by Pat Sweet | Aug 17, 2012 | Article, Careers, Getting Started, Professional Development
My wife and I recently bought our first dog. She’s a Goldendoodle we named Massey, as in Massey Ferguson tractors. My Agricultural Engineering readers can consider that a nod in their direction ;-)
In any case, this purchase was something that happened a little bit out of the blue. Don’t get me wrong – my wife and I had talked about buying a dog for ages. The opportunity to do so, however, just kind of came out of the blue.
Now that we’ve had her for a couple weeks, I’ve had a chance to learn some lessons from the family quadruped. The more I thought about it, the more I realized these lessons can be applied to any working engineer.
*** 4 Engineering Lessons From My Puppy
1. Take the plunge! Good things happen. Like I said before, my wife and I talked about this for ages. We knew what kind of dog we wanted. We had worked out who would come home at lunch to let her out. We had investigated obedience training. We had talked this thing to death, then finally an opportunity came up to buy our pup. It was scary as hell when we did, because all of a sudden our fun ideas became real. And you know what? Turns out everything is working out OK. Life is different to be sure, and we’re still not 100% settled into a new routine, but it’s good.
I like to think of opportunities for engineers as being similar. If you just jump into something, it tends to work out well. Just do it!
by Pat Sweet | Jul 24, 2012 | Article, Careers, Professional Development
Okay, so that title might be a little bit misleading. I don’t like screwing up. Nobody does. More accurately, I know it’s inevitable that I’m going to screw up (i.e. I’m just a normal dude), and that there’s huge opportunity for growth when I do.
I decided to write this post today because – you guessed it – I screwed up at work today! Actually, not just today, but most of last week, too. It was all basically an exercise in what not to do when you do what I do. But the fact of the matter is, all people, and all leaders make mistakes. My hope is that writing about it will:
– help me piece together why I messed up;
– and to help you avoid making my mistakes; and,
– share my strategies for turning a mistake into an opportunity.
So what happened?
Nothing serious, actually. I was putting together a standard engineering document, and when I handed it in to be reviewed, there were a myriad of typos, clerical and engineering errors, and general ugliness. I had to re-hand it in something like three times. In short, it was pretty embarrassing. This was exacerbated by the fact that the guy reviewing my work was a mentor and someone I really look up to.
Bummer.
Why Did I Make So Many Mistakes?
Looking back, I think there were a few things at play that lead to my less-than-awesome work. For one, I wasn’t all that excited about the work I was doing. Like I said, it was pretty run-of-the-mill stuff. Besides that, I was under pretty tight timelines to get this thing done and handed in. Now, let me make it clear, those aren’t the reasons I made the mistakes. These factors lead to my not giving the task at hand my complete and undivided attention. That is what lead to my mistakes. Looking on the last few days, I can say with confidence that that was my issue.
by Pat Sweet | Jun 29, 2012 | Article, Careers, Professional Development
To start my series of Engineering Leadership Education posts, I wanted to share Purdue University’s M.Eng. (Master’s of Engineering) with a concentration in Engineering Management and Leadership. I put this one out first because it’s what I’m...
by Pat Sweet | May 30, 2012 | Article, Careers, Professional Development
I’m currently in the process of putting together my paperwork to become a Professional Engineer. There’s a lot of debate as to whether or not the paperwork and hassle are worth it. To me, there’s no debate. Becoming a P.Eng. (or P.E. in the US) has...
