When you start doing field work
You do so by thinking “I will do this for two years. I will get good at it, and I will end up by getting a gig with one of my customers. They will appreciate me and pay me well, and I will spend the rest of my days making them happy and making their business run well.”
At the end of two years, if you haven’t moved on, going to work in the same place every day seems like a death sentence. If I have to go somewhere more than twice in a week it feels like I’m going to develop rigor mortis and die.
Most of the field guys I know are like this. You wake up in the morning knowing today will never be like any other day before it, knowing that today will bring a new challenge, that you will have to use skills you have developed to learn to do something you have never done before, and to learn how to do it almost instantaneously.
At my age I have three decades of that experience. And it’s all in there, one place or another, just waiting for the moment when I need it again. Work is the only thing for which I have been able to develop a decent memory recall system, and it’s served me well. These days I think about the technology I’ve learned and how well it has served me, and what I would have missed if i went somewhere and became stagnant. And I feel sorry for those of my customers, who rankle at the challenge of learning new systems and processes, but once learned cling to them like lifesavers, unwilling, unable to adapt to the next challenge without suffering.
I’m the least resistant to change of anyone I know- in certain areas. In others, well, I like the old things and the old ways. Centerfire rifle cartridges that were old before my people lived on this continent. Stick built craftsman homes with double hung windows and sashweights. Women without tats who wear dresses. technology? Well, until the day comes when I can abandon it altogether, I want to be right on the sharp thin edge, and i am, right now- Most of the shit we do, doesn’t exist until I make it. And I like that just fine. I may be an old dog, but I’m still teaching the world a thing or two about tricks.
Amen
“I feel sorry for those of my customers, who rankle at the challenge of learning new systems and processes, but once learned cling to them like lifesavers, unwilling, unable to adapt to the next challenge without suffering.”
I HATE those kinds of people. And there are WAY more of them than the other kind. My blood pressure shoots up whenever I hear someone say “Nobody ever taught me how to do that” or “I’ve haven’t been trained on that”. Damn, that pisses me off. You’ve got a brain dontcha??? Use the fkn thing.
If I had a dollar for every time I was asked, “Where did you learn to do that?”
Grrrrrrrrrr.
I love being out in the field, sometimes I do get tired of the windshield time but all in all its way better than cooped up in the same place with the same people every day.
I worded in a small shipyard as a shipwright building and repairing wood boats and the wood parts of steel and glass boats up to about 150 feet long. Every day was a delight, learning to do things the fastest most workmanlike way. Stayed there thirty years, and loved it. Going to work in the mornings was like going home, I liked my boss and the folks I worked with, fine bunch of fellows.
Finally, though, my back and knees went totally south on me and I had to retire at 55. A boatbuilder who can’t climb and wallow has a really tough time of it. Damn near cried, I did. Then I got a good pickup, put a small camper on it and have never looked back. My dog and I go fishin’, hunting, and camping. The missus said it was OK and we stay out of her way.
gerry: Did you call the camper Rocinante?
Hell yeah. I love field work, and can’t imagine the pain of going into the same office every day. I love the fact that my “office” is my truck and it goes to a dozen different places every week.
Wouldn’t trade it for the world.