Less Stress

Sometimes I think life would be so much better if I had a job as a check-out clerk at Wal-Mart. The hardest part of my job would be figuring out whether or not someone was using their card as a Debit or Credit. Seriously, something goes wrong with the cash register, you get to turn on a flashing light and someone comes to bail your ass out.

I wish there was a blinking light in engineering. When I get stumped on a design, I could turn my "need assistance" light on, someone would come over, put a key in my computer, press a couple of buttons and... viola! Problem solved. But I can't. Add to that the fact that I work for a very small firm, so even if I ask someone for help or their opinion, all I get is, "I don't know. That's why you're the engineer." I hate that response. It's like I'm suppose to be some all-knowing guru. Newsflash - I'm not. Sure most engineers love to brag about how smart they are, how invincible they are... blah-blah-blah... I'm not one of them. I make mistakes (too many to count), and there's a lot shit I just don't know.

Working for a small firms also means I end up having to do alot of work that isn't in my field of expertise, hence this post. I just don't know what the hell I'm doing so I spend a good part of every day having to learn new stuff. While the nerd in me would generally love this, the billable engineer does not. Time is money, and learning time is not billable time. It's just not how the consulting world operates.

My depth of engineering knowledge has grown abundantly over the past 3 years here, but with that has come some seriously frustrating moments. Times when I've really felt like calling it quits and moving on to a mind-numbing position at Walmart, but I don't because the thrill of "getting it" keeps me clued to this chair.

It still wouldn't hurt to have an "oh shit" light on the corner of my desk.