Tuesday, January 27, 2015

My Day as a CAD Dork

The past few days have changed for this CAD Dork (CAD Geek or CAD Nerd are also acceptable terms). This past Friday I lost my job. It happens. It’s very annoying but it does. I’ll be fine so don’t worry.

The past two business days have been a bit different but also much of the same. I wake up at 5:15 a.m. (not my choice) to make sure my oldest child gets out of the house and doesn’t miss the bus. If this happens somebody has to provide a ride. I take this time to get myself ready for the day; shower, shave, put on some clothes and gather my things for the day. At 6 I wake my other child to get ready for school. If I have time I take a quick nap because 5:15 a.m. is a crazy time to get up. By 6:50 I’m dressed, walking the dog, getting breakfast, packing my lunch and am (or was) out the door by 7:30.
At work as a Senior Engineering CAD Tech for a civil engineering firm I was responsible for site design, potable water layout, waste water design, drainage design, site layout, as-builts, and any other drafting work. I was also the IT Manager there so if any tech broke I had to make sure it was fixed right away. Lucky for me we had an IT Consultant firm to do the heavy lifting. Once that happened if I couldn’t fix it in a few minutes I was able to delegate the problem. It made me much more billable.
Monday mornings and Fridays were often the most hectic. Monday was a day to do all of the things you put off last week. Friday meant there was a deadline to meet that the project manager promised to the client before consulting anyone else; at least it felt like that the majority of the time.



Now that I am “unemployed” I am still very busy. A few years ago I made it a goal of mine to not be so dependent on my employer for my income. That was a good call as my side projects have bailed me out many times. I call it Income Diversification. Is that a real thing because it sounds like it should be if it isn’t.

On the side I write for Sybex Publishing so I have that project to work on right now. Having 40+ more hours in the week now means I will be able to get ahead of schedule. I also create training videos for Infinite Skills and am in the beginning stages of a new project for them. I’m be able to get this done early too.

The past two days I have spent a lot of time working on my new resume. I don’t find this to be any fun. At first I produced a three page resume. I should it to Mrs. CAD-a-Blog and she said I need to make a few changes. I took her excellent advice and was able to shorten it considerably. Oh yeah the printer jammed ad wasn’t working properly. I was able to play IT Support again at home. I actually love doing this though so it was a good time.

I ran some errands today with my wife which was fun. I don’t get to do that while I’m at work.
I did manage to set up a job interview already so I have to prepare for that over the next few days.
For the rest of the day I worked on this article which is very different from what I typically write. I have found it to be a bit refreshing and a lot of fun. Several other CAD Bloggers are participating so do a search for #CADDork around your favorite social media sites. I am also going to work on some blog articles, notes for future articles, and research for future articles.

I love being a CADDork and a CAD Blogger. The greatest reward I receive for doing this (besides getting paid occasionally) is when people from around the world come to me with questions. I do what I can to help them out or to at least be able to point them in a general direction.

#CADdork
#AutoCAD

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