I must really be an engineer

I suppose there are only a certain number of years you can do something without it feeling like a part of you.

I was looking at myself in the bathroom mirror at work today, when I thought to myself, “Hmm, I don’t think I like this particular implementation of this design concept,” in reference to my PANTS.

Ok, so I must REALLY be an engineer now.

My friend Holly and I have had numerous talks on how we feel like we gonna get “caught” one day as software engineering frauds for various reasons:

• Neither of us were programming majors and didn’t plan on landing where we have
• We both wonder if we should be doing something else at times, something more related to things we value socially and societally
• We feel like we are great with “systems” design and solving “big picture” problems, but are not super-duper experts of specific syntaxes of specific languages
• Some other stuff too complicated to cover here 😀

But given how much my everyday engineering pervades my consciousness and thought processes, I must, to some degree, really BE an engineer. Hmm. It’s an interesting paradigm shift for me. If I start seeing myself as an engineer, then this might shift my long-term goals in a different direction. For instance, I have to contemplate things like:

• Do I want to become a project leader?
• Do I want to move on to management?
• Do I want to become a director?
• Do I want to stay in a senior engineering role?
• Even if I change eventually to a different industry, do I want to carry over my “engineer-ness” to whatever I do? For instance, I have for a long time considered shifting eventually to a teaching or counseling role — perhaps not now, not even 10 years from now, but later in my life. But perhaps I could become a programming instructor in a community college instead? Perhaps I could work for the school district in some capacity, such as implementing/maintaining/upgrading computer networks throughout the schools or supervising computer-related education?

See?! I do everything in bullet points, even that last one that really shouldn’t be a bullet point. This is what mean.

I don’t know. I do feel like I can be sort of role model to offer to kids at the critical juncture between success in failure, which I think happens late in junior high or early high school. I came from a poor background with a violent home situation, overcoming language issues and racial and gender discrimination enough to get me to a well-paying white collar environment where people respect me and rarely question my judgment.

My path was such a straight line. I think about this constantly. For so many people, they don’t get to follow the straight line. Despite my few (but common) disadvantages, I still had and have a LOT of advantages going for me. I feel as though if I can somehow use what I’ve learned and achieved to get someone else to the same point, I’ll have accomplished something truly great and worthwhile.

Man, I know I do this same type of introspection over and over again and it’s boring to read about. But I feel like now, if I can accept that I am an engineer and this is the concrete thing I have to offer to society, I can start planning around using my assets to achieve my longterm goals, rather than floating from job to job, from day to day.

And to think, all this from pants.