At a random meeting one day, the Director of Quality Assurance said my name came up in a recent meeting in one of the other divisions. They were trying to devise a test fixture similar to the ones we used, and he had given the engineer tasked with the action item my contact information.
I took in the data, said no problem, and went back to what I thought was my usual work life.
Nothing came of it, and after a week or so, it slipped my mind, as more and more things seem to do. My mind is apparently getting slipperier as time passes.
One day I came back from lunch to find a young kid hanging around my cubicle.
My first thought was that he was delivering a pizza.
Walking up, I realized he was neither dressed for that occupation, nor carrying anything that looked like it could keep round flat tasty things warm.
Once I reached my little square home away from home, he introduced himself as the guy tasked with creating the test fixture mentioned by the Quality Director in the meeting.
I led him into the lab, and as we started going over the details of our equipment, I noticed his questions were rudimentary…
VERY rudimentary…
As in, “I just graduated and started my first job here a month ago,” rudimentary.
Then it hit me with the force of an ancient and withered wrecking ball.
This was the “new kid” on his first technical assignment, and they sent him to learn from the “old engineer.”
That is not a title they should be allowed to spring on someone as a surprise.
In fact, I am quite positive, that the proper etiquette should be sending a formal memo on company letterhead several months in advance clearly stating:
Dude , you've been with the company for 20 years
ReplyDeleteWeird isn't it? I remember being fresh out of college and wondering why the old engineers wanted to hang out with us newbies in social occasions.
ReplyDeleteNow I'm the old guy thinking he's hanging out with his peers but I'm probably just thought of as creepy.
Both -Thanx for posting
ReplyDeleteScott- This happened quite a while ago, but since I work with quite a few people with 30+ years at the company, the surprise still stands.
Bruce- I know what you mean, I knew enough old pop culture to have easy conversations with the "old engineers" when I started...now I tend to get a lot of blank stares when I mention "new" movies that are older than the co-workers I'm talking to.
This may be slightly off topic, but I had the same feeling recently, when working with a music teacher at a local school that I accompany for. I was chatting away and the music teacher made a comment starting with, 'yeah my mom says that too . . .'. And I realized, oh my. I am the old piano lady.
ReplyDeleteIt's all on topic. Old Engineer, Old Piano Lady, even back in college when we realized we became the "Old weird WRPI Guys." It is never easy.
ReplyDeleteThanx for sharing