The Dog Days of Summer

I'm not really sure why these days of summer are called the "dog days".  I'll take a guess and say that it has something to do with the dog star Sirius.  Maybe the sun is right next to it or something like that, or maybe this is the best time of year to look for Sirius.  When I was in the sixth grade or so, I was really into astronomy and I could have told you when the best time to look for Sirius was.  I can't do that right now without looking it up. I can still recognize the Big Dipper and Orion the Hunter, and I might be able to tell you which planet is Mars.  As it is, an interest in the stars was overcome by one thing and then another, and I probably ought to get a telescope out as that I live in one of the best areas in the country for stargazing.

Anyway, with summer being in full swing, we have some really hot weather and we've almost set some records these past few days.  We've also had some afternoon thunderstorms roll in, though yesterday we got sprinkles as that that one grazed us and centered on somewhere else.  There are clouds to the south of us as I write this, but if we were in for storms there would be a dark thunderhead out there right now instead of sunshine.

The job continues to go well, though it is really intense.  I mean that in a good way.  I learned yesterday that I am considered as being part of program management but the word "manager" is not in my job title nor in my job description.  I am the one man Test Engineering Department for the program if you will, and although I may get some help and have some engineers support me, I'm not in the business of assigning charge numbers and tracking them.  I'm an engineer, I like being an engineer, and for this employer I actually get to be an engineer.  Three decades of my career was spent working for large corporations, and with two of them being an engineer meant you got to make charts and collect metrics.  Forget about making technical decisions.  They didn't want you doing that so that you wouldn't end up messing up the schedule.

Fortunately I have had small companies in the mix, and I'm in one right now, where the very nature of the job forces you to work smart.  I like that kind of challenge.  Small companies are great in the sense that the company owners know who you are, and in those situations they are very approachable.  A small company also carries with it risk, as that if they lose a customer, they end up losing employees, and that's no fault of their own.

In the case of being with a large company and funding to your project is cut off, they may get an assignment picked out for you.  Key word:  "may".  Forget it if you're approaching 50 years of age, as that their beancounters think that someone fresh out of college can do your job for half the pay and be twice the performer that you are.  You're shown the door, and if this happens to you in a downturn you'd better have one year's worth of house payments in the bank.

Thing of it is, is that your replacement, odds are, will want to be made a manager six years before they are eligible for their five year pin.  Not everyone gets to be "manager", and I can tell you that's a good thing as that many is the time when I've seen a situation where there are too many chiefs and not enough Indians.  It ain't pleasant, and if you're one of those Indians then you waste large amounts of time on the phone because every wannabe chief is calling you up so that they can "go over things".

And eventually, some of those wannabe chiefs get fed up and leave for another company.  Company A trains them for a year or so, and then Company B offers them a job with a 20% raise and Company A then wonders why they can't get people, with it never occurring to them that their reputation is in the trashcan since they ran the greybeards off some years back and replaced them with these Young Turks.  

Yes, you need some Young Turks on hand, but you also need the Moustache Petes, so that the business can leverage the strengths of both groups, and the company that does that then gives Companies A and B some competition and takes business away from both.  And folks, that is the way it is, and it cannot, nor ever should be, fixed by legislation.  The dog eat dog world has some very vicious little dogs, and it ain't the size of the dog in the fight.....it's the size of the fight in the dog.

OK.  I didn't know that when I started writing this I would go off in this tangent.  

I just wanted to say it's hot out there, the monsoon season is under way, ham radio is still fun, and I wouldn't trade places with anybody.

Don't forget to pet a dog or a cat!  And remember:  it's all about the simple pleasures!