Catching on to me

I've finished my first week at the new job, and I've seen a lot of what I'll be doing there. I've observed several different projects during my work week. When I started this company, I knew that a lot of what they were doing, I have done at other companies I have worked for. Yet, with the expectation that I would jump into this position on my feet and running, I haven't contributed much. I've spent much of it as a tag-a-long, observing what other engineers are doing. To sum my first week all in one word, I have to say it is: Booooring.

Yeah, I'm disappointed. I guess my expectations had been higher than I thought them to be. That's not to say that I dislike the place. I've met a bunch of people who all look to lighten up the day with oddball humor. More often than not, I am greeted with a smile when I pass by people.

It's just that I expected to be doing something. Anything. Activity that involves not standing to one side to observe what an engineer is doing. Or spending half the day reading specifications from four governing bodies on what I might be working on some day in the future. Especially something that I actually know how to do. Patience isn't a virtue that I am blessed with in unending quantities. I keep reminding myself that they don't know what I am capable of.

Somehow, I thought engineering would be more merit based. I expected to walk into some project and contribute in a meaningful way. And I suppose I would be, if I didn't have the title: F.N.E.G. (for those not well versed in engineering acrynoms, it stands for f*cking newbie engineering guy) Yeah, I am the low man on the totem pole, and in that respect, have the stigma of not "knowing" enough.

And during lunch, I am spending my free time reading on how to best capture pictures of fireworks during the upcoming Independence Day festivities. Perhaps, everything I am doing is merely to pay my expensive camera bill. Who knows? Would following my desires make the challenge less fun?

Next week it will be more of the same until they can determine whether I am useful or not. *shrug* I'll just have to keep counseling to myself that I must be patient. Maybe, as I wait for them to catch on that I really am capable, I'll plan on where I'll set up to take those shots next Wednesday.

Life changes and second doubts

So, I am in the midst of a life changing action, moving from one job to another. Along with this direction change, the usual introspection and doubts about what exactly am I getting myself into. I wonder about whether this disruption in my life was worth it.

In a financial sense, I have improved greatly with a significant raise and the tuition reimbursement benefit. Career-wise, I also seem to have stepped up to a higher level that comes with the new job. Yet, with all the obvious benefits in my job change, why do I feel like something has been lost? Why don't I feel any excitement in starting a new job?

It could be that with the blossoming of my lifelong hobby, photography, the grip of a new job doesn't hold a candle against the fun and challenge I am having shooting pictures of complete strangers. I find myself looking at the latest photography magazine trying to learn just a tidbit that might increase my skill set. I have worked long hours getting a set of pictures I shot to the point where I find them acceptable sometimes when my client liked the original. I will find excuses to stop what I am doing, just to work on the latest shoot that I've taken.

Recently, I read on one photography site that I frequent, that there is a set demarcation of five percent of one's income from photography as a good point to consider oneself a "professional" photographer. On a whim, I roughly calculated the amount of income I had earned in the past six months from doing just photography work. It amounted to twenty percent of my gross income during that period. I was blown away by that statistic. While I think that I have quite a bit to go before I accept that moniker, it has become apparent to me that I might have the potential to be good enough to be called a professional.

As an example, I did photo shoot recently, a sweet sixteen in upstate New York. I had a target of two hundred good and useful shots for the client. Out of the five hundred pictures I shot that afternoon, I ended up with over four hundred and thirty that met my requirements. With this many good pictures, I had to cull the pictures down to a more manageable number (some of the shots were duplicates in case someone moved). This was before I even tried to fix any photos that I thought were underexposed.

I was amazed that I had so few bad photos. Typically, I have about one third of the photos being no good because they were blurry from low lighting or fast movement as I shot the picture. Add to that, (I may have said this before) I have other photographers complementing me on the quality of photos that I am taking.

This head first dive into a new field (well, I've always had a hand in, but now I'm much more serious about it) that I have taken is the reason I can't wait to work on some new aspect of this "hobby". Yet, who knows, it could merely be another hobby that fizzles as the fun and challenge fades. This won't be the first hobby that I've exited after investing a huge amount of my time and energy learning.

I only have to look at the many different directions I have gone in and which I eventually decided that it wasn't for me. I've been theater stage hand, stage manager, assistant director, theater technical director, television broadcasting technician, video editor, audio visual installer, sound technician, audio engineer, lighting designer, roadie, computer repair specialist, system administrator, network administrator, computer scientist, customer support representative, salesman, carpenter, electrician, mechanic, air smith, and the list goes on and on. And soon, I will be an engineer.

If something has a manual, I can probably learn it. (Which is probably why I don't understand women? If only there were a manual... O:) So, with all this potential, I find it hard to be excited about this new job I am starting. Am I having second thoughts about this? Should I pursue this hobby? Do I hold to doing the work in the field I have worked so hard to get into?

Feelings at war with each other

Yesterday, in the part of Long Island where I am working, there were sunshowers on and off all day. I was amused by the novelty of seeing the sun out and being rained upon by the few dark clouds in the sky as I went about my lunch hour. It was as if Mother Nature couldn't make up her mind on which emotion she was feeling that day. Kind of like us humans having mixed emotions.

In my case, I'm not the type of person who has to conflicting emotions at once. If I'm happy, angry or sad, there's no room for any other feelings. I have only had the opportunity to experience the feeling where two emotions arose at once. I have to admit, I was quite overcome, and it took hours to sort those feelings out. Now. that's not to say I haven't written about mixed feelings before, but those mixed feelings sorted themselves out much more quickly, and I didn't have as much attachment to that particular set of feelings.

Of course, the object that evoked this new sensation was a woman. When we first met, I had been chasing this other woman for a couple of years without much success. This other woman had been leading me on, teasing me with a flirtatious nature that kept me wondering if I would ever find myself in a realtionship with her.

I was tired of the game that couples play when they chase each other. Tired of the hinting, the teasing, the sexual tension that was never relieved, and the constant "Is she or isn't she" that kept going on. In effect, I was in a "I hate all women" funk. (Yeah guys have them too.)

So, on the day I met this new person in my life, I had been feeling down and a bit put off by women in general. My friends and I were sitting in the hallway of our apartment complex and just chitchatting. There was a new tenant on the floor and we wanted to see who he or she was. She came out and introduced herself as Dina (not her real name) and sat down to join in on the discussion we were having.

With the mood I was in, I was saying things with a braggadocio that I wasn't accustomed to in front of these people. I said a few things that generally weren't flattering to women and clearly showing to the world how I felt about women at that moment. For the most part, I really didn't believe the things I was saying, but I said them anyway. (This is part of what I had mentioned earlier about feeling one emotion at a time) All the while, my newest neighbor sat there with a smile on her face as she listened to me spout that garbage out.

Have you ever gotten that feeling that you're bluffing and the person you're trying to bluff knows that you're bluffing? I had that feeling at that moment. Dina knew that I was just saying them without really meaning them. I could see it in her smiling blue eyes.

Fast forward to a few days later, I had asked Dina out on a date (which included dumping the other female faster than you can say "Get lost!") and we hit it off. I had her laughing at my jokes and I had a memorable evening without a hint of a tease or flirtatious gesture. It was exactly what I wanted. I felt like she could read my mind.

We went out for a few months, enjoying each other's company, when my lease came up and the landlord had doubled the price of the lease. I couldn't afford to live in that apartment anymore. I reluctantly packed up my things and moved to a cheaper apartment across town. At this point, that amazing relationship I had enjoyed started to disintegrate.

It was then that I discovered that the very proximity of our apartments meant that our relationship didn't need the formality of visiting. If we wanted to see each other, we would walk down the hall and knock on the door and come in. Now, if I went to see her, I had to be buzzed in and if she went to see me, she would require an escort through my new neighborhood. (I had moved to a less safer part of town.)

Eventually, we grew further apart. We both saw that things were coming to an end, and mutually decided to end the relationship. While we were still friends, the inconvience of distance strangled our relationship.

Now, I'll get to the part about how I felt conflicting and mixed feelings. A year later, I had moved closer to home (aka Long Island) and I lost touch with her. One of my friends decided to have a get together and invited me to his apartment.

Well, when I walked into that apartment, as I saw her sitting there talking to another friend of mine, she turned to look and when she saw me, ran over and gave me a great big, warm and welcoming hug. Two feelings warred for dominance and came out in a draw. I was all too happy to see her again and I was terribly saddened that what we had together was lost.

I nearly burst out in tears on the spot at that moment. I would have been hard pressed to say if they would have been tears of joy or sadness. As I mentioned before, it took me a while to regain my composure. Even now, as I write this, the thoughts bring back those emotions and I am fighting back tears on touching that old wound. Perhaps, by writing this out, I can begin the cathartic healing I need.

I wish I could offer a happy ending here, but as you all know, I am still searching, and still wondering if I will find someone who would be by my side to share in the memories and experiences of my life. Later on that night, I learned that she had found another who made her happy, and when I drove home that night, I avoided thinking about what might have been.

So, there, that is my only experience with emotions so strong that none could dominate and come to the fore. I wonder if others have felt so strongly such conflicted emotions. I hope that in sharing my experience, I might learn from others if such feelings are more commonplace.

Craziness at the workplace

So many thoughts go through my head during the day, some of them very pithy and deep, yet when I finally get home to write them down, I can't recall a thing. I know, I know. It's the first sign of age, forgetfulness. What was I writing about again?

In all seriousness, I suspect the spate of thoughts going through my head is simply evacuated by the doldrums of what I do during work. Some detail at work causes a "major" emergency (In other words, someone screwed up and the brown stuff hit the fan) and suddenly, everyone forgets that they have other more important things to do. It's especially amusing at my workplace, since the management/worker disconnect is extremely obvious and huge.

Management assumes (quite wrongly) that the process they've detailed is being followed to the letter. We won't go into the fact that if the workers actually followed those processes to the letter, output would slow down to a crawl. Workers, being pressured by management to produce units quickly, cut corners where they can to meet those demands. Occasionally, the corner is cut too deeply and we have abysmal yield rates and outright failure of an entire run of units.

Management analyzes what they think is wrong, not what their workers tell them is wrong, and issue process changes that may improve or worsen matters. The amazing amount of arrogance thirty years of experience engenders towards new guys like me is disheartening. Even though I may know what the problem is, I can't be trusted to actually know what I am talking about. So, I spend my time doing useless menial tasks that my nearly completed engineering degree over-qualifies me for. And the yield rates continue to stay low.

Since I can't recall what I really wanted to say today, and I've spent much of this post griping about my boss and his collegues, I will share some updated news about my life. I've decided to rise above my company's mismanaged woes and accepted a full time position at another company. Amongst the items I will receive are a few things that matter to me.

• I will no longer have to deal with the yahoos in management at my old company
• I get a significant pay raise (in the order of 40% increase on my current pay)
• I get a new title: Associate Engineer
• I will get tuition reimbursement on a pro-rated basis (depends on what grades I get)
  

To be honest, the last item was what really swayed me. As I have mentioned before, the inability to afford my tuition has kept me up more nights than I care to recall. In fact, I am still paying off last semester's tuition. This will go a long way in easing that burden. When I add what I expect to get in tuition reimbursement, the pay increase is something over 60%. Yeah, I am smiling at how my life has turned around. My perseverance has paid dividends.

I gave my old company my two weeks on Wednesday. When things go wrong at my company, I just remind myself how much longer I must suffer under the craziness around me and that brings me back into perspective.