How I Got Here - I'm an Engineer!

At the end of my college stint, I was extremely nervous about landing a job at all, much less a decent one.  I grew up in Florida and, rather than attempt to find an internship in the Chicagoland area - which was, no surprise, the destination of many opportunities for University of Illinois students - I decided to spend my summers at home in a location that had far fewer opportunities for engineering internships.

This concerned me, not least of all, because my college friends warned me that I should've made the sacrifice to stay in Illinois for the summer, since internship experience was so important.  I've already written that internships, while valuable, aren't the lynchpin to a successful career, so I'll cut my commentary on that short.  I didn't heed their advice, and, at least in the longterm, it didn't affect me, but I didn't know that at the time.

In addition, my GPA wasn't flashy and my interviewing skills were what you'd expect out of someone looking to land their first real salary - I had one poorly-tailored suit that I'd drench with sweat while stuttering through the canned responses we were handed during interview prep while constantly worried about the dreaded "dead fish handshake." 

One interview went so poorly, that the interviewer cut me off midway through our scheduled time.  I don't think I did well, but this is an extremely callous way to treat people.  At this point, if I were on the other side of the table as the interviewer, I'd finish the process.  Even if the college student isn't likely to be hired, interviewing at that stage is a valuable experience (as is learning that people can be sympathetic).  But this was still the 90s, where admitting anyone had feelings or that pure meritocracies don't exist, was considered poor form on all fronts, so I was shown the door.

Eventually (and somewhat miraculously), I received two job offers - one for an energy consulting firm in downtown Chicago and one for a heat exchanger manufacturer in a suburb 20 miles north of Chicago.  The consulting firm was a few thousand people, while the engineering team of the manufacturer was probably about 5-10 people.  The consulting firm offered me a position downtown and an additional $2000 in salary, so I jumped at the opportunity.  

My first couple of months at the job were a dream.  I was doing heat transfer calculations for the HVAC system of the under-construction BCBS building on the north end of what's now Millenium Park, and I even had a chance to stand on top of the building during construction and go out to dinner in the Loop!  I was adulting!

I was also scared shitless about corporate life.  I'd watched too many movies and TV shows that showed companies as cutthroat meritocracies (My take today - Cutthroat?  Sure.  Meritocracies?  Yes, but if and only if unicorns also exist - the horse kind, not the Silicon Valley kind).  At several points in the week, one of the chatty middle-aged engineers would stop by my cubicle and start talking for 30 minutes.  I lived in constant fear that my boss would walk by and see me doing nothing for long stretches of time listening to this guy and fire me on the spot.  Oh, if only I could go back in time to slap younger me and laugh in his face.

I also learned quickly that companies lie without consideration of your concerns and that, if you call them out on it, you'll quickly be subject to a pretty elaborate gaslighting strategy (What?  We didn't do anything wrong.  You simply misunderstood what we told you.  Question us again and it goes on your permanent record).

During my interview, I asked the recruiter if I was going to need to travel, given that this was a consulting firm.  No, I was told, there was plenty of work to do in the office and there were plenty of projects downtown.  Turns out that was only true for my first 2 months.  In early August, I was re-assigned to a project in LaSalle  County, IL - about 80 miles outside of Chicago.

I was given the option of being supplied with a car and reimbursed for gas and maintenance or having a sublease paid for near my new assignment.  The largest city in the county has 18,000 people.  I was 21 and single.  It was worth the 2 1/2 hour commute each way to stay in Chicago.  Besides, the assignment was only 6 months, so I had the opportunity to gain experience and build some character as a grizzled road warrior, stalking the lanes of I-80 in the early dawn hours.

Except...when I started talking to my peers at the new assignment and told them I was here for 6 months, they laughed in my face.  "Sure," they told me, "I was put on a 6-month assignment as well.  I've been here for 2 years."

Well, I freaked.  I wanted out of my first job after 3 months.  Today, if someone relayed this story to me, I'd tell them to relax and start looking for another position, being patient until they found something that was a better fit before being hasty.  At the time, the economy was great, and I probably could've found something else in about 1 month.

Except...this was still the late 90s when Boomers were still in the mid-stage of their careers and carried along their perspectives on job hopping.  The prevailing narrative was still - stay at a company, because you'll be rewarded for your loyalty.  If you job hop too much (meaning every 2-3 years) you'll be seen as ungrateful and unreliable and find future employment difficult.

With this notion imprinted in the front of my mind, I made use of the few connections I had and landed a job at a small manufacturer on the south side of Chicago.  Mercifully, I only lasted there 9 months.  This was the job I previously mentioned where my college books were unceremoniously tossed under the dubious guise of "taking up too much space."  At my desk.  

[Aside: Regardless of the grind of this particular job, I'm happy I had a chance to work on the south side for a few months.  My entire time in Chicago, I've lived on the near northwest or far north side, so I was able to gain an appreciation for another 1/3 of the city (the remaining 1/3 still being the west side, of which I still have little, tangible experience) rather than just relying on stereotypes.]

Unsurprisingly, a company that permits behavior like that isn't one where a recent college grad (or anyone, really) is going to be able to thrive.  I was fired in under a year.  While I could compile a laundry list of grievances as to why this was a dysfunctional workplace, I'd be remiss if I didn't admit I likely had my own part to play.  I'm sure I came off as whiny, petulant, and entitled.  

I would handle the situation differently today (hopefully with a significantly higher degree of maturity, but that's debatable), but I stand by my statement that you don't hire someone with a specialized college degree to work their way from the ground up (I was literally given janitorial duties).  You nurture them for the skills they possess while keeping their egos in check to foster reasonable career growth.

If I thought having sprinted through one job in under a year was bad, two was even scarier!  Luckily, I had a grace period before my last day of employment and I'd already started looking for a new job.  And a new job came through with a good week to spare.  It was 40 miles away and I only made slightly more money than I did with my original consulting gig, but at least it was still in the Chicago metropolitan area.  Plus, I was just about to lose my income and had seriously entertained moving closer to home, so I wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

The next 3 years had their ups and downs - primarily for personal reasons, but I muddled my way through as a perfectly average mechanical engineer.  Little did I know that the economy and companies' desires to take advantage of emergent trends - regardless of whether or not those desires resembled a balding 40-year-old man buying a corvette - would push me inexorably into software engineering.

The company I worked for was a conglomerate with concentrations in the medical and communication device fields.  However, the allure of the Dotcom Boom proved too great and they started to rebrand themselves into a more generic software-focused company.  Weird flex, but ok.

In order to encourage their employees to buy into their new focus, they offered self-guided training materials for various programming languages.

At this point, my distaste for programming had abated after my college experience, and I started a tutorial on C.  Initially, I wanted to re-learn enough C to be able to make changes to the heat transfer software package I used on a daily basis to customize it when needed.  

Eventually, I entertained dreams of becoming a software developer.  I quickly realized it would be difficult to attain that goal via tutorials and enrolled part-time in grad school in early 2001.  Luckily the university I was attending - DePaul -  had a satellite campus near work, so I didn't have to speed downtown twice a week to attend class.  The program also had a clear and relatively quick path to get non-programmers up to speed before starting the core curriculum.

If you know anything about history, I likely chose the exact wrong time to enter into the software engineering field.  Luckily, by the time the Dotcom Bubble burst a few months later, I'd become enamored with the field and had the confidence that I would be able to weather my way through its ups and downs.  For once, I was right, but that's a story for our next installment.

Until next time, my human and robot friends.