Burn it Off

my self-inflicted panopticon failed.

3.14.2005

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so yes, i quit my job. it's funny...when i tell that to most ultimate people they say simply, "good for you," without even knowing why, haha. i love ultimate people. but then they ask why and i tell them, and then again, they say "good for you," with an even bigger smile.

so, why did i quit? direction. i studied electrical engineering at columbia as you may or may not know. i decided to come back to hawaii in the middle of applying to jobs in and around san diego (this was during senior year) for family reasons and because of that, i was pretty late in the game....as i was already late in applying in california. so yeah...REALLY late. because of that, i took the first job that fell into my lap...which happened to be in civil engineering and happened to be more of an internship given to me as a favor for being hawaiian and wanting to come back and bring all the knowledge i learned in college back to the homeland (hah). it was a job, it paid well, and it offered a future.

from the beginning, though, i told them that i'm not one of those kids who went to college and studied something just to study SOMETHING. i went in loving electrical engineering and came out loving it more. they kept saying that they'd try and work that in...and i soon realized that they had the mindsets of businessmen about the closest they'd ever get me to electrical engineering would be setting up video networks using their fiber optic line through the state. they didn't seem to understand how i thought that would be boring as all hell and told me i have to be more imaginative...but that's really all that would be. a business with a beast of a fiber optic network running through the state. building on that only entails buying little black boxes from other people and plugging them in. blah.

aaaaaaaaand then just recently, the company itself gets in trouble and the flow of money from a federal grant/loan (i don't really get it) got shut off. layoffs, layoffs all around me, and no work for little old me so they send me to this other company as a full-blown intern doing roadway sign inventory for the department of transportation in KONA on highway 11 running from kona to hilo (southern route) which takes about 2 hours to DRIVE. my term there was supposed to be three months...during which time i probably would've walked half of that route (i had a partner). i would've done the work with no problem had i any faith in the program...but since my faith in the program was dwindling, the work in kona every week (they'd fly me back every weekend) was killing me. so i quit. seemed like a good time to do it because if there was even a QUESTION of it...3 months of my life is VERY valuable to me at this point in my life. so i threw away a mindless job, gaurenteed for 2 years (unless the reapplication for the fed loan/grant failed, which they were confident wouldn't), with PROBABLY the opportunity to set myself up for the rest of my life, financially. why? because i would've killed myself long before i got to enjoy my money. probably out of sheer boredom...possibly just wondering what i COULD have done with my life had i taken it in my own hands instead of letting circumstance steer me.

so i'm proud of what i did, happy with my decision, and scared absolutely shitless. i have bills, i have a car, and i have expensive habits. and no job. i have some money saved...but more importantly i have the motivation to get a better job right now. plan B is to get any old job for the next few months and apply to grad school. funny thing that happens in hawaii is that all the jobs go to UH grads...if i can find a program i like that relates to hawaii...i could totally build a network off it and come out with a better base here. we'll see how they like me as i am now, though :)

so, that's me. how're you?

and i'll most likely be writing more these days...sorry for the hiatus but it's kinda hard when i'm on another fuckin' island living out of a hotel room most of the time....now i have all the time in the world.


*munch*

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