Shepharding Sheeps

Yesterday was the last day of internship for some of the interns in the animation team. They had a good run for 3 months but were only able to work with them face to face for about 2 months due to covid 19 and working from home.

The photo above is currently all the interns that we've recently hired to be in the project I'm working on and some of them have been working under my wings. I could say that even throughout my mentoring them and all, this round, they're a bunch of really good and well behaved interns.

There are stories where I hear that interns not doing their work, suddenly disappearing from the office for few days, not replying calls and messages, basically the worst of things you can expect from the interns. While I expected for the worst, it turned out to be otherwise with these bunch. Also, it is my first time leading a project and a full department on my own. With about 10 members under my department including interns.

Of course I made the interns give their farewell speech as well because I know that they have much to say.

This leading thing and all has indeed changed me. I have been more vocal about responsibilities, I take my team's welfare priority, that means I care about them more than myself sometimes... And I call out bullshit when I see them. The latter one is something I had to do because I can't work with incompetent people. My personality as an INTJ makes me someone who holds high expectations on people and if I see someone incompetent, it irks me A LOT. Yea... So I learned to be vocal about it and you know when you are vocal and calling out other ppl's dirty rags, you don't get much 'likes'. But that is really okay because Im not there to please ppl, just wanna get my job done right and efficiently. During these times, I'm not sure if the people are mute or just don't have the guts to voice out because most of the times it's just me talking about issues. I also learn one thing that is very very important, never put personal emotions and work together.

I've only been managing my team less than a year, and I'm starting to see what the 'managing' people looks like and how they lead and truth be told, it sure disappoints. I hope to be able to do much better than them as a lead because I believe I can!

Have a great weekend ahead