WTF #2: Motivating the Unmotivable
What The Flux is a semi-regular weekend feature on EngineeringBlogs.org that follows the follies and jollies of an engineer in industry, yours truly.— Last week, I mentioned that Santa Claus came to town to shut down our satellite office. What I didn’t tell you was that Santa Claus had a private meeting with me the night before the official announcement. He wanted me to stay with FluxCorp and suggested that I accept an offer to relocate and transfer to another part of the company. He also made it clear that there was no Plan B should I reject the offer. Next morning, I went to work and watched my colleagues being their usual cheery selves, knowing that in another hour or two, those cheery smiles will be turned upside down once Santa Claus arrived at the office. Santa was pretty blunt in his delivery — straight forward, no BS, and…
I have it all figured out
When I was a kid, I used to take things apart to see if I could figure out how they worked. I realize I’m probably like every other engineer in that regard, but I was also one of those who failed to put things back together many times. I suspect I may have been more successful with time, but my parents put the kabosh on that particular behavior pretty quickly. Thus, I was doomed from the get-go as an experimentalist. I learned to program when I was 9, and it turned out I was actually pretty good at it. Ironically, I never considered a career involving programming until college. I had wanted to go into physics after having a great time in high school physics classes. I love figuring things out, and that’s what physics was: non-stop problems that you had to figure out. It wasn’t until I enrolled in…
Needy Students: The Ultimate Motivator
This week’s theme at Engineer Blogs is motivation and, if you can’t tell from my late post, I’m motivated to work on other things right now. My discussion on this topic is highly linked to a previous Theme Week on Deadlines. In that post, I discussed how I toss in procrastination and deadlines, and mix it with pressure and a dash of biting-off-more-than-you-can-chew and come out in reasonable shape (when it’s all over). GMP had a comment that she worked in a similar fashion, so I was somewhat relieved to find out I wasn’t the only one. When it comes down to it, I think I’m most motivated by not wanting to let other people down. I’d like to think that I’m the person that comes through 10 times out of 10 (SHAFT!). That doesn’t mean I’m always successful (hence my recent proposal rejection) but in the context of coming through in the end, I’m…