Just before graduating from college, I was invited to interview in Miami, Florida, for a position with Carnival Cruise Line. On my prioritized company list, Carnival did not even break the Top 10, let alone the Top 25. In fact, Carnival was not even on my “coolest companies to work for after college graduation” list.
Apple was either 1 or 2 on the list. Oracle was part of the top 5. Carnival was, well, here is the story.
I was bored at work. Scanning student aid documents as a part-time employee while attending school could only keep my attention for so long. So I surfed while the documents finished processing before I organized them and committed them to the online student files.
Living in Florida after leaving active duty in Georgia had advantages. Jacksonville was a large enough city for me to enjoy that staying in Jacksonville seemed like a good thing for me to do. Job prospects post-graduation were less than easy to come by. That was why web surfing at work led me to Carnival.
The idea of moving to Miami was not my first or even fifth preferred relocation. I was still in the military reserve and had friends who meant something to me because I met them post-military life. Uprooting myself to head south just did not sit well with me, but there was an option that I had not considered at Carnival until I saw it posted: Shipboard Positions.
Remote Work on Steroids: Discovering Shipboard IT
As I browse lists of different openings, one stood out: shipboard information systems manager (I/S manager for shorthand). It was like a light turned on in my head. I could continue to “live” in Jacksonville while working for a Miami-based company. It was remote work on steroids!
So, I applied. And I waited. For about two or three months. Then I received a response, “We would like to interview you for the role of . . . ” and shortly after the email, I was flying from Jacksonville to Miami for an interview to be an I/S manager.
The interview process was a full-day gauntlet. One question stood out for me that day that has stuck with me for years. Drumroll, please . . .
The Interview Question That Changed Everything
Would you rather be liked or respected?
I thought for a moment. Wait, what?
Can you legally ask that during a job interview? How should I answer this? This must be a behavioral interview question trap.
“I would rather be respected,” came my reply. “People change their minds several times per day, and so being like is subjective.”
Short, simple, deep.
And profound.
Liked or Respected? Why My Answer Still Matters
For me, being respected is foundational. It means I have been seen as a qualified professional. Someone who can be counted on to get the job done. I know and practice my craft in a way that has allowed me to build a reputation that people talk about positively.
That, for me, is the foundation of being respected.
How does that stack up to the disruption generative AI is bringing to product development?
That is a question I am struggling with daily. I do not have a clear answer. Heck, I do not have an unclear answer!
This is what I am doing while I try to figure it out.
- Spending time working with gen AI daily
- Attending collaborative learning sessions
- Helping others discover different ways of working with gen AI
- Experimenting, failing, adapting, and experimenting again
- Building publicly
- Laughing at myself a lot
- Writing blog and social media posts sharing my experience
- Creating a playbook for people to learn from
- Breaking things created by gen AI
- Fixing things created by gen AI
- Learning to read programming languages
- Automating routine work with gen AI
- Integrating automations into workflows
- Developing meta-workflows that connect workflows and automation together
- Architecting AI agents
And the list could keep going.
Becoming a Respected Professional in The Great Inversion
To make this long post into a short distillation: I never stop learning.
What are you doing to carve a path to being a respecte professional in The Great Inversion?
