Monthly Archives: September 2006

there are two reasons why it’s nice to get to work at 6 or 6:30 in the morning:

1. my regular 45 min. or 1 hour of goofing off gets packed in before the day starts, and

2. the sunrise over edison is awfully pretty.

Excitement is being asked to choose a dinner location for a group of out-of-town work colleagues close to the office, even though you’re not really a local, and finding out that the thai restaurant you’ve picked and said was “nice” is not the one you’ve brought everyone to at all. At least the one we did end up at was very wonderful, with a menu in both thai and english and really fantastic food. not so much with the ambiance, though the napkins were cloth. my coworkers took a photo with their camera phone and promised to reciprocate with an equally exciting dining experience the next time I was in baltimore. heck! I bet that photo makes it into a presentation sometime.

in other news, what are the odds that me having thai food 3x in 4 days contributed to the coup in thailand? when a butterfly flaps its wings, that’s what I say. anyone got any special food binge requests for me?

I’m now officially a project engineer/assistant project manager. Which means I get to order new business cards – which makes set #4 that I’ll have ordered in the 1 1/2 years I’ve been here. So far I have had cards for the mahwah office, for the edison office, and updated cards with my PE on them. I’m so glad I just put “engineer” on my notepads! I’d hate to waste them.

of course, now my coworkers are trying to figure out the best way to let the disgruntled senior engineers in the other office know about my promotion. you know, just to shake some cages and rattle some chains. I think I’ll just call up my buddy and let HIM know. he’s a chatter, he’ll probably spread the word pretty nicely. I feel so awkward about it though! there are people who have been working for much longer than I have, and who are not being advanced like me. partly it’s because I’m good at promoting myself and have an advanced degree and a license, but it is still a little lopsided. What can you do? I must remind myself that I worked hard to get this promotion, even if it did seem to go by “all in a days work.”

after all that rumination I did about my job, and after being so successful and being told about the raise/promotion, I accidentally almost got another job on monday:

there is an annual labor day street fair in my town and the hackensack riverkeeper had a booth. I stopped by to introduced myself because I want to help out – I mean, I am cleaning up the environment right now, but it’s for these industrial clients, mostly, not for the Common Good. I want to help the people! and the earth! I’ve been thinking about volunteering with a local eco/community organization. I said that I am an environmental engineer and next thing I know I’m talking to The Riverkeeper. He started to tell me all about the organization and who does what and then about how he’s looking for a policy person and as soon as he gets funding he’ll be hiring and I was like WHOA NELLIE! and I told him that I would LOVE to volunteer with the organization where ever I can fit in for now and that sustainability and policy and wetlands are, like, my VERY FAVORITE THINGS. I’m going to call them this week and see if I can stop by soon to see what they’re working on and how I can help.

it’s not just me, either – my friend kathleen was with me and as we walked away she said “that guy was going to offer you a job!”  seriously, in every angle of your life: when you’re confident everyone wants to work with you or be with you.  Amazing!

It’s a funny situation I find myself in lately: I do, actually, enjoy my job. it’s challenging in a way my old job never was. (the old job was most challenging in situations like: BITING TONGUE so as not to offend boss with direct and powerful honesty.) The work is totally different and not necessarily at all what I thought I’d be doing with myself (esp. after that sustainability masters) but it IS effective and interesting and enjoyable. I love my coworkers. I love my fancy new notepads with my name and P.E. on them. And most amazing, I see potential here for real career development and growth. When does THAT happen? I see a corporate ladder that is scaleable, and I see a consulting company that isn’t half bad. they’ve even noticed that there aren’t many women in the board rooms. they’re giving me training, and they value me as an employee and a colleague. It’s pretty amazing.

The funny situation is that I don’t really know what to do with myself. I still have not committed myself 110% to this career path, and I guess that’s just fine. I mean, I still want to succeed, and I’m not unhappy at all, but I am in a very weird place where my employer really likes me, I like them just fine, I’m doing a darn good job and am recognized for it, and I just don’t know how much excitement to expect. I’m back at that “fun hobby or career path” dilemma – I heart alternative fuels and would love to call up mike bloomberg and tell him that in order to solve potential blackouts before they occur he should make like Aurora and outlaw the incandescent bulb. but I just don’t know where to go with that.

And then I find out that I’m getting a promotion and the seemingly wildly huge raise in the 10s of percents. Which is, honestly, pretty great in an industry that doesn’t refer to annual raises that are 3 or 4% as “standard of living” increases, even though they are obviously NOT a real raise, but just keeping up with inflation. Suddenly it seems like I really MIGHT be on the right track, and that maybe I am doing a very good job, and maybe this IS one of those things that I’m decent at.

I think that maybe because I’m *not* unhappy here I find myself questioning if I’m trying hard enough to get what I want. When you’re unhappy the best path is much easier to find. it’s when you’re satisfied that you really have to look around to decide what you want. And then there is that whole gifted child thing, where I want badly to do well, but not badly enough to actually work at it, and if something seems like it’ll be hard I have to talk myself into going through with it because the fear of failure is hard to overcome. Ironically, I will say that the older I get the less afraid I am of failing. it might be that I am more secure in my abilities, but it might be that I am more confident because I know I’m good at lots of things.

anyway. I guess I’m doing something right, despite being out of the office for 7 days this month. maybe someone noticed all the late nights I’ve been putting in? maybe they haven’t noticed how I am very strict about comping those late nights as vacation time? whatever – I’ll take it!