The Golden Spike

Yeah, you're going to see railroad terms around here for a while. The 'Golden Spike' was, well, read about that here. In the same vein, I'm joining some things with this post that were missing from my last one. Enjoy!

Q: There seems to be some missing paragraphs from your last post.

A: That isn't a question, but you're not wrong. Just about anyone who knows me will tell you that I have a predisposition to being moody and a bit introverted, so sharing the grinding bottom of the deepest depression I've ever known was more than I could do. I sort of hoped that jumping past the dribble and drama would say more about that section of seven hundred days than keeping it in could have in three hundred additional words. It was an 'administrative edit' and I'm standing by it. 

Q: So what were you doing?

A: Well. I went back to school for a while. And, as it turns out, I was so in love with being a student that many other areas of my life suffered. I went on to open a business, brilliantly during a recession, that really didn't go anywhere, so I worked at that great big 'click and get it shipped to you' company for a minute or two and then worked in traffic control. But most of these jobs simply reinforced my view on how technology is a bigger drain on humanity than its worth in most cases. But that didn't keep me from looking for a job in the tech sector. To be fair, I did have a few bites, but most didn't want to pay a wage that amounted to more than a hand full of dry cat turds a week; my specialties, it would seem, have simply been outsourced, off-shored or automated away. 

Q: What's the big deal? Doesn't everyone get sad sometimes?

A: That's two questions, but I see where your misunderstanding lies. I've observed that being depressed has very little to do with being sad at a root level. 'Sadness' is about being sullen, regretful and dramatic. Depression, on the other hand is more like looking down one's future and not seeing a way to avoid a very distasteful fate, even if you hide in the dark alone and avoid any sort of choice in the matter or continue on 'as-is' you feel like destiny will happen to you. And you may feel like that, given the summation on of your life's choices, you may deserve it to become reality. If you've been there, that makes sense, if not, you're blessed. 

Q: Trains?

A: Yes. The UP was a big deal in my younger years, although I was a tad too young to understand exactly why. And while much of what I do now only vaguely touches on several areas of my past, I feel quite at home doing it.

Q: So you don't 'nerd' anymore?

A: Dear Lord! What would ever give you that idea? I've refocused my priorities and adjusted the scope and scale of may things accordingly. Yeesh! Consider for starters, that as far as its apparent affects on the human body are concerned, social media and potato chips probably hold a similar rating. With that, wiggle in the postulation that lack of physical activity is tantamount to leaving an open door to mental illness - refactor, go touch some grass, do what works and shit can the rest. But yes. I still 'nerd'.

Q: What does that mean, exactly?

A: I've branched a bit and have been writing some science fiction. Maybe I'll test run some here some time...?

And that's a good night!

~ Z

Lo! I am Become Heavy Metal

"Yeah, she's a fat tub of shit," the man said, adjusting an old overhead fan attached to the bulkhead, pointing it directly at his face. Clearly, I would need to whittle my thousand questions down to less than five.

"General Electric?" I asked, ignoring the crudeness of his comment.

"Yeah," he replied without taking his eyes off the fan, his tone flat, as if the topic was mundane.

"Is it set up with the two-stage turbo on the intake?" My voice probably sounded eager, like a ten-year-old asking about their favorite toy at the factory. I tried not to betray the less than basic level of  knowledge I hold on diesel engines, but by some weird quirk I knew why they did this. 

"Well, I'm not exactly sure," he admitted, wiping sweat from his bulging neck with a red handkerchief, his voice carrying a note of uncertainty.

"And are the drives DC?" I continued, pressing on, feeling a growing curiosity.

"Yes," he confirmed.

"So, it's a variable frequency system and not an inverter. I would've thought a volts-per-hertz AC system would have had an efficiency edge."

"No, no, it's all DC. Most… well, all of the new power being laid out these days are," he said, his tone less annoyed than I had expected, almost as if he was relieved to talk about something familiar.

I nodded, realizing that this was about more than just efficiency. "The game is, among other practical factors, about needing to hold constant torque at times," I mused aloud accidentally.

"You an engineer?" he asked, finally turning his attention away from the fan.

There it was again: "engineer." A term thrown around so easily these days, yet one of the most misunderstood and overused titles in modern English.

I giggled for a second, shook my head and let my self out of the cab and down the ‘armor yellow’ rail of the locomotive to ladder #2 and back to reality.

I have worked very hard to over the past few years to ground myself in a reality that builds on my strengths and omits the mistakes I’ve held over myself for, well, longer than I care to disclose. But an undeniable part of that reality is that I have been and engineer in one capacity or another more than a hand full of times. And in those positions, when I wasn’t getting pissed off and walking away from them, I learned that while I liked writing software, designing motion control systems, hydraulic controls or automated gizmos of whatever kind, I loathed the industry as a whole. And I mean that in a quite literal sense; there are to this day, companies, products and services that left such a bad taste in my mouth that I flat refuse to patronize them in any manner. Not that I have an axe to grind, (well, once upon a time I did, but that’s another story) I just saw most of what that sector had to offer as helping humans, as a whole become ‘more supider’ for profit.

And of the formally trained engineers I’d been made to ‘play nice’ with, I would let exactly two of them mow my lawn and neither actually perform any service the mower itself. In no circumstance did I wish to count myself among them. Ever. 

But there was an axe to grind; one with myself for not loving the work enough or caring for the profit that it brought. For keeping that spark of idealism alive in the face of the realities that gravitate to us all as we grow and for not embracing a path to an easier life because it would have been boring and filled with annoying ass kissers, lot lizards and related sycophants.  And as time passed, I actually started to see intelligence as a sort of burden and for what I see now as some very shallow reasons. But opportunity has a way of fluttering a way when we don't feed it and seldom does it return to roost.

I applied for no less than three hundred jobs this year and when none bit, my darkness deepened. Nearly divorced and out of touch with every corner of reality, I would have done anything to get my foot out of the trap I’d crafted for myself. But sometimes one has to push on the sides of the box to make the people inside it remember that the world has greater bounds. Whether I was inside or out of that set up is certainly open to interpretation, but it seemed that the stubborn tenacity that I come by quite honestly would not be of any use in this round; I could wad it all up with my certs and resume and burn them while the world marched on in total indifference to my plight. 

Just after my wife’s birthday in May, I received a call from a long shot of a laborer position that I'd responded to and before long, I committed my summer to (literally) jumping hoops for a position with the railroad. Apparently, an essay that I'd written that leaned heavily on the fact that my great grandfather was a brakeman and conductor with Union Pacific after the depression and how I'd be honored to bring that heritage back full circle, turned some heads. Now I can say that after my personal depression, I am a brakeman and conductor for UP, that my baby grandson with have the UP shield on his little overalls and my wife and kids will be well taken care of no matter what the days to come have for us. 

And yes, one day soon I will be an engineer and finally the thought makes me giddy; I suppose I should have been wider in scope with that loose, over used moniker.