2 years now...

It's been a while, in fact more than one month has passed since my last entry. Been occupied with works and other things. Nothing specific thought, it's just a miasma of my thoughts with myriads of particles (some are indistinct) inside.

My project at work is now like a Titanic which goes near to an iceberg, but still has a manouvering chance to avoid that. Hmm, may be not that bad. That negative analogy might only come out from me. Either I am a pessimist or a prophet with presaging ability , you decide.

Nah, actually it's still OK. Although I still feel like a rubber band being pulled to its yield point, but I am still pulling through. But I know that I have to stay in the elastic deformation region, where I still can go back to my initial form after that pressure. Must avoid entering the plastic deformation region. Those who are not with engineering background (esp. mechanical or material) may not be very familiar with these terms.

Some of my friends told me that they are impressed by the fact that I have stayed in my company for two years, doing something which is not my forte nor interest at all. I have never liked product design. In fact in my undergrad studies, I always avoided those subjects related to product design.

Lucky me to be in Mechatronics specialization, all Product Design related subjects were only at Introductory level. It's not about the subject being difficult nor complicated, it was just.... I don't like it, however hard I tried, you know what I mean. And chances were there to avoid doing that thing, which exacerbate things -> I never tried to start liking it.

In doing projects, we were given the liberty to choose our own project mates. And as many students do, our group almost always flock together. Since we have few projects going on in parallel, the job distribution was as enjoyable as: you do what I like. Since I like programming a lot which nobody else did, hence I had a full authority for the whole project. I killed two birds at one shot: I enjoyed what I was doing and I avoided doing those product design related projects (which my other friends who were gladly avoiding programming did). That's how I went through my Mechanical Engineering undergraduate days. Happy =) Once I skipped one part of a question in exam which asked us to do some design simplification. I really left it blank, as nothing was depicted in my mind at that time. You know what it was about: yes, product design.

And here I am, 2 years doing product design. A high-end, very complicated mechanical engine, with heaps and tonnes of requirements to meet.

It will be my first product cycle. I think I still need to wait for another 6-8 months for the completion. Being fully responsible for one subsystem and half for another, it is frustrating for me to "guess" what to be done next. It's true that we should be able to ask a senior, but in our team, I am among the 2 people who have done printer design for more than 1 year.

So here goes. Not my forte, not my interest, stressful environment, it's very logical if people ask: "why do you stay by the way?"

Hmm, I don't know. My visceral gut has not told me what to do next. It's also a challenge to know how far I can go in this area. Hopefully an angel will whisper in my ears later =)

If you ask me, no.. I don't regret working in my current job. It gives me a lot of experiences, lessons to learn, knowledge to fathom, practical know-how to know. Dealing with various kind of people, which certainly gives some degree of insights of the real world. It has also honed my intuition and judgement to make a decision, be it a technical or management.

My curiousity to sharpen my actual ability and strength make me considering to find the right niche for me.

Only God knows.

Hopefully a good update can come to you, may be soon, may be later... but I believe it will.

PS: 9 June 2005 was my second anniversary dwelling in product design