fuck this job.com

I think if I am ever to be happy with any sort of work - it's got to be out on the front line. Allow me to explain.

I am a safety engineer/manager for a very large construction company. I work with lots of tradesmen and workers who are all backed by the union. It's heavy construction...I'm talking tunnels, bridges, highways, big contracts for developing and maintaining infrastructure. The money and benefits are good. The experience has been so unique, I am seriously awed by what I've seen.

Now to anyone who reads this, you may ask me if I am stupid for not being happy with this opportunity. You may even call me an imbecile or an asshole for getting such a sought after position and not wanting really to be there. There are days when I'm down in the tunnels and the trenches with the guys who put their lives on the line. And let me tell you, spending my days with them leaves me so much more fulfilled than being up there in the office.

Several of these guys moonlight as builders...many of them are firefighters and cops. I was an EMT before I graduated college. I worked as a Biomedical Engineer with a very large and well-known corporation (JNJ for those of you into stocks). I was laid off and went back to grad school. One year after full-time graduate studies I landed this gig.

Now, I get shit on by the bureaucratic assholes who contracted us to complete this project. I get hassled even from within. I'm also overwhelmed...this is a large project and so much shit can go wrong...it worries me. So I figured, you know what, this might be a bad fit. So I started looking around.

Today I went into work and one of the guys said he rescued 2 people from a burning car on his shift yesterday (he's a cop). I used to know that feeling...I used to know how good that felt. Even though the pay was shit, I felt a sense of camararedie I haven't felt in the "professional" world. Down there in the trenches with the guys on the front lines, I felt alive because essentially it was a real "us against them; you go we go" stick together mentality. I don't have that anymore. I am merely collecting a paycheck.

I am now officially overeducated, broke, and lost in the woods. I'm looking from the outside in. I think I belong out there on the streets either wearing the SCBA and turnout gear or wearing the badge, body armor, and the gun, or the badge, body armor, and stethoscope.

What the fuck have I been doing? Chasing dollar signs and ending up nowhere. I think I need to finish my degree and stop chasing dollar signs. Instead, I should chase what I envision to be...a calling, a purpose.

Fuck the money. I can make a difference out there. I'd hate to think that altruism is dead in this day and age...I really do. Spare me the "altruism doesn't pay bills" bullshit. If I had a dollar for everytime I've heard that, I wouldn't have to work anywhere again.

Fuck the detractors. If you know what you want to do, just go for it. Nobody else matters because at the end of the day, you're accountable to you.

Bleh.