Underestimate

Most of my life I have not been very ambitious. I was happy or content with the job I held. I loved being a Mockup Mechanic. In my whole life that was probably my favorite job. During my time as a Mockup Mechanic, I took after-hours courses through the company I worked for. This particular time I took what was called CATIA (Computer Aided Three-dimensional Interactive Application). After that 40-hour class was over I realized that Mockup was going to go away and be replaced by computers. I loved Mockup. I went back to my job and looked around and thought there are too many people with more seniority than me, even if they keep a skeleton Mockup crew, it probably won't include me. I did desire to be a lead in Mockup but I realized the time was short and I needed to prepare for something else. I gave up my dream of staying in Mockup and becoming a lead.  I took more CATIA classes. There were probably thousands of hours of classes over the years. Catia was fun. In the process I took a job as a Mockup Planner and continued taking Catia classes. I underestimated myself probably because of the way I was raised. I asked a planner one day when I heard they were looking for planners if he thought I could do the job as planner. He said sure you can. I applied and got a planning job for two years. It was a small office with just 5 planners, one clerk, and a supervisor. I continued with CATIA classes. One day after about two years as a planner an engineering supervisor talked to me and said they need CATIA people now and asked if I'd be interested. I was and I took two hours of vacation time and walked over to this supervisor's area and talked to his lead.  I was hired as a Tech Designer operating CATIA. A Tech Designer is an engineer without a degree.  Over the years I signed a lot of drawings as an Engineer in the Title Block of drawings. I had not even thought about being an engineer.   Four years before I retired I was asked if I'd take an acting lead position when our lead was fired. He wasn't fired from the company just taken out of the position of Lead Engineer. I was the senior Design Engineer employee in our office. I was just a Tech Designer and there would be degree engineers working with me.  We had planners in our office, we had Shop Investigators and Design Engineers. The Planners had a lead, the Shop Investigators had a lead and the Design Engineers had a lead. I said OK and started to work as the Lead for the Design Engineers in that ECAT (Electrical Corrective Action Team) office.  Two months later the supervisor asked me if I would just take the job, they were happy with me and I didn't need to go through a selection process, the job was mine if I wanted it. I was finally a Lead. I had really underestimated what I was capable of doing. I give the glory to God. On my last day as a Planner during my two-year stint as planner, our supervisor held a crew meeting to wish me well as I embarked on a new career.  He said something about the good job I had done and made a remark that of all the planning jobs of the 5 planners in that office, 75% of the jobs in the planning panels in the mockup shop had my name on them.  I didn't believe it and after the meeting, I went to each panel and counted the number of jobs and counted how many had my name on them. He did not tell a lie. In the process of finishing my work I would help each of the other planners as they had need. Even though they had done the planning by helping them my name ended up on their work orders. During the last part of my two years as a planner, I ended up on second shift by myself, 5 planners and I was the junior planner. 20% of the plant were directed by a Vice President of the company who had to be on the second shift. I was 20%.  I still did the same thing, if the other planners would ask me to I would continue to help them as I had time. We also had a clerk and some days at the end of her shift she would get stacks and stacks of drawing that needed to be stamped with a "mockup use only" stamp. When I finished my work I worked on her stack of drawings.  Sometimes I was able to finish them all.  She had told her husband about this planner on second shift that would help her with stamping the drawings. It wasn't a planning function but I wasn't busy so I helped. He was the Engineering Supervisor that hired me to the Engineering Department. I realize I probably was a lot more capable than I realized at the time, and God blessed my work ethic. I have written a blog about being a one talent person, and I still think that way but in reading a book by Charles Stanley, he said never discount what God asks you to do. In reality, I worked for God on the job a lot more than I ever realized at the time. I thought that in working for God you had to be a minister or a teacher or something. I never realized how much I was actually working for God all those years on a purely secular job. I realize it today and thank God for blessing me the way he did. I affected people on the job sometimes good and sometimes bad. There were times I was hated for the stand I took, and never realized how much I was actually working for God. I still consider myself a one talent person, but believe God expects us all, one, two, or five talent people to do our best.  I think one talent people want to hide their work in the dirt because it is not good enough. Don't discount what God gives you to do.   God bless, LVZ.