An eclectic IT career: Mayo Takeuchi

During my period of career turbulence - which actually began as far back as 2014 if my retrospection is correct, but officially began in early December of 2017 - one recurrent talking point that my employer's CHRO and CEO both expounded upon was how they sought resources who were (not their words, I'm being succinct) emotionally intelligent and mentally flexible . Another trending topic from both the HR and economic viewpoints, particularly in North America, seems to be that of how millennials are contributing increasingly to the creation of a " gig economy " - seemingly voluntarily jumping from contract to contract. In both cases, it helps to possess a curious nature: learning curves, be they academic or social, are best scaled when one inherently enjoys the process of acquiring knowledge and then applying it. However, the bigger mental challenge might, in my opinion, be to keep an unflagging sense of optimism about impending change. We may speak to it, but actua

Try the quiz linked via the graphic, to answer 20 questions all skewed towards extroverts Most of my socal media profiles openly declare my self-identification as an INTJ (estimated to comprise 1-2% of the population, and popularly depicted in fiction as antagonists or anti-heroes). I've tested as such since I was 11, though during my university years I came close to registering as INTp. Of course, Myers-Briggs has had numerous valid detractors , and one criticism is that the dichotomies of I-E etc. are not quantified by the labeling: that is, one cannot tell just how strongly introverted I believe myself to be. And since it's a self-identifying classification, one could easily delude oneself into believing that inclination is manifesting directly into actions, meaning that others may not classify one as belonging to that type at all. Nevertheless, lately there have been quite a bit of confrontation between the two camps, where one normalizes one's preference and m

Congruent, yet independent. A Mallard mother and part of her brood, Stadtpark Pond in Vienna (July 2013) The above photo, of a duck and her ducklings, was one of my (unsuccessful) entries in an intra-organizational contest just last month. Coincidentally, the notion of "treasuring wild ducks", metaphorically speaking, had been one of the subjects covered during my employer's Centennial commemoration. There is a 14 minute video with beautiful animation and story-telling, if you happen to have the time and inclination. As those following my  +Mayo Takeuchi Plus  presence may have realized some years ago, ducks are the most common type of wildfowl that I can readily record, in both still and moving images. This year in particular, the local park has seen a bumper crop of ducklings. Their precocial abilities still manage to impress me: aside from the youngest ones emitting a high pitched, urgent peeping call when they lose sight of their mother, they know how to indep

I once had a brief conversation with a colleague, after I'd co-founded a "Council for Writing Quality" at a previous workplace. He'd scoffed at my efforts, and I can still remember (and recreate) a steep rise in my blood pressure when he said "But, others can understand [the message] anyway. Who cares if there's the occasional typo?" It probably behooves me to insert a disclaimer concerning both people with dyslexia or other linguistic learning disorders and non-native speakers at this point, prior to commencing my rant in earnest. I certainly wouldn't exact the same standards for either writing or pronunciation when I'm aware that they're functionally blind, cognitively impaired, or if the language happens to be someone's second, third or fourth tongue. But the above paraphrase originated from someone who was not suffering from any known linguistic impairment and only knew English natively. Perhaps it's because English was not m