My brother and I are both ex-engineers from S.V.
- in Cali, you know, the place where all of the big tech companies began in the late 80’s and early 90’s.
They were paying me the big bucks back then to build circuit boards for pagers, but after doing it for seven years I felt that I wanted to get out of the business for good. I like to solve problems and fix things, but that job ended up being a bunch of reports and meetings, so I left and never went back to it. Furnace repair and air conditioning installations are much more rewarding to me than reports and meetings, so I got into the HVAC field and have been dabbling around in it for the past 20 years or so. I thought when I was going to engineering school that the jobs would be more exciting, but after getting into it I discovered that the corporate world was full of stressed out type A personality people whom I did not want to be around. Fixing heating and cooling equipment is way more fun for me and today we are going to do just that when we go to mom’s house later on. Ever since leaving the corporate engineering world, I bet I have worked an average of 15 hours a week, which has given me a lot more freedom than I would have had if I stayed in the engineering racket. Working on a heater or A/C unit gives you an immediate reward once you find the solution, and that is all I need to feel good nowadays.