mod-0-capstone-gear-up-FE

mod-0-capstone-gear-up-FE.md

GearUp: Empathy

1. What role does empathy play in your life and how has it helped you?

   Empathy has guided me to becoming a good wife, friend, daughter, sister, co-worker and stranger. Empathy has taught me to be caring and thoughtful. To step into the shoes of others, see situations from their perspective and therefore be able to more appropriately and effectively interact.

2. How does empathy help you build better software?

   Software is made for computers. Computers are used by people. To best design for people, you have to understand people. Empathy is feeling what others feel and being able to share those feelings. When we understand what others want and need, we can then design better software around that.

3. Why is empathy important for working on a team?

   A team works best when every member of the team can contribute, share, and understand the task at hand. Empathy connects members of a team to communicate best on all levels. To communicate their thoughts, consider the thoughts of others and to best come up with a solution that meets all needs, not excluding the needs of the user of course.

4. Describe a situation in which your ability to empathize with a colleague or teammate was helpful.

   I work for a graphic design company that designs and creates merchandise for athletic events. That also means we have to go out, set up tents at events, and sell that gear. I have a rather new co worker who has been doing a great job since starting. Very up beat. A go-getter. However at this tournament we were working, she acted very different. She was not happy, not energetic, even sluggish. My boss immediately scolded her and expressed his concerns to me that perhaps she was not a good candidate for this position. I decided to go talk to her. She told me she was feeling terrible and had thrown up that morning. Since she was new to the job, she did not want to admit her sickly feeling to my boss. I empathized with her and put myself in her shoes. All of her actions now made sense. And when considering the circumstances, she was actually doing really great work. I went back to my boss and explained the situation. We both empathized with her, he changed his perspective of the situation, and all was good again. He even adapted the requests he asked of her that day to minimize her struggle with the flu.

5. When do you find it most difficult to be empathetic in professional settings? How can you improve your skills when faced with these scenarios?

   When deadlines are being pushed or missed I find it hard to be empathetic. It is so easy to think 'why wasn't this project started earlier to avoid or account for potential unknown conflicts that could delay, whether is related to work or personal issues'. When faced with these scenarios, I do take note and perhaps build even more time into the next project to account for more time. I also remind myself, it is just work. It is upsetting to miss deadlines, but if its not life or death, is it really the end of the world? No. Transparency also helps. If a co worker has any inclination of something that might arise both in the work place or at home, its best to bring this issue up right away. Personally, I know I try and hide issues, thinking I can solve them on my own, but sometimes not and things build up therefore causing missed deadlines. I understand that we are human. Life happens. We can all try our best and thats the best we can do.