Here it is, my current company-National is officially in history.. the acquisition deal got clear on all regulatory approval and by next Monday, you won't find National Semiconductor in the map.
I still remember my job interview..
It was five years ago, 2 months after college, when most of my peers had found a job or at least an interview, i was yet to hear back from all the job application i submitted... I should have worked harder in college, this was the thought that kept me awake in the night, I was out of job, out of school with a second lower degree and worst of all.. almost out of money...
One casual day...I can't remember what's the occasion but i went to visit my buddy at his house for lunch, her girlfriend who also graduated on the same year showed me one job advertisement from Star Job, "National Semiconductor Walk In Interview". If my resume couldn't get me to an interview, then probably a walk in interview was the only way...
Surprisingly, i managed to got past my 1st interview without much hassle.. and because of that i went to the second interview feeling very confident... but.. i screwed up my second interview because i solidly failed the same test paper.. even though it was my second attempt.. my passion to my own major was questioned, i had to went thru an awkward moment of silent for 1 minute before i could make up a lame excuse to get pass that moment...
Just when i thought it was over and ready to go back to my miserable life, i received a call from HR 2 days later and i was hired... till these days, i don't have a single clue about why but.. i got the job..
My 1st job at National was a yield engineer, a job title which often raised the eyebrows of the people whenever I tried to explain to them… but how could I blame them when i couldn't quite understand it myself until the second week on the job? One might wonder why would picked that job when I didn’t even knew much about it… the truth was I didn’t expect to stay on the job for more than 1 year… I fully expected to quit after I gained some technical experience and move on to Sales/Marketing sector in the field… but one thing led to another… here I am.. in my 6th year with National..
Life in National has always been a challenge, I already got grilled in my 1st meeting with the Department head… who publicly told me his secretary could do a better presentation than me on engineering yield improvement, after all i did spent the last 5 minutes reading words out from slides which I did not put together.. let alone understood… but thank to him, I learned the lesson about being accountable/knowledgeable for whatever I present in a meeting.
I remember how my 1st encounter with the Production Executive went, I saw him tossing my mentor’s request form for a lot rework into the trash before turned to me and said “Welcome to National”.
I remember those times when I often found myself helpless in the middle of production floor, either begging someone to help me on machine setup, or begging for machine time so that I could attempt to do my job. I was very frustrated about the hassle I needed to go thru just to get my job done, I started complaining a lot about this … but then I realized some of the Engineers did not have this problem at all, then i asked myself why?
I started to observe how these people deal with the production folks, and then I realized I had some serious negotiation and people dealing skill to pick up.Thru this, I learned the lesson about the importance of seeing things from others perspective and always attempt to seek for Win-Win situation when comes to a conflict…
6 months thru my job, I got my confirmation but without an increment, I was a bit disappointed because I knew someone else in my group got it. My manager told me not to feel bad because the company stop giving increment upon confirmation so everyone didn’t get it… this was how I learned the lesson about people tend to bullshit so never trust them completely.
Soon after my confirmation, I was given the opportunity to work on an important project as the dedicated yield engineer. I was summoned to the DH office and he spent about 30 min to brief on my responsibility and what’s his expectation, 3 days later I found myself on a flight to Taiwan for a subcon visit. I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do even when I reached Taiwan, the only thing that was clear to me was I had to send out daily reports to the entire management teams, about production performance on 3 different factories and at the same time, driving the yield improvement activities. The audiences of the report scattered around different time zone, this means that if there was single wrong information in my report, it could lead to a wrong decision made by team members who worked in a different time zone. If that was not intense enough for a new guy like me, the audience of the report includes the Senior VP of the National manufacturing, who was 5-6 levels above me and 1 level below the COO.
I’d been hearing stories about him firing underperformed managers and DH. I was under a lot of pressure with that responsibility,spent more than 12 hours a day doing data analysis and put them into report... would then get nasty feedback from other team members who didn't agree with it, some times the feedback came from the Senior VP himself. Anyhow i managed to cruise thru the storm, and thru that experience i learned the importance of good communication to cross functional team.
As time went by, after working in 3 diff departments, for 7 different managers, in 2 different countries, my encounter with National has come to the end. National had been around for more than half decade and i'm glad i'm able to be part of it for the last 5 years. This company had always been generous in giving opportunity for young man like me, and i'm grateful for it as i witnessed my own development and growth throughout the years...
Come next week, the same company will be known as TI, but National will always have a place in my heart.
