Went to a party with some friends from work tonight. What a weird scene that is.
It was just a little gathering of some people from work who all get along well and have formed friendships. But, of course, they're work friendships, which aren't really the same thing. It was at one of my co-worker's houses, and it was cool. He has a lot of pinball machines and some older arcade games and we hung out and played darts and pool and pinball and drank a few beers. It was a nice break. But even still, there's always a sort of weird barrier there, because its a party, but you're still required to wear the mask you wear at work, that puts you forward as a confident, responsible, sober yet funloving average American.
And I'm fairly certain none of us at the party were that, exactly. I've managed to make a few friendships through work that have progressed somewhat beyond that bizaare realm of social courtesy, but most continue to fit the pattern. And personally, I feel so out of place as an engineer rather than in a more creative role, that I don't want to be too much of myself even with them because I'm not sure they can relate. I don't even really know that I relate. But I think some of the challenges facing me in this respect are different from the ones facing them. Not that either one of us has it better or worse, just different.
Mostly I try to be inconspicuous. With the people I see often, I'm unable to avoid letting my inner opinionated self break out now and then. Just today I had a long conversation with my cubemate (what a cute name) about how incredibly stupid and dangerous the drug war is. Of course, the interesting part is, he agrees with me. That's one of interesting things I've noticed. The few times I have slipped and said some things I was nervous about, most people have had similar opinions to mine. There's an untapped political resource: Engineers against the War on Drugs. Or maybe I'm just obnoxious and they want to avoid upsetting me. But I suspect the workplace is far less mainstream than it appears.
It seems inevitable that I come away from these functions concluding that my cow-orkers are probably pretty cool people, and that we might actually be real friends, if either of us were brave enough to be real.
Ahh the awkwardness of work place romance. Wait that's not what you are talking about. Ooops.
I have a personal theory on this. Those in engineering (and my personal favorite Comp Sci) and truly want to be in those fields enjoy creativity. Are creative. I don't want to say that all in a field are creative or enjoy the same things, blah blah blah. But I joined this orkut thing and started checking the various communities that I have joined and were interested in only to find the same people over and over again. It isn't like there are only a couple of people in there either. (If anyone wants to join I can invite you).
Hmmm. A point. Engineers are cool people too. Ish is subconsciously tapped into the world's emotions. Blogs are a form of mental diarrhea.
Just kidding. Just kidding. I love your blog. It is great.
Ok, Ish, don't want to burst your bubble (or maybe I do), but here's my experience with engineers at work. The guy that sits next to me listens to Rush Limbaugh in the afternoon and was totally for the Iraq war. The guy across the hall is quite intelligent, so I was disappointed when he rationalized the Iraq war with the propoganda Bush put out about it. And the guy that sits next to him, well, he lets his homophobia show every once in a while (in a not so nice way).
However, we're all able to have our divergent viewpoints and even discuss them at work without getting on each other's nerves too much.
Lenny, I certainly wouldn't put myself as the only creative engineer, as many I personally know fit that category of creative people who happen to do engineering. But I am fairly certain this is not the norm. Of course, I think lots of people feel they have something they could do that eclipses their "day job". But I'd guess for most engineers this would ultimately be more engineering.
That's fair, Kurt, and I'm not sure I actually meant to imply that all engineers are radicals, anarchists, or libertarians, although I didn't make it very clear. I guess the point is that which those viewpoints you mention above are common, that they are not as common as everyone expects, and most people (myself included) tend to keep them to themself. But, since my thesis requires me not to know for sure, I could be totally full of it on this.
Now that you say more ish it has made me think a bit. I have been fortunate. Everyone of the engineers in my department is passionate about things other than engineering. As well as engineering. I do know of other parts of the company where there are scary people. Cave lurking conservatives and high preaching liberals. They tend to reside closer to manufacturing where as I tend to stick near research.
Ok, this is way off topic, but I thought you guys might find this funny.
Jackson has signs posted at the city limits saying "Jackson--Birthplace of the Republican Party". As I was driving by one of these today, I saw that someone had spraypainted "Fascist" over "Republican" on one of the signs. Too cool.
Hey, you know what you should do? Put a tagboard on your blog! Why? I don't know! They're neat!!! And Free!!!! I would leave dumb messages on it all the time :-)
http://www.tag-board.com/