Career Advice (for me) or A Creative Outlet for Worker Angst

So.

I realize that it's been quite some time since I've updated you on anything really.  Over a year.

Often I find it difficult to summarize my thoughts into a coherent string of sentences.

I've decided to forgo that for a time and see what kind of word vomit I can produce and if I can get any feedback on it.

Here goes:

I hate my job.  Well, I guess that's not entirely true, I very strongly dislike my job.  Trouble is I can't really put my finger on why.

Part of it is probably due to how segregated I feel from the general populous while doing calculations (I'm a structural engineer...kind of our thing, or so I'm told).  I just don't see the allure in sitting at a desk with my head down and not talking to people and grinding out calculations that I have no interest in.

Liken it to the monkey on the grinder box.  I'll spin the handle over and over again, and I get some treats for doing so, but after a few weeks of the same song, it just becomes a task/reward scenario.  I turn the wheel, I get a treat.  I don't turn the wheel I get a treat to motivate me to keep turning the wheel.  Very cyclic and not very interesting with no real room for outside thought.

Which is probably what troubles me.  By no means am I a good engineer.  I didn't study for and consequently failed the FE (Fundamentals of Engineering) exam in college.  Just didn't have my heart in it then.  After working for an engineering firm and seeing what it would be like to do this day in and day out for thirty to forty years, I've go no real designs on going back and attempting it again.  I've also go no designs for achieving my PE (Professional Engineering) License.  It just doesn't seem like something that I'm interested in pursuing.

Don't get me wrong, I know my way around the code and have spent quite a long time preparing welded connections to know how to put together a generic calculation.  But the drive to learn more and do more in this field has been waning for some time.  I don't know how to remedy this, but it's a simple fact for me at this point.

Furthermore, it's hard to get up and come to work everyday.   It's not the commute, I've had a commute since I graduated college.  The commute is a great time to read books since there's not much else to do.  So I get to read for pleasure a lot more than I would otherwise find time for.

It's the work, and not the workers.  The people that I deal with and talk to on a daily basis are actually quite nice people.  They don't have the same condition I do though, most of them seem content to do the same things over and over again.  Could just be a reflection of how sociable I think I am versus that of a stereotypical engineer.

Often at work I find myself distracted from my assigned task because it holds no intrinsic value or interest to me.  Apparently at work I'm know as "the internet guy", which truly doesn't offend me in the slightest.  It's quite nice to be recognized for a strength.  I can find almost anything people are looking for or need on there, mostly because my distractions tend to lead me down the internet's pathways more often than not as I'm tied to a desk with access to it.  I'm sure most people have an outlet that they go to for a quite respite or someplace for their mind to wander off to in times of boredom.

I'm quite familiar with youtube, to the point that if it had a first name, we'd be on a permanent, longstanding first-name basis with each other.  I have over 150 subscriptions to different people on youtube.  I watch most of their updates, but I've started to get more selective in what I watch.  Mostly due to time constraints than anything else.

But I've taken a pretty serious digression there, back to work, and how I'm unhappy with my present situation.

I've talked to a handful of people regarding my situation.  Most of them say to look someplace else, see what's available.  But what do you put on that tagline, "College Engineering Graduate, willing to do anything but engineering calculations, and trade sexual favors for money".  Doesn't seem like it'd get a lot of hits on monster.

Others have said to just suck it up and go back to pass the engineering exams I mentioned.  But to what end?  To further pigeon hole myself into a job that adds no value to me or my life other than a paycheck?  There comes a time when money can't be the driving factor anymore.  When you have to say, that I'd rather be poor and happy than rich and unhappy.  Right?

Or is it just me?  And I the only one deluded enough to think that way.  If so, please let me know and I'll toe the line like everyone else.  But I have to believe that there's a career path that doesn't make me feel like this.  A career path where the goal isn't just to work long enough so I can retire and not have to work anymore because at 28 that's a long hard road of misery and strife.

So what should I do?  Should I go back to school even though I'm not done paying my student loans from my bachelor's degree?  If so, then what should I go to school for?  I'm open to whatever options present themselves.  Please feel free to email me or message me on Google+.  Relatively few times will you find me far from reach of the internet, both at work and at home.

Some basic pointers slash things I don't want to do:

1. I'm not good at public speaking and don't really care to become proficient.
2. I'm not very aggressive or even overly assertive, so a sales position and I would not be a good fit.
3. I'm not interested in the sex market or sex trade, don't really think this needs further explaination.
4. I'm probably not the type to get motivated by commission type positions (i.e., sales, see above).
5. I'm not great at high pressure, high stress, and long hours (or any combination of the three).

Some things that have been suggested:

1. Teacher (Public speaking's a no-no).
2. Accountant (Don't think I'd handle the stress of tax season too well).
3. Stay at home Dad (Possibly in the cards, no kids as of yet though).
4. Something in the medical field.

I guess that's all that I remember anyway.  So I ask you Internet old friend, what insights can you provide me.  What knowledge are you willing to bestow?  I am,

Sincerely,

Corey

Work + Working Out = Sickness = No Posts

Sorry for the extreme delay.

I've decided that getting up before 4:30 am, getting "home" between 6:45 and 7:30 pm and then working out for an hour to an hour and a half and then trying to cool down and relax enough to sleep is an improbability bordering on the insane.

I don't know that if I had kept up with it that I'd be here speaking with you today.  And as sad as I am to admit it.

P90X has defeated me.

For now.

It's just been too much all the time.  I was trying to build good habits and get into a routine of working out, but I'm crawling all over the plant all day, granted that's not working out, but I'm still sweating my ass off.  It's non-stop all the time.

And before we get all nit picky, I do have time to eat breakfast at work and lunch and take breaks here and there, but during those times I've generally got paperwork to keep up on.  It's a rough schedule that I've been maintaining and my health was suffering because of it.

So after staying in bed all of last weekend trying to shake this sickness and most of this week fighting to get over it, I've decided that I'm done working out for now.

I'm just going to put in my hours at work and come back here and read or watch youtube videos or netflix or something.  Decompress if you will.

My quality of life was suffering, so I'm done with it.

I'll try to get better about posting.  I'm also going to try to get better about calling people back.  I know that quite a few people deserve phone calls from me to update them on my status directly, but I've just been so beat at the end of the day, that entertaining the notion of calling people was enough to exhaust whatever stores I had left for the day.

So, in the coming weeks, I'll do my best to stay in better contact with them and with you all here.

No real hard promises, but I'm going to try.

My Grandma on my Dad's side sent me a book and I've been meaning to call and thank her about that.  She's also sent me newspaper and magazine clippings.

My Mom and Dad sent me a care package with some fruit snacks and stuff in it, so that's a thank you to them as well.

It's my fault for trying to over extend on an 'outage schedule' (my nuke workers will understand that, it's six 12 hour days, granted, I only worked about 9ish hours on Saturday, so I guess I can be grateful for that).

Long story cut short.  I'm sorry and I'll try to be better in the future.

Today's laundry day and then I'm going to do my best to relax for the rest of it.

S is coming to see me next weekend, so I'm doing my best to remove the remaining traces of sickness from my body so that I'll be up for hanging out.

I'll keep you posted as events unfold.

Hasta.

Apologies

Sorry for the lack of updates recently.

I've been trying to get stuff situated for my new work schedule.

Sunday was spent running errands (I never made it to polo).

I went to Walgreens and bought some toiletries (deodorant, etc.) then I went to the groceries from the store.

After that I went to the Dollar Tree and bought a plate and two sets of silverware (which it's really stainless steel from China, so not silver) since I'll be here for a month, I figured the $4.19 was worth it for convenience.

Then back to the hotel to unpack and debate on ordering another pair of scrubs for work, which I'll probably do, but I need to do more research.  They need to be 100% cotton otherwise the blended materials generate too much static and I could pick up radon particles, which isn't horrible but it makes it more difficult to get out of the plant since radon is technically radioactive and you can't leave the plant with any particles on you.

So yeah.

The touch, the feel, of Cotton, the fabric of my life.

Whatever.

So anyway, after that I went and returned my black Chevy Impala and got a White Chevy Impala in return.  It's not all bad though.  This one is one class higher though.  It's got a moon/sun roof and remote start.

So I've got that going on.

After that it was pretty much just hanging around the hotel until we decided to go to dinner.  We were really on a reconnaissance mission to see what would be open at 4:45am.

Yeah.

You read that correctly.

I got up at 4:15 this morning and then showered and ran downstairs.

Gross.

Well, last night we went to Pennsville Diner.  They don't open that early.

But, the waitress recommended Deepwater Diner, which is open 24 hours.

It also smells like mold/mildew.

Gross.

So we're not going there again.

We're going to try Wawa tomorrow, see what they have going on.

Don't really have high hopes, but we shall see.

Anywho, I'll try to find time tomorrow to talk about the work that I'm doing but this might become an every other night thing so that I can catch up on sleep an whatnot.

Don't worry, I'm still working out.

I really need to see if the weight room has a scale, I'm not really seeing gains in my physique, but I feel like my endurance is improving from week to week.

Hasta.

Applebee's

Well, that's the reason that I've not posted yesterday.

I was at Applebee's.

I closed down an Applebee's.

Which happens at 1am.

I don't really know what happened.

I think it was just a celebration of this being our last free Friday where we're not going to be exhausted.

A minimum work week of 5 twelve hour days starts on Monday at 6am.  From there we'll "reassess" our need to work weekends (Read: we're going to most likely be working weekends).

Anyway, back to Applebee's.

One of the guys and I went over for dinner at like 7:30 or 7:45.  It's a chain, I know, and I know that's against my protocol.  But we didn't even get back to the hotel until like twenty after six and there's not a lot of options that we saw, also, it's about 50 yards away from where I'm sleeping, so there's a big convenience factor.

So we're sitting and we're bullshitting, not much going on.  We ask the bartender about the fest that was supposed to be going on over there today and she didn't know anything about it.

Nothing doing.  We just kept sitting and eating and drinking.

Then the rest of our party from Chicago joined us and things started to pick up pace a bit.  The conversation drifted from sports, to drinking, to the fest down the road and if we should go or not, and to religion and back again.

It's pretty much your typical I'm getting drunk with work people so let's talk about everything we can think of, it's a thing.  Trust me.

I've done it quite a few times.

Anyway, after a time I switch to Irish whiskey on the rocks.

That's the downslant.

I can hold my liquor, that's not an issue.  It's just that I don't bounce back like I used to, so today's pretty much been a wash for me.  I did fill out my expense report today though, it's close to $3.8k in expenses.  We'll find out in a few days if it gets approved though.  Should be interesting.

Other things that were discovered is that the back-up catcher for the 2005 Chicago White Sox championship team apparently is from Pennsville and just lives up the road a bit.  He came back here to his home town and coaches little league and mows the lawn for fun.  A real Forrest Gump story with the "stupid is, as stupid does" part.

It's pretty crazy, I guess.  I'm not a sports person, neither do I really go all fanboy over anything, I don't really care how famous you are, you're still just another person to me.  One of the people we met at the bar says he knows him real well and that's a real stand-up guy, so that's always good to know.

The other thing that we found out about is that there's a polo game on Sunday at Brandywine park or something like that on the other side of the river.  The couple we met said that a polo field is roughly the size of either 6 or 9 football fields.  The woman said that most of the horses that they use are Thoroughbred horses do to size and speed.  They are apparently the horse of choice for the sport.  So we were invited to go along with the people we met because the guy's wife, who was there is playing this Sunday and she's won championships and trophies and the like, should be a good time.  I've never seen a polo game before.

Anyway, sorry for the lame post-up.  I just don't have a lot of funny today.  My head hurts and I'm exhausted.  I'm probably going to call it early tonight and just hang out in the room and watch TV.

But before you go and scold me, yes, I did still workout last night.  And, yes, I did still workout today.  Today's was just much worse than it probably should have been due to my present condition.  Although, today was Yoga X so I probably sweat out some of the toxins, so that's good.

Hasta.

Plyo X

All I have to say is one thing.

Bullshit.

The one leg guy is cheating.

He's got to be down...what?....20 pounds? 25 pounds maybe?  They never really say how far up his leg is missing.

That's got to be where they get you.

You're like, "Hell, if a one leg guy can do it, anyone can do it."

No.

False.

The one leg guy's got an unfair advantage.

I'm sure if I was 20-ish pounds lighter, I'd be jumping around like a jackrabbit.

But no.

Apparently I suffer from dual-leg-can't-do-plyo syndrome, wherein, I sweat my ass off trying to keep up with a guy who's 20 pounds lighter than me....by a leg....literally.

He's got a leg up.

He's one step ahead of me.

Are you getting the puns?

It's ridiculous.

Also, while "trying to take it easy on my knees" like Tony (the main guy who's yelling at you the whole time in the video) is constantly telling me.  I think I hurt my foot and my knee.

When I put lateral pressure on my right foot, in a rolling motion, it hurts on the outside edge.  The knee of the same leg is all wonky.

So maybe I will finally be able to keep up with the guy.  I should just have my leg removed.  That'll teach him.  Would be the easiest twenty pounds I've ever lost.

Plus I'd get some wicked drugs out of it, probably get some time off of work.

Overall this might not be a bad endeavor.

Well, until you consider showering or taking a dump or all these other things that most people use two legs for, stairs, etc.

Bah, it's probably not worth it.

Oh well, I'm going to go soak a wash cloth in some water and put it on my neck.  I don't think I've sweat this much since that time I went hiking in the desert...in southern California...in the mountains....at noon.

Yeah.

I'm a brain-child...I know.

Don't rub it in.

Hasta.

P.S. Some shout outs.  My Grandma on my Dad's side and the lady she lives with sent me some pictures from vacation this year and Irish Fest.  I put them up on the mirror in the room.  Almost makes the place feel a little more homey.  Could still use a stove and stuff like that though, but it's the small things that keep you moving foward.  Also, S sent me some decaf chai tea and a mix box of different teas from around India.  Should be interesting to try them all.

Thanks guys.

Resistance Bands

Late post today.

Actually today's been a late day all the way around.

I blame it on the fact that I felt obligated to shave today.  Through off my whole morning.

Ate breakfast late.

Got to work a bit later than I wanted.

Left work later than I wanted.

Started to work out later than I wanted...

Man.

Rough.

You have no idea.

I'm to OCD for all this.  I'm a big creature of habit.  I think I get it from my Grandmother on my Mom's side.

She's very "regular" or she's not at all.

Hahaha.  Love you Grandma.

Anyway, back to the topic of the post.

I'm pretty sure I've told you about the resistance bands that I bought from Dick's Sporting Goods over the weekend.

I don't know if I told you that the day after I got them or the day I got them, I can't remember, I ended up snapping myself in the chest with them pretty good.

Like really good.

I've still got a bruise across the chest from when it hit me.

Hard.

With force.

Granted, it was my fault for trying to hood rig something with the bands in my room and not following proper band usage protocol, but still.

It hurt.

A lot.

Anyway, I recovered from that fiasco.  It was more of a shock when it hit me followed by the pain and then the pain of "I have no one to blame for this than myself" (which is almost worse than the actual pain of the injury).

I'll set the scene.

There's a coat rack on the left when you come in the door.

Sturdy, I tried to hang on it to make sure that I wouldn't get hurt.

It held.

I thought that was good enough, I looped probably a 15-20 pound resistance band around it.

I pulled a bit, testing my "connection" to the coat rack.

It felt pretty solid.

I checked my loop job, once more and then hit play on the video.

Everything was going well, I started the arm workout.  It's kind of like a standing chin-up/pull-up for those of us that either don't have a bar or can't get over the bar (or both).

So I get into a kneeling lunge position and start to pull on the bands to that I can get the motion of the pull up down.

I put my arms back forward, again, mimicking the correct motion.

I look to the video to make sure that I'm doing the motion correctly and then start to pull again.

BAM!

Right across the chest.

I didn't even know what happened.

I was up, I was looking at the door.

I don't know why.  I assume it was to make sure that no one snuck in and saw me.

Sad part is, my only reaction, other than to try to bring my hands in after the fact was to just say, "Ow."

That's it, no rage, no jumping, no cursing, just "Ow."

Worse of all, while I'm standing there, watching the line get redder across my chest, I'm still holding the offensive band in my hand.

I still finished the workout.  My heart just wasn't in it after that.  Also, whenever I moved my chest it aggravated my injury.

Rough.

Today was the second or third time using the bands, so I thought I had the process down.  I was even using the correct door attachment, like in the instructions.

Well, today I was using the heavy band to mimic some more pull-ups/chin-ups, with the door attachment.  And everything was going well, but then the end slipped out.

You see, it's a rubber tube with a black plastic marble shoved in the end of it which is then forced through a steel grommet (the type of hole you'd find on the edge of a tarpaulin), then it's secure with another black plastic/rubber washer that I assume is supposed to hold the marble in the tube through the grommet, in place.

It did not.

No injury though.  Just frustration.

I stop the video.  Work out how it works and what needs to happen for it to go back to it's original position, and then fix it.

Or so I thought.

Either the same end or the opposite end of the tube slipped out the next set.

Frustrating, but I have the solution in hand so it's not a big fix.

I switch bands, thinking maybe this one is just not the band for this exercise and I'm doing it wrong.

Using a different band, I start another work out.  It was either lawnmower's or seated back flys.  Not sure.

And then, that band just snaps off right at the grommet.

Seriously.

Into the floor though.  In both exercises the band is supported by my foot on the floor, just like in the video, so the energy of the band goes into the floor.  Not a problem.

Other than the broken band.

Clockwise.  Resistance band, black plastic marble and end of band, black plastic/rubber washer, and then the strap with the steel grommet in it.  The grommet that is facing the busted tube is the one in which the marble was supposed to be stopped/supported by.

Long story cut short.  I already threw away the box, the receipt, the plastic tags on the tubes everything.

And no, not like threw it away, I'm too lazy to go look for it.  I'm in a hotel.  Anything that's been in my trash is gone.

Oh well, S says that I can probably just go back and have them look up the transaction by my credit card and have them do a like for like exchange if I want.

That'll have to wait until this weekend though.  There's no way that I'd get to Christiana and back after work and still have time to eat and work out and decompress and all that.

I wish this was more upbeat for you, but it's been a whole lot of fail surrounding those bands, I thought I should report it.

Hasta.

X Stretch

So today was X Stretch day, or my 'rest' day.  Which I suppose it could be called that, but I still worked up a pretty decent sweat.

I don't know how that makes me feel.

Does it make me feel good about really pushing myself to stretch?

No.

Does it make me feel like I'm super out of shape?

Yes.  A resounding YES.

Seriously, the stretch routine was roughly 55 minutes.  And I got sweaty.  Not as sweaty as on the Kenpo X days or the Plyo days, but sweaty nonetheless.

Seriously.

There were some stretches that I just couldn't do.

Let me rephrase.

There were some sketches that my gut wouldn't let me get into the position into which the stretch would have been productive.

Garbage.

I tried to 'tuck' it to the side and move it to the other side of my leg so I could turn more.

No dice.

It just started pinching on the other side.

So yeah.

I'm glad that I'm doing this workout and all that, but this whole too fat to stretch thing kind of has me bumming.

Probably shouldn't have had those three mini bean burritos at the hotel happy hour.

Sue me.

I was hungry.

Hence the gut.

Hence the not being able to stretch because of the gut.

Therefore, further gut.

It's a vicious downward spiral, that I don't really know how to work my way around.

I guess one option would be to get up an hour and half earlier to work out in the morning.

Yeah.

Right.

Like that's a thing that people do.

Seriously.

It's been hard making myself stick to a 6:30pm work out time, so you can imagine what a 5:00am work out time would be like.

Pass.

I think I'll just stick with the evening one and try to eat lighter at the happy hour.  It's nice that they put out food though, because I can still bill the company for 'going out to eat dinner' during the week.

It's not that I don't use the money to by groceries.  I just don't like to eat out and I like being able to use that money elsewhere.

Oh well.

C'est la vie. Or however you spell it.

Side bar.

I worked about two hours from the hotel on Saturday (the VPN wouldn't work from my computer so the productivity went south fast), I put in about 6.5 hours on Sunday, 6.5 hours on Monday, and about an hour extra today.

This means that in our time entry program, I have worked 16 hours this pay period of regular time (they count the 8 hour holiday pay as regular time) and 16 hours of overtime.  This pay period started on Saturday.

I'm doubling down.

Ridiculous.

You'd think with all that working, I'd be able to go somewhere or do something.

False.

It's just going into the "Fund".

That's all for today folks.

Hasta.