Field techs

My job title has the word “engineer” in it.  That’s no big fucking deal, just about everyone can use that word to make a menial task seem important.  The word has become diluted and meaningless to the common user.  I’m not an engineer, I’m a field tech.  I used to be an engineer, long ago and before the bubble burst I used to design systems and make decisions.

I got into some “office politics” trouble once because they promoted a secretary to the engineering group to keep her off the lay-off list.  She was some guy’s wife and I really laid into management saying, “You can’t just put a new hat on this bitch and call her an engineer, you’ve got to know what you’re doing…”  After the lay-offs, I ended up working for a new manager.  It was his wife that I had laid into…

But I was a damn good engineer though, mostly because I was a field tech for years before that.  So I knew what “the real world” situation was.  Now I’m back to being just a “field tech”.  Even if you give it an official title that sounds important, I can only do what “they” tell me to do…

But dammit, I’m not only a great engineer, I am a GOLDEN GOD of techs!!!  I know what the fuck I’m doing!  And most of our engineers know this.  When Morgan says he has an idea, you shut the fuck up and listen!  I was not working with one of our regular engineers last night.

(Oversimplifying:)  Imagine a very cumbersome wire run into a series of 25 very hard to reach points.   So, the wire runs from A-B-C-D-E…to Z.  They call you and tell you that they want to incorporate a new point.  They originally skipped “W” and now they want you to install W.  This guy has me rewire A through V!  I told him it would be easier to just leave A-V and rewire XYZ.  His answer?  ”Well, that’s not what’s on the paper here.”

After a short period of disbelief, I close my eyes and remember that this “major” work I’m doing at 7:30pm was not on the schedule until 1pm this afternoon.  Someone just doesn’t have their shit together.  So I spend 30 minutes running in a new cable on top of the old cable I’m tearing out.  A two minute job ran 45 minutes because “that’s how some other guy wrote it up”.

You can tell when the engineers have never seen anything other than the spec-lab.  It should be a requirement to have worked in the field before you are allowed to decide how to run the field…

It just keeps pouring in, these last few weeks have been a trial.  If I could have my way, Christmas would be cancelled!

We’re just recovering from a rough episode and just when it looks like we’ve got it under control, like everything’s going to be alright, along comes a third/fourth party saying, “Hey, let me rock the shit out of that boat for ya!”  We were dancing all around a very delicate issue and we thought we had achieved containment when BOOM, the shitstorm blows right back in…  So we spend another couple of days trying to fix a problem that is “unfixable” in the short term so all we can do is try to calm everyone down again.  Spending 3am wondering how we’ll manage in the morning.

Then we get a surprise visitor that has a smile on his face but darkness in his heart…  In those late-night, early-twenties, 2am-at-a-Denny’s conversations with friends, I was always the one who argued against the idea that there is no such thing as an altruistic action.  Up until this surprise visitor showed up, I sincerely believed that a person could be nice just to be nice and for no other reason.  This person has extinguished that last spark of idealism in my soul.  People do good things so others will go, “aww, aren’t you just a swell guy!  You’re so great!”  or they do it in the hope that it goes on the celestial record books for when they die.  Nice people are nice for a reason, they want to balance the scales or hopefully tip them in their favor.  Karma, Heaven, whatever… I’m not so sure I believe in innocent actions anymore.  Thanks for that.

Everything is just about dealt with, there is still some minor ugliness to come but nothing we can’t handle right?  So we sit down to lunch and try to breathe.  Just breathe…  That’s when I see my phone has a message on it.  I call my voicemail and before it even asks me if I want to save or delete the message, I’ve got my shoes on and I’m reaching for my keys.  A friend of mine is going through his own crisis and called for help.  I’m out the door and on my way.  Half way there I call him and  I’m waved off.  The message came in an hour ago and there is nothing I can do now.  So I turn around and head home thinking about how insignificant most of my problems are.  Aside from the one major issue we’ve been dealing with all week, most of the other shit I complain about can be simply ignored…

It’s been a rough season though.  And the weather is not helping.  80 degrees at Christmas just fucking sucks!  I know I’m still stuck in Florida, I know I have no right to complain about the ocean being wet, the night being dark or Florida being warm but dammit, on top of everything else, the weather is NOT helping my “Christmas spirit”!

Seriously, if I didn’t think it would cause more problems than it solves, I would just call off this whole festive season you people seem to be all cheerful about.

However, one thing has made me smile this morning…

My parents are coming over with the rest of the family for Christmas dinner tomorrow.  My mom asked if there was room for one more, my uncle who I almost never see.  Of course there is always room at our table for anyone, but I’d be especially happy to see my uncle show up.  So I considered dropping by and asking him myself, just so he knows we’d love to have him over and that’s when it hit me; a nephew stopping by on Christmas eve to invite his reclusive uncle to dinner tomorrow…  Sounds familiar doesn’t it?  So even in the midst of all this bullshit, I had to stop and have a short laugh…

Go, try to have a good day.  Smile even if it hurts.  Love someone, be good to everyone.  Let’s all try to get through this crappy holiday and maybe rethink the entire event next year.  Merry Christmas.

Sometimes we make bad choices
Rash, hurried or ignorant, we choose… poorly
Too often, the result isn’t clear for a long, long time

Because we don’t see the repercussions,
We compound multiple bad decisions over the years
Until we end up in a mess, until it’s too late

Much too late…

They’ll always tell you it’s never too late, but they are wrong
You will reach a point where you’ve piled on enough good with the bad
That burning it all away would destroy you

This is not the life you imagined
This is no longer the life you want to live
You are miserable in your existence

Death is a goal that can’t come soon enough…

Seeing now, the errors that you’ve made
You want to go back and do it right this time
But doing it all over again is impossible

And going back is harder than going forward
Push onward, get through the rest of this life
Without making worse decisions

Than you already have…

If I started my own drinking game where

• I do a shot every time I see the same “inspirational” quotes posted by two friends on the same day
• I do a shot when I see different authors given credit for the same quote
• I do a double shot when both authors are wrong and neither friend correctly attributes the quote

I’d be very, very drunk by now…