Why am I here?
How did I get here? How did I get here amidst a global pandemic? As usual, it all starts with problems. After getting accepted into the STCM program, I made a VISA appointment which got cancelled a couple days after as lock-down started to be put in place in Argentina. That was the first of many. A couple of days later the news channels where announcing that all flights in and out of the country got cancelled for an indefinite period of time. I could defer for next year, but I had already put in my resignation for my current job that was sad to let me go but loved to watch me leave as the company took its toll due to COVID-19. Long story short -I’m here.
Problems, that for me is the biggest thrill. Being a problem solver is not only natural, is what motivates me to keep going. From a young age I was already breaking remote controls apart to see why the channels weren’t changing if I had just put new batteries. Granted I not always fixed them and a bunch ended up in the trash, but the ones I did fix, my next move was never to sit down and flip through the channels until I found something good. The problem was solved, and my job there was done. I don’t know who wanted to watch T.V. in the fist place, the point is that the device that helps you change through channels wasn’t working, and now it was. Done. Let’s move on to the next challenge. I believe that thrill to solve problems is what led me here. Each problem brings in a new question, and a new challenge, and needs a certain level of understanding to get solved, and why not a dash of creativity to find an efficient solution.
In those years of destroying remote controls, I also fantasized with developing the first automobile driven by joystick. I remember it vividly partly because my mom has never put that story to rest. But I used to drive around in Gran Turismo in my PS1 and it was so simple, X for gas, ▢ for breaking, and the paddles for turning. So simple even a kid like me could win the GP of Monte Carlo. And yet when I sat in the car and saw my mom drive it always seemed so complicated. There had to be a better way. Of course these days we are more concerned with automating the whole car riding experience rather than sticking PlayStation controllers in the front seat of Telsas but that spark in me trying to make complex things in life a bit more simple is still intact.
In my teenage years I went through a phase of try-it-all in order to find myself. I did rugby twice a week, tennis every other day, skateboarded whenever it wasn’t raining, listened to way too much music, started playing the guitar thanks to YouTube, learned to create stencils and spray painted my entire room, and a long list of other things that it’d be too tedious to tell. But at this point I started wanting to be an industrial designer when I grew up.
My dad wasn’t happy on this decision, and took me to see a vocational therapist who recommended I put my math and science favored intellect to a better use and pointed in the engineering direction. She even suggested I could do a Design Master after becoming an engineer if I wanted it so much. Funny how things turn out. But 2 years into engineering only proved to make me realize how hard calculus actually is and how much more I enjoyed the technical drawing classes.
Since quitting school wasn’t an option, my easiest way out was quitting engineering. But how could that be accomplished while also not saying the word quit and making it look like the change was for the better? That’s when my big brother came to the rescue, and helped me get recruited to play collegiate tennis in the US. It seemed just as good as engineering, I was still in school, and I was getting an experience abroad. Win-win scenario. Part of creative me had died in engineering school and at the moment a business oriented career made more sense. I’d be more hirable. And a degree later that premonition turned out to be true when I went back home and in a couple of weeks I was already working for a big name corporation.
I got into a marketing position and slowly the creative-problem-solver spark in me started to flicker again. I got to be part in the creation of labels, advertisements, publicity stunts, social media pages, new flavors, packaging changes, and all the responsibilities tied to a brand manager. And after doing that for a while, I was put into a newly created team with the sole purpose of creating new brands and products in agile ways. Our goal was to solve problems, and fail, only to solve the new problems that would give rise to new failures and new problems and new solutions. I was hooked.
Hooked but unprepared. The right mindset is a big part of problem solving, but so are tools, methodologies, knowledge, collaborative efforts, technology, and so many other factors that come into play as the problem only gets more and more complex.
And that is why I’m here. To ~get more tools, learn new methodologies, gain more knowledge, understand the importance of collaboration, implement new technologies~ solve problems.
