When Opportunity Became a Threat
The Memory Division was a new environment—full of possibility and opportunity.
But like the saying goes, “Opportunity comes to those who are prepared.”
What came to me, completely unprepared, wasn’t an opportunity—it was a crisis.
To be even more honest, I turned that opportunity into a crisis myself.
Before looking back on this failure in detail, I should probably take some painkillers in advance—
the kind called “trial and error.”
Thanks to the pain I went through back then, I was later able to prepare much more thoroughly for my job at Ericsson, using a book called The First 90 Days.
So let’s revisit this still-aching memory.
How Do You Even Explain This?
How do I explain this so that even readers outside the industry can understand?
If you work in this field, one sentence is probably enough:
I worked as an ASIC designer, and while tasks like using Lint tools, DFT, and Synthesis were similar, misunderstandings started because the IPs, scripts, and workflows were completely different.
For most people, that probably sounds like nonsense.
I tried explaining this in much more detail—over and over—to family and friends, but no one fully understood.
Even the HR representative from the Memory Division I spoke with during my exit interview just looked at me like, “Huh?”
So let me try an analogy.
The Tomato Sauce Misunderstanding
Imagine this:
I worked in a department that made and sold various kinds of sauces, and my role was “tomato sauce.”
Then one day, after getting hit in the back of the head by a rock, I woke up to find myself transferred to a pasta specialty restaurant under the same company.
At my first meeting, I introduced myself as someone who handled tomato sauce.
The department head reacted enthusiastically:
“Oh! Tomato sauce isn’t easy. You already know how to do that at your level?”
With high expectations, I was assigned the task of making tomato sauce—for pasta.
If only I’d known then how much misunderstanding a vague career description could cause.
The First Day Everything Went Wrong
On my first day, a basket of fresh red tomatoes was placed in front of me, along with this request:
“You said you can make tomato sauce, right? Go ahead.”
That’s when I realized—something was very, very wrong.
In the sauce department, my tomato sauce work meant receiving one ton of already-crushed tomatoes every day, adjusting sugar and salt depending on the product, and handing it off to the cooking team.
I never imagined that making tomato sauce in a pasta restaurant meant:
- washing whole tomatoes
- removing stems
- chopping and crushing them by hand
- seasoning them quickly
- and cooking them to the right temperature for immediate use
So when I said:
“Uh… I don’t actually know how to prep tomatoes…”
my very first button was fastened completely wrong.
Or rather—
that’s when I realized it had already been fastened wrong from the start.
“You said you made tomato sauce, but you can’t even prep tomatoes?”
That’s how I became that guy—the one full of empty confidence.
From Incompetent to Arrogant
When I explained how I’d worked in the sauce department, I got a response filled with half disbelief, half disappointment:
“I see… then I’ll teach you from the beginning. Watch carefully and learn.”
That’s when my second black-history chapter began—without a break.
As I was being taught how to prep tomatoes step by step, I should’ve just said:
“Yes, thank you for teaching me.”
But because I’d once seen someone else do tomato prep, I stupidly opened my mouth:
“Wait—so you prep tomatoes by hand here? In my old department, we had machines. You just checked the boxes and loaded them.”
That was it.
Now I wasn’t just incompetent—I was incompetent and arrogant.
Digging My Own Grave
This kind of mistake didn’t happen once or twice—it happened countless times.
I said “In LSI, we did it this way” so often that eventually, just seeing my blank face, someone snapped:
“What—LSI didn’t do it like this, so you don’t know?”
To make things worse, I had terrible social awareness.
I only realized how much resentment I’d built up after overhearing a coworker talking to the department head through the partition:
“ㅇ님, D-nim isn’t doing x-task, so the work isn’t moving forward.”
The x-task was trivial—if they’d just asked me kindly, I could’ve finished it in minutes.
But they had no reason to be kind.
We Weren’t Teammates—We Were Competitors
We weren’t colleagues.
We were competitors fighting over performance evaluations.
At the time, employees hired as CL2 could be promoted to CL3 in their 9th year if they received:
- one “A” rating, or
- two “B” ratings
Better ratings meant faster promotion through a fast-track system.
Consistent “C” ratings—or worse, a single “D”—meant delays.
That cohort had an unusually large number of new hires.
From their perspective, someone like me—who suddenly appeared as a 5th-year employee with a master’s degree and two years at LSI—wasn’t exactly welcome.
That’s probably why some CL3s casually warned me when I transferred:
“That cohort has a lot of people. It might be hard to get good evaluations.”
I only understood what that really meant after it hit me in real life.
Understanding Comes Much Later
I was only able to organize all of this chronologically about a year later—after everything had happened, while meeting people over coffee and waiting for my resignation date.
Friends who’d only worked in LSI couldn’t fully grasp the situation, no matter how many times I explained it.
But then someone who’d moved from Hynix to Samsung listened to just a few sentences and immediately said:
“So basically, this happened, and then this, right?”
I was shocked and asked how he knew.
“Memory departments are pretty similar, whether it’s Hynix or Samsung. I can picture the atmosphere.”
He also said something that stuck with me:
“What’s impressive about LSI is that everyone has their own specialized role.”
Now I finally understand what he meant.
In Memory, one person handles the entire tomato sauce process.
In LSI, each step—prep, mixing, cooking, packaging—is handled by specialists.
A Disaster I Created Myself
At the time, all I felt were the wounds left by sharp words and cold behavior.
I started by blaming them for harsh territorial behavior.
Only much later—long after I understood performance evaluations and internal competition—did I realize that my clumsy words and actions had provoked that backlash.
It was, quite literally, a grave I dug myself.
A disaster I summoned on my own.
What I’d Do Differently Now
After immigrating to Sweden and spending a year resting, I finally gained enough distance to see things more objectively—and I’m deeply grateful for that.
If I were given another chance, I promised myself:
- I wouldn’t make shallow comparisons like “In my old team, we did it this way.”
- I wouldn’t vaguely introduce myself as a “block owner” without proper explanation.
Because of that, during my Ericsson interviews, I explained my experience clearly and precisely—what I could do and what I couldn’t.
I followed a line I remembered from The First 90 Days:
“Under-promise and over-deliver.”
Why This Failure Still Matters
Failing to adapt in the Memory Division taught me how easily “speaking my thoughts honestly” can cause misunderstandings, hurt people, and lead to irreversible outcomes.
But more than anything, I’m grateful—to the people, the books, and the time and space that helped ensure this failure didn’t remain just pain.
That said, it’s still too early to wrap this up neatly with gratitude.
More painful failures are coming.
For now, this is the time to cut the wound deeper—and drain it completely.
If you would like to see the original post in korean click here
An Engineer’s Memoir in Another World is prequel of Forgetting Arc
