I've been looking forward to this nice long weekend for a bit now.
Work has been a bit of a beating recently, it seems like we have
no shortage of projects but continue to have a shortage of people.
I think the bigger problem that we are starting to see the impacts
of a 2 - 3 year gap in developing young engineers. Now is about the
time when we should be seeing returns with younger staff but it's
just not there. It's a vicious cycle: we failed to develop younger
staff --> younger staff plateaus --> senior engineer workload
increases --> less time to devote to training. I don't know the
solution but wish we'd get it figured out.
One thing that I've been particularily struggling with is I'm at
the point in my career where I'm transitioning into a more PM type
of role. I studied engineering because I liked solving problems. I
am a "do-er" if that makes sense, I like to figure things out. Now
it seems like my job is to tell other people to figure things out.
I feel kind of ripped off, I've only been working for 7 years. Do
you only get to do the technical stuff for that short of a time in
a 30+ year career? I'd be curious to know other's thoughts.
--
Enough work ranting. I'm smoking all sorts of good stuff this
weekened. My wife insisted on ribs, we'll do some jalapeno poppers,
and I'm going to try out a pork butt. I've never done one before
and it looks like it takes 12+ hours so I'll put that on tonight.
For the ribs, I'm doing the standard 3-2-1 and I've got about 2.5
hours left. I'll start the poppers in about an hour so we can eat
those with the ribs. Then tomorrow we'll do pulled pork sandwhiches
with homemade fries.
There are a bunch of local celebrations this weekend and we're
going to one tonight to meet some friends. I'm hoping it's not too
hot tonight. It's kind of cloudy right now which is a double edged
sword: clouds blocking the sun but also making it more humid. We
have a small chance for storms tomorrow morning which I hope we get
as it's been so dry recently.
--
I think that's all I've got in the tank for now. Hoping to unwind
this weekend and I hope you're able to as well.
Shoot me a message if you want to talk about work, smoked meats, or
anything else.
