As a family, we had finished our leftovers from the week and I was assembling the fresh piece which had just arrived. It was packed nicely. The Final assembly would be a Floor Lamp. I wanted to do a German act. Reading the instruction manual and then putting things in that pecking order. Voila I did it soon! Beyond my own expectations. I felt on top of the mountain. But the view from the mountain only crashed when my wife told me from a distance that the whole lamp is slanted. To confirm the truth my daughter also stepped with her comment, “ Something somewhere is wrong”. I was not ready. At least to accept it after all I have just displayed to myself that I am still good with my engineering skills. That too after 30 years. It was all in vain. My wife decided to take over the entire subject and started questioning every bit of my work. “ Is it attached properly “, “The base is wobbling”, Did you fit it correctly in all stages, so on and so forth. My daughter who was sitting in that bean bag started relaxing a bit and was eager to see my reaction. Adding insult to injury she gave her verdict , ” It is like the leaning tower of Pisa“.
I had earlier given a thumbs up to my daughter on my achievement, which had come to nought by now. It was time for me to realize that I had missed a thing or two, just like the O-Ring issue that happened with the Challenger disaster. My gallivanting plan had to be changed. My wife showed me that I had forgotten to read one important piece of information.
“ Open the Ring, Mount the shade and tight back the ring”
This was stuck around the bulb holder. I removed that sticker to make amends with myself and gain some credibility. As I was removing the sticker from the metal I noticed a sense of comfort. It was like I was letting go of my ego which was tied around to prove that I am still a good engineer. I was laughing inside how much I had fooled myself and my family over the years with my engineering skills. If there is one thing I have done well in the last 30 years it is that I have never attempted to speak on any engineering subjects or do any of those DIY (Do it yourself) jobs which are connected to electrical and mechanical. Electrical I had a tough time in engineering college with the Lab doing some experiments on Transformers. I still remember asking some stupid questions about step-in and step-out transformers. Wondering which wire will go where? On the mechanical side, it was the twin challenge of Carpentry and Smithy ( we had to beat iron rods to bring it to some hexagonal shape). I felt beaten every time I come out these labs. The best thing I understood at that time was to keep myself away from those beaten paths which meant discarding anything to do with engineering paths. This was also one of the reasons after the initial years in my career I switched from technical to sales to try a new path. Bruce Lee reminded us, ” Use only that which works and take it from any place you can find it. After all, you need to know “ What floats your boat” Isn’t it ?
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