The Trouble With Realism

The trouble with realism is that it turns into a quasi-intelligent mask for pessimism. And I believe this is what keeps us engineers working for heartless, soul-draining corporations that do not have our interests in mind but spew out lies we want to hear to keep us working in appalling conditions.

I am glad I never asked for anyone's opinion when I applied for and started studying Electrical Engineering. It was what I had aimed at doing, and had I spoken to any of the deadbeats around me, they would have given me some "dose of reality". For "well-wishers" that can't say one positive thing, realism always means "waking up to a reality of how things will not work out". Except we don't need to wake up to that anymore because we're drowning in it.

When I moved to a new country on my own to start engineering school, my grandmother who hadn't spoken to me in a decade, because I was the last thing on her mind, called me to say that had she been my parent, she would never have allowed any of it. Thanks Grandma. This is also the grandmother who outright told my father I wouldn't finish grade 12. Thinking back, she didn't provide a reason. Maybe it was so obvious to her that it didn't need mentioning. Thank God that nugget of poop reasoning never entered my head. Realism? For her maybe. She grew up in some village with no clean water, no electricity, no education. Maybe closing doors as quickly as possible was her way to survive. But had I taken her input into consideration, it would have been a grave error on my part.

I'm always amused when arts school students get the barrage of realism stuffed down their throats. The day after you get into arts school, millions of people will tell you how you'll be jobless for the rest of your life. Except jobs aren't the only way to survive, is it? There are 50 bajillion ways to make a living. 

Think about it. If you are an engineer or are studying in engineering school, there are tremendous odds you had to overcome to get where you did. And you're there. So why do we believe the idea that we will not succeed in our own private practice? Or that we might do well in a different profession more suited for our needs and wants?

If your heart cringes every time you see another shitty project coming down the pipe, if your eyes roll to the back of your head when management spews out more corporate clap trap in the quarterly meetings and you can't wait to run out of the room, there's some truth stirring inside of you. The corporate lies are concocted in a private room by people who don't believe it as much as you don't believe it. Which makes the lies even harder to reject. I remember listening to the CEO of our company tell us how fantastic Q3 had been, while I knew the group manager for one of the key departments had to let one or two employees go because they were losing money on active projects and they had lost good projects to competitors that very quarter. Lies. Corporate lies.

Alberta has been in a downturn for over a year now. Before leaving my old company, I went to speak to my office general manager about the state of affairs. At that time it was still the 'B' grade employees being let go. I asked about the future of the company and my GM told me that everything was going to be fine but some departments would see the pinch, but I was safe and my job was secure. It was a simple sentence but it was sinister because meant that many more layoffs were coming. In that quarterly meeting, it was announced that some more of the old-timers in the company were being made VPs - which was a promotion to do no work all day and get fat bonuses at regular intervals. The business model was interesting: the people who had put in the blood and sweat in the past and made it to the top would get rewarded indefinitely. Yet the rewards were coming from the toils of the older people who had been unrewarded and the young people who were sweating and bleeding for the company. An image of the slaves of Egypt popped into my head.

I don't think I was over reacting. I had been with the company for 9 long years. I was "A COMPANY MAN". I used to work late and work weekends to finish projects and not charge to the job so that it wouldn't go over budget. At first I got a pat on the back. Then nothing. And then - like Neo - I looked around me at the ocean of engineers doing the same thing as me, counting on a promise that was not going to be kept.

I thought of writing this post because of the optimism I see in naive people that are far more successful than I am. My realism has kept me from opening my own business and pursuing my own interests. But these other people... these seemingly stupid people.... have gone out and opened their businesses and they are doing fine. They are paying their rent. They are putting food on the table. And they don't have horrendous managers breathing down their neck, bullying them. They aren't suffering from anxiety or insomnia.

So who's the truly stupid one? I think it's the realists.

Sometimes we need to be unrealistic to succeed. If I hadn't been completely unrealistic and naive, I would never have come to a completely new country, immersed myself in a completely alien culture, and would never have experience all the joys of this wonderful place I am in right now. The result: I found a country I love to call home, I love the people of this country who are genuinely caring and wonderful people, I found the love of my life and I find the pristine beauty of this country forever inspiring and replenishing.

Thank you naivete.