Friday, April 06, 2007

Employment Love/Hate

Some days, I love my job. Last week and the week before that, I spent an inordinate amount of time figuring out how an invention works and expanding on the disclosure. It got to the point where I derived a new formula (an equation) that will be included in the application. It was fun! I understood everything and had the opportunity to play around with it and further explore interactions.

Some days, I hate my job. I have two "urgent" cases, both requiring intensive reading and comprehension before I can make proposals. Each file will take at least 1-2 hours in background preparation before I can start considering what we need to do. Both also require additional background learning relating to the subject matter. Neither file is particularly fun.

The "love" days are much rarer than the "hate" days. If it weren't for the facts that (a) I can stand doing my job; (b) I'm actually pretty good at doing my job; and (c) it pays damn well, I would probably really dislike doing what I do. Even so, it's not always a picnic. And this is why I sometimes wonder if this is what I'm going to end up doing indefinitely, for my career (so to speak).