I purchased my 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th sets of quality leather gloves while working as a road construction surveyor during summer break from college in 1997. The job consisted of pounding wooden stakes into the ground with a sledge hammer for 12 hours a day. Needless to say, gloves were a necessity. Experienced coworkers suggested that I purchase roping gloves and I have never regretted heeding their advice.

The best gloves are made from deer or elk skin and are AMAZINGLY soft, yet incredibly durable and are the most expensive costing ~$15/pair. However, cow hide gloves are not as soft, but work nearly as well and are much cheaper, especially if purchased at Harbor Freight ($5).

When I put on leather gloves, I become a different person…a real man. Bug? Worms (aka snakes when I was 4 years old)? Spiders? Not a problem. Gloves make me invulnerable to pests. Lifting bricks, shoveling dirt, pushing a lawn mower, and wood working all become enjoyable when I am wearing my ropin’ gloves. I even restrained a screaming rabbit (yes, rabbits do scream when they are scared) while cutting him free from the garden twine he got caught in on Saturday.

Rubber gloves are another amazing product I think all new mothers should purchase for their husbands. Diapers, poo, urine, boogers, and vomit are all cleanable when hands are properly protected. Cleaning toilets, scrubbing tile, working on a car…all tasks that I can conquer with rubber gloves. Harbor Freight also carries these at 100 gloves / $5. Gloves are WONDERFUL.

Work was amazingly productive on Thursday of all days…the day before a 4 day weekend. It was so enjoyable and productive that I actually regretted leaving for the weekend. Days like that are few and far between. I work as a design engineer and the majority of my daily tasks are usually clerical instead of actual engineering or design. On the other hand, Thursday was action packed with CAD modeling and problem solving and design work and thinking! I actually had to use my brain to do my job! Wow…that is a very invigorating feeling.

Anyway, this weekend has been very fun and relaxing. We visited the Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs (~1 hour away) and did some hiking and took photos and just relaxed for a nice drive. That was the first “sight seeing” we’ve done since moving. I hope to ascend my first 14'er (14,000-ft tall mountain) in another few weeks. It turns out that there is a paved road all the way to the top of Pikes Peak. So…it may not be much of a work out (aside from breathing more from thinner air), but there will be spectacular views.

My first day of work (February 1st) at my new job in Denver, Colorado wasn’t quite as bad as the title may indicate, but definitely wasn’t as cheerful as I would have hoped.  During my interviews for the position in November, I asked several times concerning the possible cancellation of Orion (the program that I am working on) and was told that it is very unlikely that program would be canceled.

A tech blog started a rumor on the night before my first day (Sunday, January 31st) that stated the proposed Presidential budget that would be released the following day would not include any funding for Constellation.  No funding = cancellation.  Constellation consists of the following parts: Aries = rocket, Orion = capsule (where the astronauts live) and cargo, and Gemini = moon lander.

A wise friend of mine once said, “Rumors are usually true in the corporate world.”  Low and behold, the rumor was entirely correct.  President Obama’s proposed budget does not include any funding for these NASA programs.  Instead, his budget redirects NASA in a “bold new direction.”

I strongly disagree with this new direction for many reasons…one major reason is that I will be looking for a job in August if the budget is passed in its current form.  However, I think it is unlikely that the president will get his wish completely granted.  What will probably happen is that the rocket and moon lander will be canceled, but Orion will be spared…therefore my job would be spared as well.  I am hopeful this will happen, but not so much that I haven’t updated my resume.

It is amazing how quickly a 12 days go bye.  I am sooo busy, but I’ve been told that is what life is like.  I have several fun stories I will be sharing over the next few days.  I won’t post them all at once so that I can prolong the boredom of this blog.

First story: I have found a coworker to be very inconsistent.  I mentioned him in a blog back on November 15th.  In that blog, he phoned and carried on a conversation with another employee not more than 15 feet away.  He recently beat this feat of laziness by calling me on the phone a few weeks ago…he sits directly on the other side of the cubicle wall from me!  I don’t think he knew what my last name when he called.  However, one would think that he could have learned my last name sometime during the last two years I have been sitting on the opposite side of the cube wall.

That anecdote is consistent with his previous behavior, however, him initiating and conversing with another  employee that was 10 cubicles away is not consistent with his previous behavior.  In case you were curious, he was well heard by all during that conversation.  I’m not sure which of these communication methods I dislike most, but both are agitating.  Another possibility of his most annoying communication methods could be his insistence on  using his speakerphone to review his voicemail.  What do you think?  Which would annoy you most?

Networking is indirectly defined as follows (Urban Dictionary): “Regardless of your skills, intelligence, or education, if you are not good at networking you will always earn minimum wage and live in a trailer park.”One thing I’ve learned since entering the work force is that, in addition to all assigned job tasks, I have to manage my career in order to get ahead, as alluded to above. Several adjectives and/or synonyms of networking are career management, brown nosing, sucking up, being a teacher’s pet, socializing, etc. I think that overt attempts such as picking up the boss’s dry cleaning and getting him coffee are sickening when you see someone else doing them and downright degrading when having to actually perform them. However, subtle acts of career management can be much more effective in accomplishing the same thing.

Recently, I’ve done some sly career management with better than expected results because I want a promotion this year since I just spent 1029 days of my life working to finish 2 Master degrees. In January, the company management decided to reorganize the entire reporting structure and to redo the entire management chain. Essentially, I now have two managers. One manager is in corporate and is in control of my raises and promotions while the other is assigning and directing the day to day operations at the program level. I will see the corporate manager only a few times a year while I see the local manager everyday.

Since I want the promotion, I needed to make sure that my corporate manager (the one in control of promotions and pay raises) knows who I am.  I sent him a short biography about myself including my recent accomplishment of finishing my Master degrees.  Thankfully, he wrote back indicating that several of his other employees are interested in the program and he will send them my way.  Then, my local manager stopped by today and indicated that he is in contact with my corporate manager and they are putting me in for the promotion!  Now I just need to beat out the other candidates to get the promotion…

_ I sit in a sea of cubicles like most engineers in the corporate world.

Only managers are allowed to have speaker phones and most managers have an actual office with a door to maintain privacy and so that speaker phone conversations don’t interrupt other employees. A manager (not my manager) sits over the cubicle wall from me and he LOVES to use his speaker phone. He may actually use the speaker phone more than the handset…I’ll have to keep a log and report back later. Needless to say, his conversations can be very disruptive at times.

Another coworker (over the opposite cubicle wall from the manager) buys products for the whole division. Here’s a diagram:

manager | me | coworker

The distance from the manager to the coworker is ~20 feet. He just called the coworker using his speaker phone while talking loudly instead of walking the ~20 feet to have a face to face conversation. It is debatable which would be less disruptive: using the speaker phone or shouting over the top of the cubicle wall. You decide. This would make a good dilbert!