Sad Remains

Ever miss things? Like work? Ever miss work? I know, you’re thinking I’m crackers. But I do. I miss it.

Yes, I am employed right now. I have a job, and am well-paid. But it’s not what I was doing before. For twelve years I was in fire protection. Started right out of high school and earned my way to become an engineer. And I was one too. Nine of those twelve, I was an engineer.

My first three years I spent learning the trade, project management, teamwork, and got certified. The next two years I broke away to begin and establish an entire design department for another company, implementing new software and building it from the ground up. At the age of twenty-three, I branched off into freelance design, trying my hand at self-employment, before landing at a multi-million dollar firm as one of their top designers.

By twenty-eight I’d become a branch senior designer, mentoring, observing, and training incoming designers, all the while independently managing large-scale projects, deadlines and coordination on my own. I learned volumes of fire prevention code, CAD, calculations, shortcuts, you name it.

Then, in five quick minutes, I was ushered into a conference room, handed a packet and given a “pat” explanation that it was a tough decision, but my employment had been terminated.

Fired. Me, their senior designer, gone in what they called a “Reduction in Workforce.” My office keys were taken, and I was informed by day’s end I had to be out. And I wasn’t alone.

That branch lost their two top designers, losing some combined twenty years of trade knowledge and fifteen years with the company (twelve and seven of them mine respectively) to the design trainee that had been under my wing, and another having four years experience. They would be running the department under the design manager, the very man responsible for selecting my termination.

This is the first time I've ever really written, or for that matter, spoke about it in detail. Sure, I'd talked to lots of friends, told them my feelings, transparently expressed myself. But I never (really) told anyone about the hard look on the inside. No one except Lisa. So why am I now? Good question. Maybe it's just time.

A week after, I swam out of the depression. My work was something I enjoyed, and it was gone.

Some weeks following, I managed to get my feet under myself and started searching for work again. By then, unemployment checks begun to arrive. I took a shot at several engineering firms, selling myself hard to open a fire protection division, but no one was biting. Then I discovered I had a shot to interview for an open city Fire Protection Plan Reviewer. Only I had missed the deadline by two days.

Two days. I pleaded to submit my resume. But the secretary informed me there were no exceptions. What's worse is that I’d have gotten it.

Then, six months ago, my brother-in-law happened to be talking to a friend—someone incidentally looking to hire a designer who knew CAD. My name came up, and I interviewed for the position.

It’s good work. The pay is great and the work environment is amazing, something I’ve never seen. But the work isn’t the same. Here I no longer engineer, instead I sit before this very computer screen and layout piping designs for a multi-billion dollar petrochemical company. I’m onsite at one of the plants, and design layouts for that specific site.

That’s it.

There’s no submittal process. No calculations. There’s no meeting with local authorities. No project management. No creation. No nothing. Just me. Engineers come in, tell me what they’re after, ask if I can do that, and have me draw up a route for their 18” diameter pipe through a crisscross maze of other pipes, towers, reactors, and storage drums.

That’s it.

I miss fire protection. I miss what I had established. I miss what I was doing. Here, all that stuff means nothing. It’s as if I’ve started all over again. No vacations, no benefits, no pension, nothing.

It’s almost as if I’ve stepped into some kind of suspension, and am hanging here, almost as if it’s a dream. It all feels fake. That, maybe this isn’t real. The people here are wonderful, and fun. The environment here is unbelievable, as I said. Plus I’m well compensated.

But I look back at the last twelve years of my life and think, is this it? Here I can't see a “future”, only more engineers and more piping layouts. No plan review. No consulting. No anything I used to do.

My certifications expire in another year, after which I’ll have to retest from entry level, like I had twelve years ago. Is this what I want? Is this how I want to work the next thirty some years, until retirement?

It just doesn’t feel like me.