I did something I have never done before earlier this week. I have always been the kind of engineer who management could turn to in order to pull their asses out of the fire. I could take on all kinds of challenges, even tried some impossible ones. All I ever really got was an "atta-boy" for those jobs. Well, I've been doing that for too long. Over the past couple weeks I was offered a task where I'd be working WAY over my pay level, directing multiple offices, tying to get data from a source that won't give it, etc. and was told that if I took this "high profile" assignment it would "make or break" my career. It was typical of so many of these assignments - I'd have all the responsibility but none of the authority. So, for the first time in my career I shrugged. I said, "No thanks." It felt great. I figure I'll get some fallout for this, but in the long run it will be worth it. I care so much about the work I do that if I'm tasked with building a tower of tinker toys to the moon I'll get a heart attack trying to do it. That's the engineer in me. Management picks up on that. They also, always, have demonstrated that I'm the guy who can figure stuff out. I just want to get paid more to do it, now. So...this week marks a turning point for me.

In my other line of work I'm my own boss, thankfully.