There Is No Such Thing As Too Many Job Skills

Except, of course, when the ones you don't want to be doing pay waaaaaay better than the ones you do.

I really like the people I am working for. They run a very good company. The work is interesting and challanging. They allow me to take off whenever I please. And they pay me better than I could make doing anything else I know how to do.

But I get up at 4:30 AM. I move around big heavy things. Things measured in hundreds or thousands of pounds. We frequently work on sites before the air conditioning is working. And I keep injuring myself (yesterday: hot slag* down my welding gauntlet, melted skin, second degree burns), not because I am a klutz, but because the work I do carries with it a certain degree of danger.

I must admit that the danger factor is one of the things I love about the job. I also love the eliteness of it. Last summer I installed gear that only a handfull of people in this country have the requisite experience and skillset to do. And I am one of those people.

But it doesn't feed my soul. And lately I have been less than diligent about pursuing design work because I have been so busy at the job I would really rather not be doing but instead be designing. Something of a vicious circle.

Last week I turned down work because I was committed at my job. And that's just not right.


*slag: bits of molten material created while welding.