What I have learned at my job, by me.

Turns out, the things I really like about what I do are the bits that most resemble research. Delving into things, digging around in the guts of a system, working out the optimal arrangment of bits and widgets. The conceptual bits.

Not so much all the programmer bits, or the mindless number-munging. Something about those is... factory-like. I also suck at assembly-line or data entry work. This was what drove me nearly mad at job[-2] -- I was pretty much 'the guy' slotted into a data-entry role. I didn't handle it well, and I probably still have some growing up to do with respect to such unpleasant taks, however...

Well, I just don't care that much. We're all gonna die, perhaps not before too long. Slogging away at the truly excruciating just to make some point to unspecified observers is not the way to go out gracefully, it seems to me... So I let the detail-oriented, focused, steady types do their thing, thank them heartily, and do whatever it takes to keep them uninterrupted and happy doing their thing. Our finance people at ACME are much like this, and I love them almost as much as the infinite God the universe does, because as long as they squint at those invoices and contribs and receipts, I don't have to!! Since my job description makes them shudder, too, we all consider ourselves blessed.

I used to think I liked learning things, but now I know, it's not learning in general. I don't care for baseball stats, though I love going to a game, especially an afternoon game in Pittsburgh, he sighed. (The temp here is -8F now.) Hand skills I don't care much about, either -- my perfectionist prima-donna streak manifests itself when I realize I'll never be a Rembrandt, and so why bother at all, ne? (See also, Sturgeon's Law.) Apparently I only like whatever I can do in my head, like building faery castles in the clouds.

Academia's spoiled me, I tell yinz...