boxingloves / BWE

In which our Hero is just working to remind himself of the right way to keep score because sometimes you get the elevator and sometimes you get the shaft

I think it’s called Ginsberg’s restatement of the 3 laws of thermodynamics: You can’t win. You can’t break even. And you can’t quit.

Sometimes I have to remind myself that I work in an invisible job. If I succeed, I might occasionally get invited to a stilted lunch with a crowd of “teammates” who I never saw while the project was running. If I fail, I get fired, I suppose. In between are a whole spectrum of endings that stop short of the finish.

Endings are always a little sad, as you let go of something that has had the focus of your attention, your skill, and your good will for weeks, months or years. As a consultant, I frequently don’t even get to see the outcome, because I turn over my system for launch and I go to a new team or client and begin the process anew.

The consolations are pride, in knowing that what I have done is running well and the people I have trained don’t need me anymore. Or in knowing that I built something that served an honourable purpose before it was retired and forgotten. Or just in knowing that I worked well and hard and achieved the goal in good faith and honour.

Of course, the thing about the job well done is that it’s a lot like Tinkerbell: You have to believe. It’s on you to see the reward, to recognize your own achievement, to have faith in your accomplishment when all the evidence is being packed into virtual boxes to be forgotten.

My client has suspended the project that I’ve been struggling with for the last 18 months. In fairness, for that whole time, I’ve both described the client as struggling with the project and suggested that I would shut the project down if it was my call. And now that they’re doing what I wished they’d done the year before, I’m deeply conflicted. We, my fellow team leads and I, have been working like crazy for the entire time, jumping through the obstacle course that didn’t need to be as we accommodated change after change to the plan. For the last six months, I’ve had my design objective change catastrophically every two weeks to the point that even the leadership has admitted that they don’t know how I can meet the deadlines with all the changes that need to be accommodated.

But for the last 6 months, however wasteful the overall program was, I was doing the thing that needed to be done at the time. I was designing, and selecting, and recommending, and documenting and proposing and in the last few months, I’ve done something that I honestly feel is some of my best work. I feel like I achieved a creative and comprehensive solution that solved the actual problem while respecting the boundaries of what was being asked for and what I was specifically constrained not to provide. The bonus was that when they gave me “the bad news” that I’d have to redesign my solution to use this other system, they didn’t even remember that *I* had built that other system in the first place, and engineered it to solve the specific problem they were throwing at me now. “Only please, Brer Fox, please don’t throw me into the briar patch.”

I’ve done this thing, a thing I’m proud of, a thing that rings with the righteous joy of the sweet spot, like a blacksmith’s hammer or a tennis star’s serve. Now my work is to bury it. To anoint it and set it adrift in time. Nobody will know just how much I achieved but me. Nobody, of course, has any reason to care.

The program changes are larger scaled than just this piece. The changes actually take the work out of the hands of the local team that I’m part of and very likely mean bringing in outside consultants. The changes also claim the budget that might have funded work that would occupy my suddenly freed time. Leaving me with the minor janitorial responsibility for the systems already in place, a quibbling obligation that was always window dressing for my working at the bleeding edge of new work. My prospects for continued employment at this contract have just dropped from 150% (assured employment for more than the next contract) to a 50% chance that I’ll be at loose ends by December. I should be worrying about that. I should be building my new resume, and talking to my network. Instead I’m kicking the dirt and mourning my art while the studio burns.

I did what I do, and even as I grieve for the waste and futility, I learn the value of the obligation I undertook at the start of my career, and how it serves me as much in success as in failure. The obligation isn’t about success or failure. Neither is my job, which is what I’d lost sight of in my frustration.

I am an engineer, bound upon my Honour and Cold Iron. It still matters. I am grateful.