Amateurs.
I’m an amateur at a lot of things, and it shows. I wouldn’t ever be a professional fisherman, as I have the subtle and magical ability to make the fishing wonderful the day before I arrive and the week after i leave. I’ll never be a sports reporter, because when people start talking about sporting events it sounds like the parents in a Peanuts cartoon.
There are a lot of things I do that I do well, a handful of things I do really, really well, a few things I do better than anyone on earth. I have a combination of skills that allow me to do things that are in some demand, thankfully, predominantly the ability to be able to get widely disparate machines to communicate effectively with one another. Robots to old punch presses. Donut machines to injection molding machines. Welders to lawn mowers. You get the drill, or if you don’t, nobody could explain it in terms you’d understand anyway.
I’m very adept at wandering from one machine to another, at figuring out the curiosities of one control vs another, I can as easily troubleshoot solid state as vacuum tubes, and I’m as at ease with the 40’s technology as I am with tech so new only it’s inventor and i even understand it. I still ink up a technical pen and make print modifications on vellum from time to time, and I work with the most sophisticated 3d cad software on the market.
Like everyone at my level, (and there are few enough of us that I know each and every one of my colleagues by name) I am surrounded by people anxious to tell me how to do my job.
Once upon a time I would take their suggestions to heart and attempt to make them happy by trying to conform to their vision of the way the system would work.
Lately, I ask them what they want their system to do, and then I do it. They try to explain how it should work, and i smile and nod, and do it my way. It always works, I have the fewest callbacks of anyone in the entire industry. In the last eight or ten years, I have put together systems that do everything from drill impossibly small holes to systems that make improbably large engines. My systems all work after a short shakedown, and I have stuff that is running day and night after ten years of 24/7. I have learned to smile and nod at amateurs, and ignore them, and it has helped me immeasurably.
It’s a good life lesson. I have a pretty damned solid understanding of morals, both secular human and Judeo-Christian. I have always listened to others opinions on the subject, and attempted to understand, but I also had very good teachers. I know a great deal on the subject, because I’ve been trained to know a great deal on the subject. I’m not at the level I’m at in the automation business, but I’m pretty damned good- it’s one of the things I do really well.
And I never cease to be amused at the people who tell me how I should be acting, because they are invariably people whose sense of right and wrong is severely flawed. No, I’m not always right, and I have never been adverse to being taken to school- but the times where someone can educate me on this subject are few and far between, these days.
Like my industrial career, where I have moved past all my teachers and can now only learn on my own, I was given a solid foundation in moral comprehension at an early age, and I have grown with it and it is good.
I’m not by any means saying I always DO the right thing. Far from it, I’m the rottenest bastard i know. But I KNOW what the right thing is. And most people I know are amateurs.
18 comments Og | Uncategorized
OUCH!
Same feelings here.
One exception…for both of us and that ladysmith Brigid. Remember, we are wordsmiths. Don’t y’all ever forget it.
– The “rotten bastard”, yeah, I know that one.
– Jack of all trades, master of one…..maybe.
– God’s child and inheritor of the kingdom….don’t ever forget that one brotherman.
……cough………..just sayin.
Keep pounding the keyboard, hammering at the insanity of the world.
Your words have strength.
I couldn’t carry Bridgid’s bags. But she couldn’t do what I do, either. I know I’ve seldom hunted with anyone I enjoyed hunting with more.
The high and lofty ideals need a good solid base in reality. You seem to bridge the gap nicely, Og, as your viewpoints have a good connection to ‘Ground’.
Why else do you think I decided to put my tent stakes here, eh?
Wrong, you know me, and I’m way rottener (is that even a word?) than you :)
If I had half your knowledge, I would have my own army of evil robots and be using them for malign purposes by now…
Unless you’re talking about flatulence, because to be sure of that would require a competition that would render half the midwest uninhabitable.
“would render half the midwest uninhabitable”
You’re on.
I do exactly what you do, but instead of manufacturing controls, I do it with data. I figure out what the customer needs, I do it for them (actually I figure out how to do it for them and tell other people to do it), and I charge them for it.
Usually, as you do, I have to get around their ideas of how they need to do what they need to do.
…and I get the same crap from people who are not qualified to give me said crap.
I… dunno. The Midwest is pret-ty big. ANNND stinky. Take a lot of flatulence to render it uninhabitable.
Remember: we got pigs.
Still: not sayin’ it wouldn’t be amusin’ t’ watch y’all try.
M
Sigh…. (Opens 2 gallon jar of Sauerkraut)
grau, i have made a lifeless porcelean crapper gag.but hell, it never bothered me. I think we should have the first annual blogger fart-off this summer.
Oh my! Sophisticated software and advanced designs, and a visionary on flatulence. Now THAT, is a modern renaisancce man.
I don’t do any of that shit, but I’m happy someone knows how to do it.
I do my thing. Make it look ridiculously easy, smile, and fart.
Dick:I know where you’ve been and I couldn’t do that either. You have nothing to be ashamed of, lord knows.
I’m reminded of how many people didn’t understand “Ratatouille” because the guy didn’t learn to be a fantastic chef like the rat. He did, however, find out he was a fantastic restaurant waiter. It’s about learning what you’re good at/enjoy doing, and doing that, not mastering someone else’s talent.
It’s also about knowing when to shut your yap and let someone better qualified take over.
Hi all~ all of us are ameteurs at some time in our lifes, and there is no sin in it especially when it comes to politics, ethics and process control. They are all quite simple until you actually got to start thinking about how to implement them.
I remember my elders snorting with disgust when the first PLC’s came out and how they figured we were going to blow the plant up by replacing our trusty pneumatic ESD systems with these new fangled electronics. Most gave up and retired when those scary new VFD’s started catching on.
Be patient with ameteurs. Most mean well.
I used to be a professional…
I hope you don’t mind if I pick a small nit: An amateur is simply someone who doesn’t get paid, it has nothing to do with whether they’re good at what they do. Olympic athletes are amateurs.
I always thought that amateur just meant ugly – like in those films…
yeah, Olympic atgheletes are “Amateurs”. because only amateurs would train to do something for ten hours a day. That is a bastardizatgion of the term “Amateur”.
I’m specifically referring to the use of the term as in ‘Amateur vs professional”. I understand sometimes a talented amateur can outshine a jaded professinal, but the reality is more often what I describe.
As far as ugly, jumble, you are dead on there.