Thursday, May 15, 2008

Is it worth it? (15 of 104)


I'm home for an entire 5 week block of time now! Wahoo.

I don't know if this "Saving the Planet" line of work is healthful for me. Okay, I am not personally saving the planet but hopefully I'm building and maintaining the instrumentation used to collect that one extra data point to add to a collective knowledge about our planet and how all that crap in the sky ends up fucking up the weather.

So the work is good for my soul. I really can't imagine any other line of work that only ended in a profit margin or screwing someone over. And I won't pretend that the travel is a complete negative. I've been all kinds of cool places and even got to take Kris and Jasper to Hawaii this year. Pretty cool.

But there are times when I just want to be teleported into a 9 to 5 job that's a bit more on the boring and less on the challenging. The picture up above shows a typical moment from this year where I am tearing the instrument apart. In this case I'm sitting at a kitchen table in a condominium. Do you think I would choose to do this with two scientists anxiously looking over my shoulder trying not ask (again) if it was ready to go? I'll answer that for you. No. No I wouldn't choose that kind of stress. The main problem is that I am the only technical person in the group and there are three (and growing) scientists. The job would be alot easier if there were more technical help. That would also mean a Hell of alot less time in the field, too.

But I guess it's like many other things. You love your car until it breaks down. You love your wife until you get in a silly argument. You love your kid until they have a tantrum in the middle of the library. Actually you love them right through those pains but in the back of your head is the thought of how much easier it would be if...

That IF is a dangerous one. You can't judge the entire relationship with your car, wife, kid, or job on that one moment of IF. Chances are the entire love is more than worth that one silly moment when your brain goes into IF mode.

So that's figured out. Now, how do you balance all that love? If you figure that one out let me know!

No comments: