Blog – Page 31 – The Renegade Coder

If you are interested in stories with happy endings, you would be better off reading some other series. In this series, not only is there no happy ending, there is no happy start and very few happy things in the middle. This is because not very many happy things happened in the life of the author... A Chilling Inspiration If anything in that opening paragraph rings a bell, you had a great childhood. When I was a kid, I didn't care much about reading books. Instead, I got most of my education from video games like Pokemon. While the gaming obsession never really changed, my outlook on literature changed when I started reading a collection of books by Lemony Snicket - A Series of Unfortunate Events. I loved these books and even today I hold onto all 13 of them in hardcover. But what does a children's book series have to do with engineering? Well, since I started my job, I couldn't help but feel much like the Baudelaire children. It was like every six months I was working under an alternate version of Count Olaf. Somehow each role managed to be more miserable than the last, so I made it an effort to escape engineering. My escape came in two forms: my website and a two weeks notice. The Power of Venting If it wasn't for this site and my support system, I'm not sure where I would be today. A little while back, I started this website as a bit of a coping mechanism. Well rather, I started a different website which eventually led me to The Renegade Coder. I was hoping it would take off, so I could gain enough financial freedom to finally quit my job. Unfortunately, it never really happened that way. However, aspects of working on this site have helped me cope with the everyday grind. In fact, I've been writing this series for over a year now as a form of escapism. As a tribute to the Lemony Snicket series and my frustrations with engineering, I've decided to call this series A String of Unfavorable Roles. Hopefully, the parallels start to become more clear as I tell my story. The Final Escape Contrary to my opening paragraph, there is a bit of a silver lining. March 29th, 2018 marked the day I finally escaped engineering. At 2 o'clock, I turned in my laptop, removed my parking pass from my car, and exited the gates of engineering hell for the last time. For those of you checking your calendars, March 29th was actually a Thursday. That's right, I didn't even finish out the week. While I wanted to leave the 30th, HR had other plans. Talk about a Good Friday. Phew! I can't believe how exhilarating it is to finally say that I'm free. I absolutely loathed my job, and it was taking everything I could to keep going. But I can finally say that it's over, and I can get back to enjoying my life. I'm not sure where I'm headed, but for now I just want to share my story with the hope that it may drive some cultural changes in the realm of engineering. If not, at least I escaped. Where Our Story Begins Before I embark on this inevitable rant, I want to share my career trajectory thus far. Perhaps you'll be able to help me figure out where I went wrong. The College Life I got my first job when I was in college as a part of the work-study program. I basically just managed a music library for my university's music department. The job wasn't great, but the money helped me afford food and books for the semester. For my first job, I sorted music for a few of the ensembles on campus. In the summers, I worked for a tent rental company which involved a lot of manual labor. I absolutely loved that job, and it was always a shame when I had to go back to school. The only downside was that I had to work weekends which meant I spent a lot less time with friends. By the time I was a junior, I had a new work-study job as a teaching assistant for the introduction to Java course. I was loving life at this point because I was doing two things that I really enjoy: exercise and mentorship. Boy was I in for a rude awakening. I worked that tent rental job for two summers before I decided to take an internship with a large engineering company. It was my first 'real' job, and I was going to be making four times what I was making normally. Naturally, I was ecstatic! I had basically no responsibilities, so I was ready to get nothing but cash flow in exchange for 40 hours of my week. That was until I actually started my job. The First Engineering Job That summer I decided to get an apartment with a friend of mine about 25 miles from work. For those counting, my daily commute was roughly 40 minutes each way. In other words, I was getting up at 6AM and getting home at 6PM every day. In addition to the drive, I was also having a hard time making friends. After all, I wasn't living with all the other interns, and it was almost impossible to bond with the regular employees. Unlike them, I wasn't over 40, arrogant, and antisocial. So naturally, that summer was pretty miserable. Nothing quite like driving to and from work in the dark. By the end of the internship, I decided to interview for a full-time position. Clearly, this is where I went wrong. After all, I was miserable. Who in their right mind would ever think to stay the course in this situation? So in the confusion, I did what most people my age would do: I asked my parents for advice. It was at that moment that I actually came to terms with reality. People need to work to survive, so I had to suck it up and get that job. Of course, in that realization, I broke down in tears. The job I applied for was a rotation program which moved me through the company every six months. Being an eternal optimist, I thought maybe my internship was a bad representation of the company, and that this rotation program would allow me to explore my options. Of course, I got the job. The Big Mistake I guess I was just being overly optimistic about the whole situation. I knew I hated my job, but I thought maybe it was just the team, or the drive, or the building, or the... the list was nearly endless. Eventually, I decided to suck it up because people started pressuring me into taking it. "Oh come on!" they'd say, "How bad could it be?" I started second guessing myself. I thought maybe this is what growing up was all about. Over the next year, I cherished every minute of college and that little work-study job. By the time I graduated, I was back to my cheerful self. I felt like things would be different this time. Except they weren't. Sure I was 20 miles closer to work, so I could run home for lunch every day. And yeah, I was able to pick my roles this time, but I still hated it. It slowly became harder and harder to get up in the morning. I was getting pretty depressed, and I was even starting to get nasty to those close to me. Once I realized how bad things had gotten, I figured there was really nowhere else to go but up. That's when I clung onto one of my favorite quotes: "You can't fall off the floor." So I got up and started writing this series. I figured it may someday benefit someone. What's Not To Love? I can't just hate on engineering for the sake of hating on it. I mean I really do enjoy it at least from the standpoint of academia. Hell, I loved it in college. Every day was a new adventure, and I often found myself working 12-15 hour days including weekends just to get work done. Seriously, engineering is pretty cool. Then, I hit the industry. At that point, I was only really working 40-50 hours a week, yet I was completely drained. Sure, I was also taking some classes, but I still wasn't working nearly as hard I had in college. That's when I started doing a bit of research to find out if others felt this same disconnect between academia and industry. Turns out, I'm not alone. Common Misconceptions But let's back up! Not everyone has a solid footing in this dichotomy between academia and the industry. In high school, engineering is advertised as follows: Engineering is a discipline that focuses on the application of skills from science and mathematics to solve real world problems. To become an engineer, most people attend a four-year university where basic engineering principles are learned and applied in the classroom. Once graduates, students fortunate enough to land a job are rewarded with high pay and plenty of benefits for their families. That should be enough to entice a few stragglers, but engineers pretty much know they're going to be engineers before all this marketing bullshit. Once you're in college, however, the story changes a little bit: Engineering is an applied science which draws on critical thinking and knowledge from core subjects like Physics, Calculus, Chemistry, and Biology to provide innovation throughout the world. Engineers work in diverse teams with state-of-the-art equipment to address the needs of humanity. Okay, I'm blowing this out of proportion a bit, but these were the types of dreams I really had as an engineering student. When I thought about engineering, I imagined the industry's best and brightest in companies like NASA, Google, Amazon, Apple, IBM, Lockheed Martin, General Electric, Westinghouse, Boeing, etc. I'm talking the heavy hitters which developed many of the technologies we take for granted every day. When I was a university student, engineering felt like the pinnacle of existence. The Reality of Innovation So what's not to love? Engineering as a whole is a very prestigious discipline, and those with degrees often live pretty comfortable lives. Unfortunately, what no one likes to talk about is engineering's dark side. In my short time as an engineer, I've found it at a minimum stressful and unfulfilling. However, I wouldn't want to leave you without sharing at least some of my experiences, so I've written this series to highlight a few reasons why I've decided to abandon the discipline. If anything comes of this series, I hope it's a push for a bit of a culture change in the world of engineering. If not, at least I'm free.