Entry made May 8, 2005 : $1,000,000 Question
Short and sweet update: "If you had a million dollars, what would you do?" That question is an important question to ponder. I've been thinking about it for a while now (ever since I graduated college and didn't have a job). At first I was happy doing "nothing." I was really happy. Then, when I had to stop doing "nothing" and got the job at Office City, I realized that I was happy working at Office City. I was even starting to map out how I could move up in the company and be happy being a salesman. Then this job with palmOne landed in my lap. I'm happy working there, but for a different reason. I was happy because I was earning a fair amount more than at Office city. But, why isn't the job itself more fun? It is finally in one of the fields I was interested in, it should be the most fun ever! I started thinking back to all of the college classes I took and why I took them. First semester, I took business classes because I wanted to go into advertising. I enjoyed advertising because it was a challenge, "How can I put this ad together in such a way that people will buy the product?" But, my first semester in college, I had more fun helping my CS friends do their homework than I did doing my own. So I switched to CS At first I enjoyed CS because it was a cakewalk. I'd been using computers since before I had my cateract removed at 5 years old. In fact, and I'm sorry Neal Stephenson, but as soon as I can make myself a gargoyle, I probably will. (If you're curiouse about the reference, read "Snowcrash"). Anyway, I was good at writing stupid little programs to solve the homework. So, CS was fun. But I had even more fun in my Math classes (I think I can thank Mr. West for that). I began to take more and more Math classes. In fact, when I took Ordinary Differential Equations (ODE) and Partial Differential Equations (PDE) (sometimes all referred to as diffEQ), I was taking the classes purely for FUN!!! I didn't need them for any course of study that I was in. At the same time that I was taking diffEQ I was also taking Introductory Physics (as required by CS). I loved it. Here were a whole slew of real world concepts being via the math I had been learning for fun for the last few years. On top of that, using the CS that I had pretty much finished up could make solving these physics problems even easier! One day it dawned on me. I thought back to one of O'Conner's lectures. He was talking about "toolboxes." He was telling us that in CS, you build up all the tools you need to solve a problem. If done right, then these tools could be used over and over again and solving new problems was as easy as throwing together the tools you already had, as long as they were built right. I realized that all I had been doing in college was putting together tools to solve problems. I realized that the reason I was enjoying physics so much is because the teachers were always throwing problems at us and saying, "Figure it out." I could then apply all the math and CS tools that had in my toolbox to solve the problem. I loved these problems. Even when I was at the point where each problem would take two 10 hour days to solve. If I had to stay up so late that I'd get 2 hours of sleep, who cares? I was having fun! After I graduated I almost had a job writing code in Matlab down in Florida. Before the interview, I had played with Matlab, but I wasn't very fluent in it. So I threw myself a problem and solved it by porting the tools I had into Matlab. It was great. I was solving a problem as well as learning a new language. Then the job fell through. So, I played video games and was bored for a while until I decided to move to California to find a job. I got to California and went gung-ho looking for a job with no luck. I would go to the job conventions and be greated in an extremely friendly manner, but when I'd follow up it was like pulling teeth to talk to the one you needed to talk to. In my down time I had picked up work on the 57-5 cage again. I was having a blast doing work on the 57-5 cage, practicing my C++ programming and playing D2 to blow off steam. I was also reading books at a speed that I had never read before. This, I had previously defined as, "Doing nothing." Then I realized that I wasn't doing nothing. I was working on finding the 57-5 cage. I would also find other smaller puzzles to solve. When I came back to montana and started working at office city I found it surpisingly fun. Yeah, it was physical labor but it also involved putting together the furniture. Sometimes putting the furniture together was a bit of a puzzle. Other puzzles to solve involving the job were, how to load the furniture into the truck so it would get there safely? Once it was there, how do we get it in and into place without damaging the furniture, walls, or ourselves. And also, how can all this be done in a timely fassion? Day in and Day out I was solving problems. Then, after making all of these realizations, it hit me. I wasn't having as much fun with my new job at palmOne because I wasn't actually solving any problems. I was finding the problems and someone else was getting the fun of solving them. The most satisfaction I get is when a of the problems I have discovered gets solved. But, if I am ever to be a grand master at problems solving then I will have to learn to find new problems to solve. So I look at this job as training for the future. Besides, everyone has to start somewhere. In the meantime, I can work on the 57-5 cage and find other smaller problems to work on to keep me satisfied. No matter how I look at it though, Life is good. |