says they recommended that this person should be checking the email. And then I get this message, I was in a meeting, I didn’t get a chance to respond to emails. So he came in and he chatted with me, and it was something like, you know, it was my mistake for not waiting a little longer to hear more responses from more of the partners and not just immediately jumping the gun on one single response. Usually I will wait, but this time I thought it was just email, checking on email. It shouldn’t be a problem.

Mike: Right.

Paul: But apparently to him it was a problem. So he would talk to me and say, you know, this is the reason why I don’t think this particular person should be checking the ex-staff email.

Mike: Sure.

Paul: And I agree. Okay, I don’t see it as a problem, I mean, if you want someone else to check, that’s okay with me. But that helps me remember that, well, again, I’m not perfect, unfortunately, and I need to remember too that they’re the bosses, they probably know more than I do, obviously, as to what’s going on with projects that are here, that we’re working on. And I need to allow them time to respond because they could be in a meeting or they could be busy and tied up and cannot respond immediately. And since then he has not brought it up. I mean, again, he’s comfortable to the point where, you know, when the problem occurs and a mistake is made, he’ll point it out and then he won’t bring it up again, which is I think very good for me because then I won’t be reminded constantly see you made that mistake.

Mike: Right.

Paul: You blew it. That means I think you’ll blow it again, but he doesn’t have that mentality. So for me, I’m fortunate to have a boss that’s like that, that doesn’t constantly remind me of the mistakes I’ve made in the past.

Mike: Yeah, that’s great. So if we were a fly on the wall in that meeting when he brought that up, if you could take us inside that meeting when he brought that criticism up to you – now, in hindsight it seems like you definitely have clarity on it – but in the moment, was your first gut reaction to be defensive or did you immediately know he was right and you’re more contrite about it at that point?

Paul: Well, it came through as a forewarning thing because I really could see the email first when he said, what?

Mike: Yeah.

Paul: I mean, that was like, uh-oh, what did I do?

Mike: Yeah.

Paul: Then I look back, oh, that’s right, I didn’t give him the chance to respond. And then the second email he says I was in a meeting, I didn’t get a chance to respond. So I knew what was going on because I had a chance to think about it, okay, I blew it. So that’s when he approached me. I’m ready to say, okay, I blew it.

Mike: Right.

Paul: I’m not going to be defensive about it and say it wasn’t my mistake, you know, my bad. So whatever he says, I go okay. You know, whatever you decide to do, I’m fine with it, you know.

Mike: Right.

Paul: I think at the same time he was telling me this is a discussion, okay, it’s not just me telling you what to do. So he’s trying to tell me that at the same time.

Mike: Yeah.

Paul: And I’m like, I’m aware that I made the mistake and if you believe there is a better solution, I’m okay to accept it.

Mike: Right.

Paul: So that particular situation I was not defensive. There were other situations that this occurred probably a year ago where I was setting a luncheon for the staff to learn more about the product that we’re using. And this is during the lunchtime, staff time.

Mike: Right.

Paul: But for some reason the same boss responded in an email and said, what are you doing? You know, why are you wasting staff time on learning about this product? I’m like, this is lunchtime, okay? They don’t have to come.

Mike: Yeah.

Paul: They bring in their own lunch. We’re not wasting company time. There shouldn’t be a problem with that. So in that case I defended what I was standing for and it was all via email. And unfortunately, we didn’t get a chance to talk face-to-face because he was away from the office. I was away from the office. And of course, the learning session proceeded as planned. It did go overboard, by the way. It did go beyond the hour of lunch. But I think he saw the importance of having the staff learn about a product that we’re using in the office even though it’s, you know, a little bit beyond the lunch period.

Mike: Yeah. So it sounds like in that scenario you had thought in advance that, okay, you know, if my boss objects to this, here’s why he’s probably going to object and then I already know that, you know, hey, we’re doing it at lunch and so you’d kind of thought through that.

Paul: Yeah.

Mike: A little bit in advance, probably, huh?

Paul: Yep. That one I think I won that one.

Mike: Yeah, yeah. That’s good. Well, yeah, and I think that’s important, you know, that the boss isn’t always right every single time they say something, but at the same time, you know, in the first scenario you brought up how you’d, you know, been given a moment and just admitting, saying, you know what, I was wrong and I think that goes a long way too. I think, you know, from my perspective having managed people, you know, there’s definitely some people who will never admit that they did anything wrong because they’re scared of repercussions or they’ll just avoid the conversation completely.

Paul: Yeah.

Mike: But they’ll never say you’re right, I shouldn’t have done that. I made a mistake. And it won’t happen again. And I see what you’re saying that it’ll just be like, okay, let’s move on, I don’t want to talk about it. But just even those words of saying I made a mistake.

Paul: Yep.

Mike: You know, and just admitting, oh, yeah, that was a moment of poor judgment on my end, I shouldn’t have done that, you know, usually they just want to skip that part and go to, okay, yeah, I won’t do that again, but they won’t say the words I made a mistake.

Paul: Yeah.

Mike: And I think that that’s a huge takeaway for everybody listening, that just even saying those words goes a long way with your boss.

Paul: Right.

Mike: Cool. Alright. We’ll move into a little bit of a lighthearted moment here. This is one of my favorite questions I like to ask. I hope you have a good story for us. What is the strangest or funniest thing you’ve seen at work?

Paul: I think this is a guy thing.

Mike: Oh. I already like it. I already like it.

Paul: You know, we’re an office that’s pretty large in size, meaning spacious. So it’s hard to talk when you’re sitting at one end in the office to the other end of the office. However, the strangest things happened in the men’s restroom. You can be standing there and doing your thing and then you go, hey. And another guy walks in and you’re like we were just talking. The boss will walk in and we’re just having a conversation right there and start a meeting in the restroom. Because again, the office plan is a little bit large and they’re in their office and we’re in my workstation and we don’t see each other to talk, but in the men’s restroom you’re stuck.

Mike: Yeah.

Paul: And again, it happens with guys because you just have a partition, right?

Mike: Yep.

Paul: We’re standing there. You know, hey, we do like to do multitasking.

Mike: Yeah. No, absolutely, there is always that moment there where you’re going, is this just awkward for me or is this awkward for both of us?

Paul: Yeah.

Mike: And you’re like, I don’t know if this is normal to be talking right now, but, you know, hey, this is what’s happening.

Paul: Yeah.

Mike: That’s awesome. Yeah, I think all of us guys can definitely relate. The female listeners are probably listening and go that’s the weirdest thing I’ve ever heard of. You guys are strange. But yeah, I’ve been there, done that. And like you said, it’s one of those moments where you’re kind of second-guessing whether or not this conversation should be talking place, if this is appropriate or not, and you’re kind of going, well, okay, do I end it now because I need to wash my hands and get out of here?

Paul: Yeah.

Mike: Or do we continue having this deep conversation in this echoey bathroom? It’s kind of weird.

Paul: Yeah.

Mike: But yeah, so that’s funny. Okay, last question of this section, Paul, is tell us a little bit about your next career goal and, you know, if you have a strategy on how you’re trying to chip away at that?

Paul: I mean, if I had it my way, I wish I could actually transition out of the architectural field and just dive into other fields and use my computer expertise and learn from those fields. But I don’t think I’ll have that luxury. So most likely I’ll continue to be in the field of architecture doing computer work. And I’m sure that there’ll be different technologies that will come up that I will have to learn more about and probably in the future focus on what that is. But currently, the strategy really is to just stay on top of the different things or gadgets that are coming out. Because technology is just changing so fast. It’s hard for me to predict what’s going to happen even a year from now because a year from now there could be something new invented where we’re not using now. And I may be just totally immersed into that field.

Mike: Sure.

Paul: Whatever that might be.

Mike: Sure.

Paul: So I’m leaving it pretty open for myself. I’m not going to fix myself on a goal which I don’t know what that’s going to be, especially in the computer field.

Mike: Sure. Now I know there’s a lot of avenues out there, but, you know, that you bring up a good point in talking about keeping up to speed on things that are coming out. What is your preferred method of keeping up to speed with new things that are coming out? Do you have a certain publication that you read or anything that you use to help you out when it comes to that?

Paul: There are so many different online avenues I get into other than the regular newspapers that are online. There are also discussion groups I’m very heavily involved in, especially in the area of the software that we use in the office. That’s one avenue where I’ve learned a lot from other people, the things that they’re using and the challenges that they have and perhaps solutions I can provide for them. And even talking to you, I mean, in your company, and what you guys do and I’ve never encountered a company that does what you’ve done. I mean, this is like four or five years ago that there’s someone actually out there who’s studying up and knows all different plans for internet service providing and as well as, you know, telecommunications. I didn’t know that kind of company existed. So just being exposed and being out there, just getting my hands wet on everything, anything that I can, and that’s how I’ve been in learning so much more.

Mike: Awesome. As much as I’d like to focus in on what our company does, but I’m like, let’s talk about that for the next half hour. No, just kidding. But as far as when you mentioned forums, you know, like online discussions, for the IT professionals listening in, you know, are there one or two forums in particular that you found really useful that you can share with everyone?

Paul: Oh, yeah. Again, in our field the software we use is created by a company, they’re very well-known, a large company, called AutoDesk. And a while back they basically grabbed all their forums that they had allowed others to control and they now basically took it under their own wings and had their own AutoDesk forum where they’re taking care of and discussing and looking at all the software suites that they have. And a lot of people have provided feedbacks. And that’s where I’ve been a lot and I will get on there every day and read other people’s problems and solutions that come up. And sometimes I will have a solution or I will search online, Google.

Mike: Sure.

Paul: Do a Google search for what others have done and see if there’s a way I could clip to change the solutions a little bit to match with the problem that others are facing just to make it work for them. So that keeps my mind thinking, exposed to what is out there right now with the software that I’m using for the company that I’m working at.

Mike: That’s awesome. Yeah, thanks for sharing them. I’m sure others are listening in, they could benefit from that.

Paul: Yeah.

Mike: Okay. So that concludes that section of our interview and onto the next, which I call our flash memory section. So in this portion of the interview, Paul, I’m going to throw out a few questions and we’re looking for short answers, but I have basically structured these questions so that the answers are jam-packed with value to the listeners. So with that said, are you ready for the flash memory section?

Paul: Sure.

Mike: Alright. So what part of your daily routine is most vital to your success?

Paul: Email.

Mike: Okay, email. So, is it like in the morning do you check it, or like, how do you use email in your daily routine?

Paul: Yeah, I would definitely check it every morning almost as quick as I can is when I get up because, like I said, I don’t have a cell phone, so they can’t reach me. I would have to check immediately to see if there’s anyone that either going to get in touch with me during the evening, during the night time I’m asleep because our office has two other offices in other continents of the world. So I maybe sleeping when they’re awake and they need help and need assistance, they will send me an email overnight and I’ll have to check right away. And throughout the day I’m actually constantly on the computer all day long, except right now this is the only time I’m not checking email and of course, when I go to take bathroom breaks.

Mike: Sure.

Paul: The rest of the time my computer is on. Outlook is always on. Checking email.

Mike: Awesome. The bathroom breaks is that’s when you have your big power meetings. Yeah, we get that. Alright. And then what is your strength?

Paul: I will say my strength is definitely analyzing, you know, analyze and take a problem and find ways to solve it and not just necessarily one way but like I said, multiple ways and see what is the best way to present it to the bosses here and let them decide because it’s really ultimately their decision, not necessarily mine.

Mike: Awesome. What would you say is your biggest weakness?

Paul: That I’d have to say that my biggest weakness is probably my desire to please. I’m definitely a people pleaser. I don’t want to necessarily face conflicts. So when another staff would come up to me and be very angry, I would very rarely, very seldom I will be angry yelling back to them. I would rather find ways to appease them.

Mike: Sure.

Paul: To find ways to calm them down to hopefully understand what the problem is and find ways to resolve the issue without causing a bigger conflict.

Mike: Absolutely. I think a lot of listeners as well as myself can relate to you on that one. That’s definitely one of mine as well. What single training has impacted your career success the most?

Paul: Yeah, this is what I’ve mentioned earlier. I did take that computer class when I was at college. Although, it was not my first computer class. I got to say that my first computer class training was basic programming. I hated that class. So I had to learn how to type really fast, and not fast but also correct.

Mike: Oh.

Paul: And if you’re off by one letter, the whole program does not run. But on my second programming class, Fortran, then that’s when I realized that I have a mind that’s very different than everyone else’s. I really enjoy that kind of challenge. And that thinking process that I go through to logically use programming language and come up with solutions, I think that was so impactful for me because as I graduated and came out to the workforce I realized that designing, being creative was really not that kind of creativity I like. The kind of creativity that I like is finding ways to program something and immediately get to see the results. That’s the kind of design work that I enjoy.

Mike: Very cool. What is an online resource that you can’t live without?

Paul: Facebook. I mean, two years ago if you ask me that, it would not have been Facebook because I did not jump on the Facebook until, like I said, two years ago where I thought, you know, what are my alumnis doing, where are they? You know, I graduated from college back ‘88. What are they doing now? How could I get in touch with all of them? So I got my picture, we all took pictures, class pictures. So I went back and try and find them all. This guy, what is his name, what is he doing now? And one of the ways I found out you could find people is on Facebook.

Mike: Yeah.

Paul: So I signed on to Facebook. And from then I’ve not left.

Mike: I tell you what, this is a good thing you don’t have a phone because, man, that is an addiction that will not go away.

Paul: That’s right.

Mike: Yeah, if you like Facebook and you have a phone in your pocket where you could check that all the time, it is a good thing you stay away from that phone. Forewarning. I’m speaking from experience. Stay away from that. I had to remove that app off my phone and then I find myself going online, you know, through just the web browser and finding Facebook online.

Paul: Yeah.

Mike: Even though I don’t have the app on my phone. I go, this is stupid. I took the app off and I’m still going to the website. But yeah, so that’s funny, though. I never expected an IT professional to say that Facebook was an online resource they couldn’t live without. So that’s a fantastic answer.

Paul: I work in an architectural firm. We’re a little more creative there.

Mike: Yeah, I like it. I like the transparency there. What telecom or cloud service provider have you had the best experience with? I throw this in there because obviously this is what our website’s all about, so I like to ask that question.

Paul: Well, again, it happens to be the company that you introduced to us, Level 3. This was TW Telecom and Level 3 bought them. And they had been really good to us. And of all the other previous internet service providers we had, they had been the most stable. I mean, we’ve been with them for now – TW Telecom at first were, like, three years and then now Level 3 for another two years, so of the downtime we’ve had while we’re working during the workday was probably about a couple of minutes. That’s it.

Mike: Awesome.

Paul: A minute here, a minute there, that was it. So, of course, right away people are sort of complaining I can’t Skype. Skype is down.

Mike: Right.

Paul: What are you Skyping? You should be working. But they’ve been really stable and it’s been our best internet service provider yet.

Mike: Fantastic! And I think you have left a review on them on our website, correct?

Paul: Yes.

Mike: Awesome! Awesome. So all of you listeners out there, that is a good provider that Paul’s had a great experience with, but if you have a provider that you’ve had experience with, go to our website and leave a review as well. That’s awesome. And then lastly, Paul, what are you passionate about outside of work, and then not only that but for those of us who might be a novice in that area, can you give us kind of a first step to start exploring that as well?

Paul: Yeah, actually I have enjoyed playing music. In this case, my guitar. And that was something I picked up back in college again. I was in this Christian group where they had a very bad guitar player. And I’m like, I think I can do a better job than that. So I got into taking classes at a trade school during the summer, very cheap, you know, a city college. And learned how to play guitar at church. And just was thrown out there and just playing, and singing and playing at the same time. I think it’s just the time you spend and you have to really enjoy again what you’re doing. In this case, I really enjoy playing guitar and singing along with it. So at church that’ll be something I’ll be doing. We have a little band that we’ll just keep practice when we have our opportunity to sing in the worship time. So that is something that I enjoy doing when I’m not at work, is music. There was one time I even downloaded the piano. But I realized that the piano was really not something that I can’t do that well.

Mike: Right.

Paul: Because I can’t read music, the notes well at all. I’m really into playing with chords and guitar chords are just so much easier than playing notes on a piano.

Mike: Right. Now when you go to play guitar, are there any types of music that you really enjoy playing, like, you know, more than others? Do you like writing your own songs? Or do you like, you know, doing kind of more cover music of other types of music that you really enjoy?

Paul: Yeah. Writing my own songs, I actually did that way back when I was serenading back then my girlfriend, who’s now my wife.

Mike: Oh, right.

Paul: She really inspired. I actually wrote five songs.

Mike: Wow! That’s awesome!

Paul: I should have not written a thing.

Mike: And it worked, though, it served a purpose.

Paul: Yeah. So the songs I like to sing are like contemporary Christian songs, very modern. And I’ve not tried to do any of the other songs that are more of rock based. But I will listen to them, but they seem very complicated to play. So I’ve not challenged myself to do that yet.

Mike: Yeah. Now, are you more of an acoustic guy or an electric guitar guy?

Paul: Oh, definitely acoustic.

Mike: Okay.

Paul: It’s just so much easier. And I like that tone. I don’t have to plug anything in.

Mike: Yeah.

Paul: To get that electric effect.

Mike: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, it’s funny you bring this up because I was thinking about taking that up with my oldest daughter and saying, you know, I wonder if we could just look online, if I could buy, you know, one or two guitars and I can look online if we could, kind of, teach ourselves. If that was possible, would that be something you’d recommend? Or would you say, like, definitely have someone teach you how to do it versus going onto YouTube and taking some lessons or something, you know, on your own?

Paul: Well, actually I think it’s a mixture because this is what I do with my daughter. I taught her how to play the guitar, but she only learned the basics, the basic chords. But then she’ll get online to YouTube and learn what other people have done and just taught her through YouTube, so she would do that. And then, of course, you know, going to a church where you have other people playing, that’ll also teach you and do more. So it’s a mixture of everything. It’s good to be able to have one-on-one, but then, you know, you can’t be one-on-one all the time.

Mike: Sure.

Paul: You have to really go out and explore on your own.

Mike: Yeah. So that was kind of my opinion, is that that’s where the passion really develops is that when you get to kind of do things on your own – she’s taken piano lessons for quite a while, but after a while that just kind of gets boring.

Paul: Yeah.

Mike: People telling you to learn a certain song and you get bored with it. It’s fun when you create stuff or you decide to learn something new or you decide to do a cover song of your favorite song that you like or things like that, I think that’s when it comes alive.

Paul: Right. Oh, yeah.

Mike: Yeah, that’s fantastic. Awesome. Well, thanks. That’s it, Paul. That’s our interview and I appreciate you taking the time to talk to us and share some of your insights.

Paul: Thank you, Mike.

Mike: And that’s a wrap. Thank you for listening everyone. I hope you all enjoyed the little switch-up today and hearing Paul’s story. I think I’m going to do that from time to time. I think it’s beneficial and I hope everyone got a little bit out of that. Maybe got a little bit inspired about his interactions and his little strategies in terms of dealing with people. I think it’s valuable for everyone. I know I learned a lot. So thanks for listening and a couple of quick reminders before we leave. Number one, don’t forget our transcripts. If you liked part of this program and you want to revisit it on a little bit slower of a pace so that you can read through it, go to AeroComInc.com and then go to the Blog section and then just search for this episode and the full transcript of this podcast episode will be there. We pay for these to get done just as a resource to our listeners. So make sure you take advantage of it. And the second thing I wanted to remind everybody to do is sign up for one of the upcoming webinars that I’m doing, the Four Cornerstones of Buying a Business VoIP System that everyone in your company is going to love. It’s a fantastic webinar. I have put a lot of time into it and I know you’re going to get some great information on really how to do a great job purchasing this upcoming phone system and cover all your bases so that everyone’s happy with your decision at the end of the day. All you have to do to find out how to register is text the word “VOIPWEBINAR” to the number 44-222 and I will see you on that webinar hopefully.

Alright, have a great day everybody. Hope you enjoyed it and I will talk to you soon.

IT Nation, thank you for joining us on Cloud Therapy with AeroComInc.com. Visit us at AeroComInc.com, that’s A-E-R-O-C-O-M-I-N-C dot com and head on over to the Blog section for notes on everything we talked about today as well as our blogs, provider reviews, and of course the best quotes for any technology.